Languages & Linguistics
Extended Metaphor
An extended metaphor is a literary device that draws out a comparison between two unlike things throughout a series of sentences or lines in a poem or prose. It allows for a deeper exploration of the comparison and can help to convey complex ideas or emotions. This technique is often used to create vivid imagery and enhance the reader's understanding of the subject.
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10 Key excerpts on "Extended Metaphor"
eBook - PDF- Lynne Cameron(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Continuum(Publisher)
Systems of metaphors in language provide evidence to support claims about conceptual metaphor (but see discussion in Chapter 11), and the idea of conceptual metaphor can explain how we make sense of novel metaphors in language as extensions of existing conceptual metaphors (Lakoff 1993). Language and thought needed to be separated in order to develop the cognitive theory and to highlight its departures from 'traditional' metaphor theory, but they are not perhaps as separable as some of the programmatic statements and claims suggest. A strong view of the role of conceptual metaphor in structuring thinking has developed that builds on the idea that 'metaphors may create realities for us, especially social realities' (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 156). Work in this area proceeds by identifying metaphorical expressions in language, using them to reconstitute conceptual 19 Metaphor in educational discourse metaphors and then analysing the conceptual mappings for limitations or built-in assumptions. For example, as well as Reddy's analysis of metaphors of communication, Sontag (1991) has deconstructed metaphors of illness; Novek (1992) examined metaphors of literacy; Cortazzi and Jin (1999) and Oxford (2001) collected metaphors of language teaching and learning; and Ellis (2001) and Block (1999) explore the metaphors of second language learning. Fairclough (1989, 1992) includes the analysis of metaphors in particular discourses as part of critical discourse analysis. This mode of research has also begun to ask whether metaphor does not perhaps offer a tool for changing behaviour and thinking, through conscious unveiling and readjustment of metaphors (Gibbs 1999a). Criticism has been justly levelled at methods of data collection which in the early days amounted to little more than armchair reflection by native speakers, gathering together all the examples that could be recalled.
- Jonathan Picken(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
Linguistic meta- phors will be discussed first. These are metaphors of the kind that we actually encounter in discourse when, for example, we call someone a 39 40 Literature, Metaphor, and the Foreign Language Learner 'vegetable' or a 'wallflower'. Conceptual metaphor theory draws atten- tion to the fact that these two linguistic metaphors (and many others) can be related to the conceptual metaphor People Are Plants, and this aspect of metaphor theory is discussed in the second sub-section. 3.2.1 Linguistic metaphor In his well-known discussion of foregrounding, Leech (1969) distin- guishes two broad categories of figurative language: schemes and tropes. Schemes include rhetorical figures related to repetition (rhyme, asson- ance, etc.) while tropes cover figures that involve deviations in form or meaning. Metaphor is included in the latter category. In many cases, linguistic metaphors have the property of being words or combination of words that seem incoherent in context as a result of unusual colloc- ation or unusual reference. Van Dijk (1975) uses the following example to illustrate this: 'The flowers in the park smiled at him' (p. 187). There is a degree of incoherence here because flowers are not normally treated as things that can smile. Under one reading, this is metaphorical due to unusual reference: The word flowers refers to young women, and these women are literally smiling. It could also be metaphorical for another reason: unusual collocation (predication). Under this reading, real flowers in the park are smiling metaphorically at the observer by appealing visually to his senses. Incoherence in context is not unique to metaphor. It is also found in a metonymy such as The White House announced X: Buildings cannot normally announce things. Traditionally, this is distinguished from a metaphor on the grounds that metaphor involves a similarity or compar- ison whereas metonymy does not.
eBook - PDF- Dirk Geeraerts(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Moreover, these general principles which take the form of conceptual mappings, apply not just to novel poetic expressions, but to much of ordinary everyday language. In short, the locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another. The general theory of meta-Originally published in 1993 in Metaphor and Thought , Andrew Ortony (ed.), 202–251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission. 186 George Lakoff phor is given by characterizing such cross-domain mappings. And in the process, everyday abstract concepts like time, states, change, causation, and purpose also turn out to be metaphorical. The result is that metaphor (that is, cross-domain mapping) is absolutely central to ordinary natural language semantics, and that the study of literary metaphor is an extension of the study of everyday metaphor. Everyday metaphor is character-ized by a huge system of thousands of cross-domain mappings, and this system is made use of in novel metaphor. Because of these empirical results, the word “metaphor” has come to be used differently in contemporary metaphor research. It has come to mean “a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system.” The term “metaphorical expression” refers to a linguistic expression (a word, phrase, or sentence) that is the surface realization of such a cross-domain mapping (this is what the word “metaphor” referred to in the old theory). I will adopt the contemporary usage throughout this chapter. Experimental results demonstrating the cognitive reality of the extensive sys-tem of metaphorical mappings are discussed by Gibbs (1993). Mark Turner’s 1987 book Death Is the Mother of Beauty , whose title comes from Stevens’ great line, demonstrates in detail how that line uses the ordinary system of everyday map-pings.
eBook - PDFDiscourse and the Continuity of Reference
Representing Mental Categorization
- Cornelia Zelinsky-Wibbelt(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
8.3 Metaphors as extensions across domains In contrast to metonymic extension to contiguous conceptual structures in one and the same domain, metaphorical extension occurs if speakers transfer the conceptual structure of a source sense to a different tar-get domain (cf. Croft, 1993, 355ff.; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999, 46ff.; Carbonell, 1980; Hobbs, 1983). This is typically an extension from concrete, sensorily perceivable source domains to abstract, semanti-cally more complex target domains, which are mentally represented at a considerably higher-order level. Metaphorical extensions occur par-ticularly in domains against which social and cognitive interactions are profiled. By performing a metaphorical extension speakers create a rep-resentation from which they can draw inferences they were incapable to draw without this representation. Intuitively given to human beings and related with many affective aspects, the CONCRETE source senses 224 Metonymy and metaphor as universale are most capable of rendering the target sense transparent by organiz-ing it in terms of its perceivable structure and thereby making it better accessible than a corresponding exhaustive paraphrase. Having been extended from CONCRETE PHYSICAL SPACE, metaphors are related in a conventionalized system. The coherent gestalt structures of source domains are mapped onto the target domains by image schemata from which new coherent gestalt structures emerge. Thus the principle of analogy interrelates metonymic and metaphor-ical processes and thereby enables the most uncertain and creative conclusion through abduction in that the speaker concludes from an observation and a rule to a case (cf. above, section 2.8; Hopper and Traugott, 1993, 40). By this abduction the speakers' creative behaviour is no longer compatible with the original linguistic system.
eBook - PDFAspects of Metaphor in Physics
Examples and Case Studies
- Hanna Pulaczewska(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
The extensions of meaning that occur by means of Black 1962: 44. In the initial formulation of his view, later moderated. 13 similarities and differences in metaphor are only more striking examples of something that is going on all the time in the changing and holistic network that constitutes language. In this sense meta-phorical meaning is normal, not pathological, and some of the mechanism of metaphor is essential to the meaning of any descriptive language at all ... The literal/metaphoric distinction is properly a pragmatic, not a semantic use. Literal use is most frequent use in the familiar contexts -that use that least disturbs the network of meaning ... but it does not imply that the semantic bases of the two sorts of expression are radically different. That is why in analysing metaphor we should not care so much about where to draw the line between the metaphorical and the literal, but, rather, see our objective in investigating the phenomena of metaphorical extension and change of meaning, and the like. 15 Bosch (1985) shares Hesse's view that it is not necessary to postulate additional mechanisms for the production and comprehension of metaphorical speech beyond those which are applied in the processing of ordinary, literal language. A certain amount of vagueness and ambiguity is necessary for the vocabulary of any language because language must generalise - it cannot contain special expressions for each particular state of affairs. In order to speak of a thing, we have to assign it to a linguistically and conceptually available category on the basis of more or less exact correspondence between the thing and the category. In Bosch's semantic theory, the meaning associated with a word has the form of a stereotype - a concept closely akin to the notion of synchytische Begriffsbildung, worked out half a century earlier by Karl Bühler, a forerunner of modern dynamic (context-driven) semantics (cf. Brekle 1983).
- Jorg Roche, Moiken Jessen(Authors)
- 2023(Publication Date)
- LIT Verlag(Publisher)
96 3.1 Linguistic Imagery and the Conceptual Metaphor Natalya Furashova, Moiken Jessen & Katsiaryna EL-Bouz Sometimes, people are not straightforward with what they mean to say, and – on the other hand – words are not always used to express their literal meaning. We could, for instance, say about a person that he is cun- ning or clever. But instead, we say He’s (sly as) a fox. We harbor certain mental images (such as a mental image of a fox) and use them to speak about different things. The transfer entails a special effect which origi- nates from linguistic imagery. Linguistic imagery is mainly achieved by metaphors and metonymies. These used to be viewed as primarily rhetoric tropes and, therefore, ap- peared to be of relevance primarily to rhetorics and to literature rather than to linguistic research. Furthermore, they were viewed as purely sty- listic phenomena. This chapter focuses on metaphors and broadens the traditional under- standing of metaphors using research results of cognitive linguistic stud- ies. According to these results, metaphors are an expression of our intel- lectual abilities and, therefore, constitute the cognitive foundation of lan- guage. They exhibit a regular, systemic character and embody a concep- tualizing mechanism, or in other words, a pattern of thought. Study Goals By the end of this chapter, you will be able to: − explain the most important types of figurative language − recognize different aspects of transmitting meaning − comprehend the difference between metaphor and metonymy from the perspective of traditional linguistics − gain a first impression of the metaphor as a cognitive, conceptu- alizing mechanism which structures language. 97 3.1.1 The Basics: Types of Imagery-Based Languages Using words in a non-literal sense was part of the art of oratory (rhetorics) in antiquity.
eBook - PDFLanguage in the Context of Use
Discourse and Cognitive Approaches to Language
- Andrea Tyler, Yiyoung Kim, Mari Takada, Andrea Tyler, Yiyoung Kim, Mari Takada(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Metaphorical expressions in contextualized talk have an important affective dimension; they are chosen by speakers, not just for their conceptual content, but also to express particular feelings, values or attitudes (Cameron in press; Cienki 1998). Pragmatically, idiomatic metaphorical expressions are often employed in talk as summarizing and topic-closing devices (Drew and Holt 1988, 1995). Metaphor theory needs to account for empirical findings such as the above, and work is on-going to develop theoretical explanations based in an ontology where metaphor is dynamic and dialogic, rather than fixed, is linguistic and affective, rather than just conceptual, and develops through the influence of social, cultural and historical factors (Cameron and Deignan 2005; Gibbs 1999). In connecting language use with thinking, cognitive metaphor theory opened up the possibility that metaphor can serve as a methodological tool for uncovering how people think about the world, by working back from systematic metaphor use in language to systematic metaphorical conceptualizations. Once again, when dealing with metaphor in situated discourse, the situation becomes less straightforward than it might appear. The research program of cognitive metaphor theory is concerned to identify universal cognitive mappings that work across the language as a whole. For example, the linguistic metaphor heavy burden in caring for an elderly relative places a heavy burden on a family is explained as arising from a primary conceptual metaphor, DIFFICULTIES ARE BURDENS 2 (Grady 1999: 96). Conceptual metaphors are described at the highest possible level of generality, and explanations of mappings invoke basic correlations between human experiences (Gibbs 2002; Grady 1999).
eBook - PDFFoundations for Syriac Lexicography IV
Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project
- Kristian S. Heal, Alison G. Salvesen(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Gorgias Press(Publisher)
13 8 Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics , 80. 9 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By , Afterword, 270. 10 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors , 4. 11 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors , 3. 12 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, Afterword , 239. 13 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors , 6. M ETAPHOR , L EXICOGRAPHY AND M ODERN L INGUISTICS 27 Lakoff and Turner reinforced this thesis in More than Cool Reason in which they emphasize that their theory is not restricted to so-called “metaphors,” for “it could be the case that every word or phrase in a language is defined at least in part metaphorically.” 14 As the authors are aware, the implications of this claim are far reaching; they ripple from the centre to the far edges of this essay’s concern. It should therefore be noted that the concept that “every word or phrase in a language” might be metaphoric has a fascinating antecedent. Twenty years earlier, Marshall McLuhan wrote: All media are active metaphors in their power to translate experience into new forms. The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp it in a new way. Words are a kind of information retrieval that can range over the total environment and experience at high speed. Words are complex systems of metaphors and symbols that translate experience into our uttered or outered senses (emphasis added). They are a technology of explicitness. By means of translation of immediate sense experience into vocal symbols the entire world can be evoked and retrieved at any instance. 15 In his 2007 publication, The Extended Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind, and Culture , Robert Logan argues that language can be treated as an organism that evolved to be easily acquired, obviating the need for the hard-wiring of Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device.
eBook - PDFThinking Arabic Translation
A Course in Translation Method: Arabic to English
- James Dickins, Sándor Hervey, Ian Higgins(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
14.1 Introduction In chapters 7 and 8 we looked at denotative and connotative meaning. In this chap-ter, we conclude our consideration of the semantic level of language by examin-ing the translation of metaphor. Metaphor is typically used to describe something (whether concrete or abstract) more concisely, with greater emotional force and more often more exactly, than is possible in literal language. Compare even a cliché like ‘UN slams China’ with the more literal ‘UN harshly criticizes China’. Of course, an original metaphor is likely to be more expressive than an unoriginal one. But it is also likely to be more imprecise, more open to interpretation – indeed, the expressive force of a metaphor often depends on this very imprecision. For instance, Shakespeare’s ‘[Love] is the star to every wand’ring bark’ expresses concisely and intensely the unmovableness and reliability of love in a shifting, uncertain and dangerous world. But why ‘ the star’ and not ‘ a star’? Why a ship (‘bark’) and not, say, a walker or a desert caravan? The image of navigating the seas by the pole star is full of resonances that makes Shakespeare’s metaphor less precise but much more expressive than ‘UN slams China’. Metaphor is only one of a number of what are traditionally known as fi gures of speech. Other fi gures of speech include synecdoche, metonymy (cf. Section 7.2.3), irony and simile. All are of interest in translation. However, metaphor is by far the most important, both because it is the most widespread, and because it poses the most challenging translation problems. According to Newmark, ‘Whilst the central prob-lem of translation is the overall choice of a translation method for a text, the most important particular problem is the translation of metaphor’ (Newmark 1988: 104).
eBook - PDF- R. Holme(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
28 2 Using Figurative Language In the last chapter, a key point was that studying metaphor was more than looking at an attractive but unusual use of language. For this study such figures of speech are interesting because of what they reveal about the thought processes that produce them. The processes revealed by fig- urative language allow us to conceptualise abstract meaning. Abstraction begins as a figure of speech but becomes an accepted convention of lan- guage. At first sight, therefore, it might seem perverse to begin our study of the pedagogical interest of this idea by returning to the rarer figures of speech that reveal how we engage in the ubiquitous process of abstrac- tion. I am going to postpone my look at the larger role of metaphor and think instead about how we can help students to attain a better and more confident control of figurative language and idiom. There are three reasons to do this. First an appropriate instructional sequence should start with the obvi- ous acts of metaphor production. The skills that are developed by recog- nising the obvious might then be turned to uncovering forms that are hidden by their familiarity. Second, linguistic creativity is a function of successful language use. Metaphor formation, whether of real or imagined originality, underpins such creativity. It therefore follows that students should be encouraged to adopt the linguist licence that live metaphor requires. They can treat the target language less as a prefabricated environment to which they must adapt their capacity for expression and more as a resource that will respond to their expressive needs. Third, live metaphor is about finding new or hitherto unexposed meanings. To encourage metaphor’s process of meaning-creation may be to encourage students to ask what even mundane words mean in a wider and deeper sense. For example, we can explore Wittgenstein’s (1953)
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