A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for literary effect, refers to one thing by mentioning another.Compare: Thus, it invites the audience to make a comparison between two normally unrelated entities or ideas, which may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between them. Metaphors are usually meant to create a likeness or an analogy.
Scholars group metaphors with other types of figurative language, such as hyperbole and metonymy. Metaphors are most similar to similes, except in metaphor the comparison is implied or assumed whereas the extra wording of a simile makes the comparison more obvious or explicit. According to Grammarly, "Figurative language examples include similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, allusions, and idioms." One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from As You Like It:
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... —William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7
This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding about the mechanics of the world and the behavior of the people within it.
Figurative wording, such as metaphor, does not necessarily imply a non-literal interpretation. A metaphor is a feature of language, whereas literal interpretation concerns the meaning conveyed by a text. In classical biblical hermeneutics, the "literal sense" generally refers to the meaning communicated through the words as they are used in their literary and historical context. This may include metaphor, hyperbole, irony, symbolism, idiom, and poetic language. For example, when Jesus says, "I am the door" in John 10:9, the expression is metaphorical, while the literal sense of the passage may be understood as referring to Jesus as the means of access to salvation. Interpreting the statement as describing Jesus as a physical door would therefore not constitute a more literal interpretation, but could instead be regarded as a misreading of the metaphor.
In the ancient Hebrew Book of Psalms (around 1000 B.C.), one finds vivid and poetic examples of metaphor such as, "The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold" and "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want". Some recent linguistic theories view all language in essence as metaphorical. The etymology of a word may uncover a metaphorical usage which has since become obscured with persistent use - such as for example the English word "", etymologically equivalent to "wind eye".
The word metaphor itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek term meaning 'transference (of ownership)'. The user of a metaphor alters the reference of the word, "carrying" it from one semantic "realm" to another. The new meaning of the word might derive from an analogy between the two semantic realms, but also from other reasons such as the distortion of the semantic realm - for example in sarcasm.
Etymology
The English word metaphor derives from the 16th-century Old French word , which comes from the Latin , 'carrying over', and in turn from the Greek (), 'transference (of ownership)',μεταφορά , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus. from (), 'to carry over, to transfer'cdasc3D%2367010 μεταφέρω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus. and that from (), 'behind, along with, across'μετά , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus. + (), 'to bear, to carry'.φέρω , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus.
Parts of a metaphor
The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) by rhetorician I. A. Richards describes a metaphor as having two parts: the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the object whose attributes are borrowed. In the previous example, "the world" is compared to a stage, describing it with the attributes of "the stage"; "the world" is the tenor, and "a stage" is the vehicle; "men and women" is the secondary tenor, and "players" is the secondary vehicle.
Other writers employ the general terms ground and figure to denote the tenor and the vehicle. Cognitive linguistics uses the terms target and source, respectively.
Psychologist Julian Jaynes coined the terms metaphrand and metaphier, plus two new concepts, paraphrand and paraphier. Metaphrand is equivalent to the metaphor-theory terms tenor, target, and ground. Metaphier is equivalent to the metaphor-theory terms vehicle, figure, and source. In a simple metaphor, an obvious attribute of the metaphier exactly characterizes the metaphrand (e.g. "the ship plowed the seas"). With an inexact metaphor, however, a metaphier might have associated attributes or nuances – its paraphiers – that enrich the metaphor because they "project back" to the metaphrand, potentially creating new ideas – the paraphrands – associated thereafter with the metaphrand or even leading to a new metaphor. For example, in the metaphor "Pat is a tornado", the metaphrand is Pat; the metaphier is tornado. As metaphier, tornado carries paraphiers such as power, storm and wind, counterclockwise motion, and danger, threat, destruction, etc. The metaphoric meaning of tornado is inexact: one might understand that 'Pat is powerfully destructive' through the paraphrand of physical and emotional destruction; another person might understand the metaphor as 'Pat can spin out of control'. In the latter case, the paraphier of 'spinning motion' has become the paraphrand 'psychological spin', suggesting an entirely new metaphor for emotional unpredictability, a possibly apt description for a human being hardly applicable to a tornado. Based on his analysis, Jaynes claims that metaphors not only enhance description, but "increase enormously our powers of perception...and our understanding of [the world], and literally create new objects".
As a type of comparison
Metaphors are most frequently compared with similes. A metaphor asserts the objects in the comparison are identical on the point of comparison, while a simile merely asserts a similarity through use of words such as like or as. For this reason a common-type metaphor is generally considered more forceful than a simile.The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th edition)
Theories of metaphor The notion that all metaphors are abbreviated similes is called the naive simile theory. However, this theory has faced widespread objections. John Searle's counterargument against the naive simile theory uses the following metaphor: "Sally is a block of ice." The theory would suggest that the metaphor's meaning (that Sally is rigid, unfriendly, unemotional, and stubborn) comes from the fact that Sally somehow has something in common with a block of ice, in that Sally is "rigid" and "cold". But the terms "rigid" and "cold" are themselves being used figuratively to mean "unemotional" and "unfriendly", something that isn't associated with other terms (such as "lukewarm"). Because of this, another "simile theory" has been proposed, called the figurative simile theory; this theory takes the comparison found in similes figuratively as opposed to a literal similarity between two concepts. Thus, according to this theory, all metaphors are abbreviated figurative similes; the figurative simile theory easily counters Searle's objection to the previous theory by stating that the metaphor's respective simile ("Sally is like a block of ice") is figurative (referring to the figurative connotations of ice). However, the figurative theory still has its flaws, one of them being that many sentences blur the line between literal or metaphorical interpretation, which may lead to some levels of semantic ambiguity.
Metaphor category The metaphor category contains these specialized types: Allegory: An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject. Antithesis: A rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences. Catachresis: A mixed metaphor, sometimes used by design and sometimes by accident (a rhetorical fault). Hyperbole: Excessive exaggeration to illustrate a point. Parable: An extended metaphor told as an anecdote to illustrate or teach a moral or spiritual lesson, such as in Aesop's fables or Jesus' teaching method as told in the Bible. Pun: A verbal device by which multiple definitions of a word or its homophones are used to give a sentence multiple valid readings, typically to humorous effect. Similitude: An extended simile or metaphor that has a picture part (), a reality part (), and a point of comparison (tertium comparationis).Adolf Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 2nd ed (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1910). Similitudes are found in the parables of Jesus.
It is said that a metaphor is "a condensed analogy" or "analogical fusion" or that they "operate in a similar fashion" or are "based on the same mental process" or yet that "the basic processes of analogy are at work in metaphor." It is also pointed out that "a border between metaphor and analogy is fuzzy" and "the difference between them might be described (metaphorically) as the distance between things being compared."
Metaphor vs metonymy
Metaphor is distinct from metonymy, as the two concepts embody different fundamental modes of thought. Metaphor works by bringing together concepts from different conceptual domains, whereas metonymy uses one element from a given domain to refer to another closely related element. A metaphor creates new links between otherwise distinct conceptual domains, whereas a metonymy relies on pre-existent links within such domains.
For example, in the phrase "lands belonging to the crown", the word crown is a metonymy because some monarchs do indeed wear a crown, physically. In other words, there is a pre-existent link between crown and monarchy. On the other hand, when Ghil'ad Zuckermann argues that the Israeli language is a "phoenicuckoo cross with some magpie characteristics", he is using metaphor. There is no physical link between a language and a bird. The reason the metaphors phoenix and cuckoo are used is that on the one hand hybridic Israeli is based on Hebrew, which, like a phoenix, rises from the ashes; and on the other hand, hybridic Israeli is based on Yiddish, which like a cuckoo, lays its egg in the nest of another bird, tricking it to believe that it is its own egg. Furthermore, the metaphor magpie is employed because, according to Zuckermann, hybridic Israeli displays the characteristics of a magpie, "stealing" from languages such as Arabic and English.
Subtypes
A dead metaphor is a metaphor in which the sense of a transferred image has become absent. The phrases "to grasp a concept" and "to gather what you've understood" use physical action as a metaphor for understanding. The audience does not need to visualize the action; dead metaphors normally go unnoticed. Some distinguish between a dead metaphor and a cliché. Others use "dead metaphor" to denote both.
A mixed metaphor is a metaphor that leaps from one identification to a second inconsistent with the first, e.g.:
This form is often used as a parody of metaphor itself: