The Branches of Semantics "Metaphor"

METAPHOR

Metaphor is described as “a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically dissimilar. “1 in other words, it describes one thing in terms of another. It is comparative, and thus goes beyond a mere descriptive adjective (e.g The “Bright Moon” is not a metaphor). A metaphor describes one object as being or having the characteristics of a second object.

Examples :

1.    Her home was a prison

2.    Life is journey, purposes are destinations, means are routes, difficulties are obstacles, counselors are guides, achievements are landmarks and choices are crossroads.

There are two traditional positions on the role of metaphor in language, they are as follows :

1.        Classical view.

This is so called since it can be traced back to Aristotle’s writings on metaphor. It sees metaphor as a kind of decorative addition to ordinary plain language. It also views metaphor as a rhetorical device to be used at certain times to gain certain effects. In this view metaphor is often seen as a departure from literal language.

2.        Romantic view.

This is so called since it is associated with eighteenth and nineteenth century romantic views of the imagination. It takes a different view of metaphor. In this view metaphor is an integral to language and thought as a way of experiencing the world. All important characteristic of cognitive semantics is the central role in thought and language assigned to metaphor. Thus cognitive semantics can be seen as an extension of the romantic view. In emphasizing the important role of metaphor in ordinary language, Lakoff and his colleagues have identified a large number of common metaphors. For example they describe one group of metaphor as SPATIAL Metaphor. For instance the many metaphors associated with an UP-DOWN orientation.

They are as follows :

Ø Happy is up; sad is down

Ø I’m feeling up. My spirits rose. I’m feeling down. I’m depressed.

Ø Conscious is up; un conscious is down

Ø Wake up. He fell asleep. He dropped off to sleep. He sank into a coma.

Ø Virtue is up; depravity is down.

Ø He is high minded. She has high standards. Don’t be under handed.

 Features of metaphor :

1.  Conventionality

It raises the issue of the novelty of the metaphor. Some writers claimed that some metaphors have become dead metaphors. In the literal language theory this means that they have ceased to be metaphors and have passed into literal language.

Dead metaphor :

The original sentence meaning is bypassed and the sentence acquires a new literal meaning identical with the former metaphorical meaning. This is a shift from the metaphorical utterance to the literal utterance.

Example : My spirits rose.

2.  Systematicity

It refers to the way that a metaphor does not set up a single point of comparison. Here feature of the source and target domain are joined so that the metaphor may be extended. This systematicity has been an important focus in cognitive semantic views of metaphor. Lake off and Turner identify a systematicity in this mapping between the two concepts.

For instance :

Ø Life is a Journey

Ø The person leading a life is a traveller

Ø His purposes are destinations.

Ø Progress is the distance travelled

Conventionalized metaphors of body parts in English :

·      Head of department, of state, of a flower, of a page, of a queue

·      Face of a mountain, of a watch

·      Mouth of a hole, of a cave

·      Eye of a potato, of a needle

·      Hands of a watch, of an altimeter

3.  Asymmetry

It refers to the way that metaphors are directional. They do not set up a symmetrical comparison between two concepts, establishing points of similarity. Instead they provoke the listener to transfer feature from the source to the target.

For example : life is a journey.

This metaphor exhibits this feature: the common, every day experience of physically moving about the earth is used to characterize the mysterious process of birth and death, and the mysterious process of ageing. This is not a necessary feature of metaphor.

The Influence of Metaphor

Cognitivists argue that because of the presence in speakers’ minds, metaphor s exert influence over a wide range of linguistic behavior. Sweester identifies a cross linguistic metaphor MIND-AS-BODY, as when in English we speak of grasping an idea or holding a thought. Thus in English the verb SEE has two meanings: the basic principle one of perceiving with the eyes and the metaphorically extended one of understanding as in I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN. According to sweester words of seeing come to mean understanding, words of hearing to mean obeying, and words of tasting to mean choosing. Some of her examples are given below.

SEEING Understanding

HEARING Paying attention to, obeying

TASTING Choosing, expressing preferences