CC BY
102
METAPHOR AS A STYLISTIC DEVICE Bekmurodova M.
Bekmurodova Maftuna - Student, DEPARTMENT OF THE THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGES, ENGLISH LANGUAGES FACULTY 3, UZBEKISTAN STATE WORLD LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: metaphor is a tool of conceptual economy, but that does not exhaust its role. We have argued that the fruits of such discoveries can be restated in non-metaphorical terms. Metaphor is also an important means by which language develops, but again we can provide literal paraphrases of what metaphors convey, at least insofar as we are concerned with their cognitive content.
Keywords: metaphor, meaning, for non-verbal manifestation, cognitivist approach, types of metaphor.
Metaphor may be an ornament to language but it is not merely an ornament and it need not subvert communication and obfuscate meaning. There is little to be said for restricting our resources to only the drab modes of purely literal description. Lakoff and Johnson's description is an attractive one, since it suggests that what people do with metaphor is no less important than what it is. Moreover it allows for non-verbal manifestations of this trope. A crucial element in the cognitivist approach to metaphor fathered by Lakoff and Johnson is that metaphor is primarily a matter of thinking, and only derivatively a matter of language. But while much fine work has been done by Lakoff and Johnson and their followers, the vast majority of studies still only discuss verbal manifestations of metaphor [2, 24].
A metaphor, according to I.A. Richards in The Philosophy of Rhetoric, consists of two parts: the tenor which is the subject to which attributes is derived [3]: The entire world's a stage; they have their exits and their entrances;
• An extended metaphor is one that sets up a principal subject with several subsidiary subjects or comparisons. The above quote from as you like it is a good example. The world is described as a stage and then men and women are subsidiary subjects that are further described in the same context.
• A mixed metaphor is one that leaps, in the course of a figure, to a second identification inconsistent with the first one. Example: "Clinton stepped up to the plate and grabbed the bull by the horn". Here, the baseball and the activities of a cowboy are implied. Other examples include: "That wet blanket is a loose cannon"; "Strike while the iron is in the fire"; or (said by an administrator whose government-department's budget was slashed) "Now we can just kiss that program right down the drain".
• A dead metaphor is one in which the sense of a transferred image is not present. Example: "money", so called because it was first minted at the temple of Juno Moneta. To most people though, "money" does not evoke thoughts of the temple at Juno Moneta. Dead metaphors, by definition, normally go unnoticed; people are typically unaware of the origin of words. For instance, consideration is a metaphor meaning "take the stars into account", mantel means "cloak or hood to catch smoke", gorge means throat, and so forth for thousands more.
Linguists have identified other types of metaphor too, though the nomenclatures are not universally accepted [1]:
• An active metaphor is one which by contrast to a dead metaphor, is not part of daily language and is noticeable as a metaphor. Example: "Youaremysun."
• An absolute or paralogical metaphor (sometimes called an antimetaphor) is one in which there is no discernible point of resemblance between the idea and the image. Example: "The couch is the autobahn of the living room."
• A complex metaphor is one which mounts one identification on another. Example: "That throws some light on the question." Throwing light is a metaphor and there is no actual light.
• A compound or loose metaphor is one that catches the mind with several points of similarity. Example: "He has the wild stag's foot." This phrase suggests grace and speed as well as daring.
• A dormant metaphor is one in which its contact with the initial idea it denoted has been lost. Example: "He was carried away by his passions." Here, it is not known by what the man was carried away.
• An implicit metaphor is one in which the tenor is not specified but implied. Example: "Shut your trap!" Here, the mouth of the listener is the unspecified tenor.
• A submerged metaphor is one in which the vehicle is implied, or indicated by one aspect. Example: "my winged thought". Here, the audience must supply the image of the bird.
• A simple or tight metaphor is one in which there is but one point of resemblance between the tenor and the vehicle. Example: "Cool it". In this example, the vehicle, "cool", is a temperature and nothing else, so the tenor, "it", can only be grounded to the tenor by one attribute.
So Metaphor is an ordinary tool that we use it unconsciously and automatically, with so little effort that we hardly notice it. It is omnipresent: metaphor suffuses our thoughts, no matter what we are thinking about. It is accessible to everyone: as children, we acquire a mastery of everyday metaphor.
References
1. Kovecses Z., 1990. Emotion Concepts. Springer-Verlag.
2. Lakoff G. and Johnson M., 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3. Richards I.A., 1996. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
