What does metaphor mean? The richness of the Russian language: what is a metaphor in literature

A metaphor is an expression or a word in a figurative sense, the basis of which is a phenomenon or an object that has a similarity with it. In simple words, one word is replaced by another that has a similar sign with it.

Metaphor in literature is one of the oldest

What is a metaphor

Metaphor has 4 parts:

Context - a complete passage of text that combines the meaning of the individual words or sentences included in it.
An object.
The process by which the function is executed.
Application of this process or its intersection with any situations.

The concept of metaphor was discovered by Aristotle. Thanks to him, now a view has been formed on it as a necessary accessory of the language, which makes it possible to achieve cognitive and other goals.

Ancient philosophers believed that the metaphor was given to us by nature itself and was so established in everyday speech that many concepts do not need to be called literally, and its use replenishes the lack of words. But after them, it was assigned the function of an additional application to the mechanism of the language, and not to its main form. It was believed that for science it is even harmful, because it leads to a dead end in the search for truth. Against all odds, the metaphor continued to exist in literature because it was necessary for its development. It was mostly used in poetry.

Only in the 20th century was metaphor finally recognized as an integral part of speech, and scientific research using it began to be carried out in new dimensions. This was facilitated by such a property as the ability to combine materials of different nature. in literature, it became clear when they saw that the extended use of this artistic technique leads to the appearance of riddles, proverbs, allegories.

Building a Metaphor

Metaphor is created from 4 components: two groups and properties of each of them. Features of one group of objects are offered to another group. If a person is called a lion, then it is assumed that he is endowed with similar characteristics. Thus, a new image is created, where the word "lion" in a figurative sense means "fearless and mighty."

Metaphors are specific to different languages. If the Russians "donkey" symbolizes stupidity and stubbornness, then the Spaniards - diligence. A metaphor in literature is a concept that may differ among different peoples, which should be taken into account when translating from one language to another.

Metaphor Functions

The main function of metaphor is a vivid emotional assessment and figuratively expressive coloring of speech. At the same time, rich and capacious images are created from incomparable objects.

Another function is nominative, which consists in filling the language with phraseological and lexical constructions, for example: bottle neck, pansies.

In addition to the main ones, the metaphor performs many other functions. This concept is much broader and richer than it seems at first glance.

What are metaphors

Since ancient times, metaphors have been divided into the following types:

Sharp - connecting concepts that lie in different planes: "I'm walking around the city, shot with my eyes ...".
Erased - so commonplace that the figurative character is no longer noticed ("Already in the morning to me people were reaching out"). It has become so familiar that the figurative meaning is difficult to grasp. It is found when translating from one language to another.
Metaphor-formula - its transformation into a direct meaning is excluded (the worm of doubt, the wheel of fortune). She has become a stereotype.
Expanded - contains a large message in a logical sequence.
Implemented - used for its intended purpose (" Came to my senses, and there again a dead end).

It is difficult to imagine modern life without metaphorical images and comparisons. The most common metaphor in literature. This is necessary for a vivid disclosure of images and the essence of phenomena. In poetry, the extended metaphor is especially effective, presented in the following ways:

Indirect communication using or history using comparison.
A figure of speech using words in a figurative sense, based on analogy, similarity and comparison.

Consistently disclosed in the text fragment: “ A fine rain with dawn washes the dawn», « The moon gives New Year's dreams».

Some classics believed that a metaphor in literature is a separate phenomenon that acquires a new meaning due to its occurrence. In this case, it becomes the goal of the author, where the metaphorical image leads the reader to a new meaning, an unexpected meaning. Such metaphors from fiction can be found in the works of the classics. Take, for example, the Nose, which acquires a metaphorical meaning in Gogol's story. Rich in metaphorical images where they give characters and events a new meaning. Based on this, it can be said that their widespread definition is far from complete. Metaphor in literature is a broader concept and not only decorates speech, but often gives it a new meaning.

Conclusion

What is metaphor in literature? It has a more effective effect on consciousness due to its emotional coloring and imagery. This is especially evident in poetry. The impact of the metaphor is so strong that psychologists use it to solve problems related to the psyche of patients.

Metaphorical images are used when creating advertisements. They spark the imagination and help consumers make the right choice. The same is also carried out by society in the political sphere.

Metaphor is increasingly entering everyday life, manifesting itself in language, thinking and action. Its study is expanding, covering new areas of knowledge. By the images created by metaphors, one can judge the effectiveness of a particular media.

Metaphor is a word or combination of words used to describe an object in a figurative sense, based on similar features with another object. Metaphor serves to emotionally embellish colloquial speech. Often it replaces the original meaning of the word. Metaphor is used not only in colloquial speech, but also performs certain functions in literature. It allows you to give an object, an event a certain artistic image. This is necessary not only to strengthen a certain feature, but also to create a new image in the imagination, with the participation of emotions and logic.

Examples of metaphors from literature.

We bring to your attention examples of metaphors:
“A Christmas tree was born in the forest, it grew in the forest” - it is clear that a Christmas tree cannot be born, it can only grow from a spruce seed.

One more example:
"Scented bird cherry
Bloomed with spring
And golden branches
What curls, curled.

It is also obvious that bird cherry cannot curl curls, it is compared with a girl in order to clearly show how beautiful she is.

Metaphors can be sharp, this type connects completely different semantic concepts, for example, “the filling of a phrase”, it is clear that the phrase is not a pie and it cannot have a filling. Also, metaphors are deployed - they are visible, but rather listened to throughout the entire statement, such an excerpt from A.S. Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin" can serve as an example:

“The night has many lovely stars,
There are many beauties in Moscow.
But brighter than all the girlfriends of heaven
Moon in the air blue.

Along with expanded and sharp metaphors, there is an erased metaphor and a metaphor-formula, which are similar in their features - giving the subject a figurative character, for example, “a sofa leg”.

And it is connected with his understanding of art as an imitation of life. Aristotle's metaphor, in essence, is almost indistinguishable from hyperbole (exaggeration), from synecdoche, from simple comparison or personification and likening. In all cases, there is a transfer of meaning from one word to another.

An indirect message in the form of a story or figurative expression using comparison.
A figure of speech consisting in the use of words and expressions in a figurative sense based on some kind of analogy, similarity, comparison.

There are 4 "elements" in the metaphor

category or context,
An object within a specific category,
The process by which this object performs a function,
Applications of this process to real situations, or intersections with them.

A sharp metaphor is a metaphor that brings together concepts that are far apart. Model: stuffing statements.
An erased metaphor is a generally accepted metaphor, the figurative nature of which is no longer felt. Model: chair leg.
The metaphor-formula is close to the erased metaphor, but differs from it in even greater stereotype and sometimes the impossibility of converting into a non-figurative construction. Model: Doubt Worm.
An extended metaphor is a metaphor that is consistently implemented over a large fragment of a message or the entire message as a whole. Model: Book hunger continues: products from the book market are increasingly stale - they have to be thrown away without even trying.
A realized metaphor involves operating a metaphorical expression without taking into account its figurative nature, that is, as if the metaphor had a direct meaning. The result of the realization of a metaphor is often comical. Model: I lost my temper and got on the bus.

theories

Among other tropes, metaphor occupies a central place, as it allows you to create capacious images based on vivid, unexpected associations. Metaphors can be based on the similarity of the most diverse features of objects: color, shape, volume, purpose, position, etc.

According to the classification proposed by N. D. Arutyunova, metaphors are divided into

nominative, consisting in replacing one descriptive meaning with another and serving as a source of homonymy;
figurative metaphors that serve the development of figurative meanings and synonymous means of language;
cognitive metaphors resulting from a shift in the combination of predicate words (meaning transfer) and creating polysemy;
generalizing metaphors (as the end result of a cognitive metaphor), erasing the boundaries between logical orders in the lexical meaning of the word and stimulating the emergence of logical polysemy.

Let's take a closer look at metaphors that contribute to the creation of images, or figurative.

In a broad sense, the term "image" means a reflection in the mind of the external world. In a work of art, images are the embodiment of the author's thinking, his unique vision and vivid image of the picture of the world. The creation of a vivid image is based on the use of the similarity between two objects far from each other, almost on a kind of contrast. In order for the comparison of objects or phenomena to be unexpected, they must be sufficiently dissimilar to each other, and sometimes the similarity may be quite insignificant, imperceptible, giving food for thought, or may be absent altogether.

The boundaries and structure of the image can be practically anything: the image can be conveyed by a word, a phrase, a sentence, a superphrasal unity, it can occupy an entire chapter or cover the composition of an entire novel.

However, there are other views on the classification of metaphors. For example, J. Lakoff and M. Johnson distinguish two types of metaphors considered in relation to time and space: ontological, that is, metaphors that allow you to see events, actions, emotions, ideas, etc. as a kind of substance ( the mind is an entity, the mind is a fragile thing), and oriented, or orientational, that is, metaphors that do not define one concept in terms of another, but organize the entire system of concepts in relation to each other ( happy is up, sad is down; conscious is up, unconscious is down).

George Lakoff in his work "The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor" talks about the ways of creating a metaphor and the composition of this means of artistic expression. Metaphor, according to Lakoff's theory, is a prose or poetic expression, where a word (or several words) that is a concept is used in an indirect sense to express a concept similar to this one. Lakoff writes that in prose or poetic speech, the metaphor lies outside the language, in thought, in the imagination, referring to Michael Reddy, his work "The Conduit Metaphor", in which Reddy notes that the metaphor lies in the language itself, in everyday speech, and not only in poetry or prose. Reddy also states that "the speaker puts ideas (objects) into words and sends them to the hearer, who extracts the ideas/objects from the words." This idea is also reflected in the study of J. Lakoff and M. Johnson "Metaphors by which we live." Metaphorical concepts are systemic, “metaphor is not limited to the sphere of language alone, that is, the sphere of words: the very processes of human thinking are largely metaphorical. Metaphors as linguistic expressions become possible precisely because there are metaphors in the human conceptual system.

Metaphor is often considered as one of the ways to accurately reflect reality in artistic terms. However, I. R. Galperin says that “this concept of accuracy is very relative. It is a metaphor that creates a specific image of an abstract concept that makes it possible to interpret real messages in different ways.

transferring the properties of one object to another according to the principle of their similarity in some respect or contrast. For example, “electric current”, “aroma of elementary particles”, “city of the Sun”, “Kingdom of God”, etc. A metaphor is a hidden comparison of objects, properties and relations that are very remote at first glance, in which the words as if, as if, etc., are omitted, but implied. The heuristic power of metaphor lies in the bold combination of what was previously considered to be of different quality and incompatible (for example, “light wave”, “pressure of light”, “earthly paradise”, etc.). This allows us to destroy the usual cognitive stereotypes and create new mental structures based on already known elements (“thinking machine”, “social organism”, etc.), which leads to a new vision of the world, changes the “horizon of consciousness”. (See comparison, scientific creativity, synthesis).

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

METAPHOR

from the Greek ??????? I endure) - a rhetorical trope, the essence of which lies in the fact that instead of a word used in the literal sense, a word similar in meaning to it is used, used in a figurative sense. For example · the dream of life, the dizzying slope, the days are running, wit, remorse, etc. etc.? Apparently, the earliest theory of M. is the theory of substitution, dating back to Aristotle. Explaining that "an unusual name transferred ... by analogy" implies a situation in which "the second is related to the first as the fourth is to the third, and therefore the writer can say the fourth instead of the second or the second instead of the fourth", Aristotle ("Poetics" ) gives such examples of "proportional metaphors": the bowl (phial) refers to Dionysus in the same way as the shield to Ares, so the bowl can be called the "shield of Dionysus", and the shield - the "cup of Ares"; old age relates to life in the same way as evening relates to day; therefore, old age can be called "the evening of life" or "the sunset of life", and evening - "the old age of the day." This theory of proportional metaphors was repeatedly and sharply criticized. Thus, A. A. Potebnya ("From Notes on the Theory of Literature") noted that "such a game of displacement is a rare case, possible only with respect to ready-made metaphors", this rare case cannot, therefore , be considered as an example of M. in general, which, as a rule, assumes a proportion "with one unknown" In the same way, M. Beardsley criticizes Aristotle for the fact that the latter considers the transfer relation as reciprocal and, as Beardsley believes, replaces M. with a rationalized comparison.

Even in ancient times, the theory of comparison, which was developed by Quintilian ("On the Education of the Orator") and Cicero ("On the Orator"), competed with the Aristotelian theory of substitution in ancient times. Unlike Aristotle, who believed that comparison is simply an extended metaphor (see his "Rhetoric"), the theory of comparison considers M. as an abbreviated comparison, thereby emphasizing the relation of similarity underlying M., and not the action of substitution as such. Although the theory of substitution and the theory of comparison are not mutually exclusive, they imply a different understanding of the relationship between M. and other tropes. Following his theory of substitution, Aristotle defines M. unreasonably broad, his definition forces us to consider M as "an unusual name transferred from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy." For Quintilian, Cicero and other supporters of the comparison theory, M. is limited only to transfer by analogy, while transfers from genus to species and from species to genus are synecdoche, narrowing and generalizing, respectively, and transfer from species to species is metonymy.

In modern theories, M. is more often opposed to metonymy to / or synecdoche than is identified with them. In the famous theory of R. O. Yakobson (“Notes on the Prose of the Poet Pasternak”), metonymy is opposed to metonymy as transfer by similarity - transfer by contiguity. Indeed, metonymy (from the Greek ????????? - renaming) is a rhetorical trope, the essence of which is that one word is replaced by another, and (spatial, temporal or causal) contiguity becomes the basis for the replacement signified For example: to stand in the head, midday side, at hand, etc., etc. the substitution of one word for another by means of a concept which is not an intersection (as in the case of M) but an enclosing signifier of the word being replaced and the word being replaced. Thus, in the expression "get used to the bottle" the transfer of meaning implies a spatial unity that unites the bottle and its contents. Jakobson extremely widely used the opposition "adjacency/similarity" as an explanatory tool: not only to explain the traditional difference between prose and poetry, but also to describe the features of ancient Slavic poetry, to classify types of speech disorders in mental illness, etc. However, the opposition "adjacency /similarity" cannot become the basis of a taxonomy of rhetorical tropes and figures. In addition, according to the "General Rhetoric" of the "Mu" group, Jacobson often confused metonymy with synecdoche. Synecdoche (Greek - recognition) - a rhetorical trope, the essence of which lies either in replacing a word denoting a part of a whole with a word denoting the whole itself (generalizing synecdoche), or, on the contrary, in replacing a word denoting the whole with a word denoting a part of this whole (contracting synecdoche). Examples of a generalizing synecdoche: to catch fish smashing iron, mortals (instead of people), etc., examples of a narrowing synecdoche: to call for a cup of tea, the master's eye, to get a tongue, etc.

The "Mu" group proposed considering M. as a combination of a narrowing and generalizing synecdoche; this theory makes it possible to explain the difference between conceptual and referential M. The difference between M. at the level of seme and M. at the level of mental images is caused by the need to rethink the concept of similarity, which underlies any definition of M. The concept of "similarity of meanings" (of the replaced word and the replacing word) , by whichever criteria it is defined (usually the criteria of analogy, motivation and general properties are offered), remains highly ambiguous. This implies the need to develop a theory that considers M. not only as a relationship between the replaced word (A. A. Richards in his "Philosophy of Rhetoric" called its signified content (tenor) M.) and the replacing word (Richarde called it the shell (vehicle) M. .), but also as a relation between a word used in a figurative sense and surrounding words used in a literal sense.

The theory of interaction, developed by Richards and M. Black ("Models and Metaphors"), considers M. as a resolution of the tension between the metaphorically used word and the context of its use. Paying attention to the obvious fact that most M. is used in the environment of words that are not M., Black highlights the focus and frame of M., i.e. M. as such and the context of its use. The possession of M. implies knowledge of the system of generally accepted associations, and therefore the theory of interaction emphasizes the pragmatic aspect of the transfer of meaning. Since the mastery of M. is associated with the transformation of the context and, indirectly, the entire system of generally accepted associations, M. turns out to be an important means of cognition and transformation of society. This consequence of the theory of interaction was developed by J. Lakoff and M. Johnson ("Metaphors we live") into the theory of "conceptual metaphors" that control the speech and thinking of ordinary people in everyday situations. Usually the process of demetaphorization, the transformation of a figurative meaning into a direct one, is associated with catachresis. Katahreza (Greek - abuse) - a rhetorical trope, the essence of which is to expand the meaning of the word, to use the word in a new meaning. For example: a table leg, a sheet of paper, sunrise, etc. Catachreses are widespread both in everyday and scientific language, all terms of any science are catachreses. J. Genette ("Figures") emphasized the importance for rhetoric in general and for the theory of M. in particular, one dispute about the definition of the concept of catachresis. Great French rhetorician of the 18th century. S. Sh. Dumarcet (Treatise on the Paths) still adhered to the traditional definition of catachresis, believing that it is a broad interpretation of the word fraught with abuse. But already at the beginning of the XIX century. P. Fontanier ("Classic textbook for the study of tropes") defined catachresis as an erased or exaggerated M. It is traditionally believed that a trope differs from a figure in that speech is generally impossible without tropes, while the concept of a figure encompasses not only tropes, but also figures, serving simply as a decoration of speech, which can not be used. In Fontagnier's rhetoric, the criterion for a figure is its translatability. Since catachresis, unlike M., is untranslatable, it is a trope, and, in contrast to traditional rhetoric (Genette emphasizes this opposite), Fontagnier believes that catachresis is a trope that is not at the same time a figure. Therefore, the definition of catachresis as a special kind of M. allows us to see in M. the mechanism for generating new words. At the same time, catachresis can be represented as a stage of demetaphorization, at which the "content" of M.

Fontanier's theory is closely connected with the disputes about the origin of the language that arose in the second half of the 18th century. If J. Locke, W. Warburton, E.-B. de Condillac and others developed theories of language as an expression of consciousness and imitation of nature, then J.-J. Rousseau ("Experience on the origin of language") proposed a theory of language, one of the postulates of which was the assertion of the primacy of figurative meaning. A century later, F. Nietzsche ("On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense") developed a similar theory, arguing that truths are M., about which they forgot what they are. According to the theory of language of Rousseau (or Nietzsche), not M., dying, it turns into catachresis, but, on the contrary, catachresis is restored to M., there is not a translation from the literal into a figurative language (without the postulation of such a translation, not a single traditional theory of M. is possible), but, on the contrary, the transformation of a figurative language into a quasi-literal one. The theory of M. was created by J. Derrida ("White mythology: a metaphor in a philosophical text"). The theory of M., not related to the consideration of the relationship of similarity, forces us to reconsider the question of the iconicity of M. Once C. S. Pierce considered M. as iconic a metasign that represents the representative nature of the representamen by establishing its parallelism with something else.

According to U. Eco ("Members of the cinematic code"), the iconicity of M. is neither a logical truth nor an ontological reality, but depends on cultural codes. Thus, in contrast to traditional ideas about M., the theory of M. that is being formed today understands this trope as a mechanism for generating names, which, by its very existence, affirms the primacy of a figurative meaning.

The first group of theories of M. considers it as a formula for replacing a word, lexeme, concept, name (nominative construction) or "representation" (construction of "primary experience") with another ersatz word, lexeme, concept, concept or contextual construction containing designations " secondary experience" or signs of another semiotic. order ("Richard the Lionheart", "lamp of the mind", eyes - "mirror of the soul", "the power of the word"; "and the stone word fell", "you, decrepit sowing of the past century", "Onegin" the air bulk stood like a cloud over me" (Akhmatova), "the age of the wolfhound", "a deep swoon of lilacs, and sonorous steps of colors" (Mandelstam). An explicit or implicit connection of these concepts in a speech or mental act (x as y) is produced in the course of replacing one circle of meanings ( "frame", "script", in the words of M. Minsky) with other or other meanings by subjective or conventional, situational or contextual redefinition of the content of the concept ("representation", "semantic field of the word"), performed while maintaining the background generally accepted ("objective" , "objective") meaning of a lexeme, concept or notion. Such "objectivity" (objectivity of meaning) itself can be preserved only "translinguistically", by social conventions of speech, cultural norms, and is expressed, as a rule, substantive forms. This group of theories emphasizes semantic. the incomparability of the elements that form the relationship of replacement, "synopsis of concepts", "interference" of the concepts of the subject and the definition, qualification, connection of semantic. functions of the image ("representation") and value expression or appeal. Not only otd. can be replaced. semantic elements or concepts (within the same system of meanings or frames of reference), but entire systems of meanings, indexed in concret. "discursive-rhetorical context" otd. M.

M.'s theory is also grouped around methodical. ideas of "semantically anomalous" or "paradoxical predication". M. in this case is interpreted as an interactional synthesis of "figurative fields", "spiritual, analogizing the act of mutual coupling of two semantic regions" that form a specific. quality of evidence, or figurativeness. "Interaction" here means subjective (free from normative prescriptions), individual operation (interpretation, modulation) of generally accepted meanings (semantic conventions of subject or existential links, predicates, semantic, value meanings of the "existence" of an object). (“The mirror is dreaming of a mirror”, “I am visiting memory”, “trouble misses us”, “the rosehip was so fragrant that it even turned into a word”, “and now I am writing, as before, without blots, my poems in a burnt notebook” ( Akhmatova), "But I forgot what I want to say, and the disembodied thought will return to the hall of shadows" (Mandelstam), "in the structure of the air - the presence of a diamond" (Zabolotsky). Such an interpretation of M. focuses on the pragmatics of metaphorical design, speech or intellectual action, accentuates the functional meaning of the used semantic convergence or connection of two meanings.

Theories of substitution summed up the experience of analyzing the use of metaphor in relatively closed semantic spaces (rhetorical or literary traditions and group canons, institutional contexts), in which the metaphorical subject itself is quite clearly defined. statements, its role, and its recipient or addressee, as well as the rules of metaphor. substitutions, respectively, for the norms of understanding metaphor. Before the modern era, there was a tendency for strict social control over newly introduced metaphors (fixed by oral tradition, a corporation or class of singers and poets, or codified within the framework of normative classicist poetics, as, for example, by the French Academy of the 17th-18th centuries), residuals to-swarm preserved in the pursuit of hierarchical. separation of "high", poetic. and everyday, prosaic. language. The situation of modern times (subjective lyrics, art nouveau, non-classical science) is characterized by a broad interpretation of mathematics as a process of speech interaction. For researchers who share the predicate or interactional paradigm of M., the focus of attention is transferred from the enumeration or contain descriptions of the metaphors themselves to the mechanisms of their formation, to the situational (contextual) rules and norms of metaphors subjectively developed by the speaker himself. the synthesis of a new meaning and the limits of its understanding by others, to which the statement constituted by a metaphor is addressed - to a partner, reader, correspondent. This approach significantly increases the thematic field of study of M., making it possible to analyze its role outside of tradition. rhetoric, regarded as DOS. structure of semantic innovation. In this capacity, mathematics becomes one of the most promising and developing areas in the study of the language of science, ideology, philosophy, and culture.

From the end of the 19th century (A. Bizet, G. Feichinger) and to this day, it means that part of the research of M. in science is devoted to the identification and description of the functional types of M. in decomp. discourses. The simplest articulation is associated with the division of obliterated ("cold", "frozen") or routine M. - "bottle neck", "table leg", "clock hands", "time is running or standing still", "golden time", "flaming chest", this also includes the whole metaphor of light, a mirror, an organism, birth, flourishing and death, etc.) and individual M. Accordingly, in the first case, connections between M. and mythol are traced. or traditional. consciousness, are found semantic. the roots of the significance of M. in rituals or magic. procedures (methodology and cognitive technique of disciplines gravitating toward cultural studies are used). In the second case, the emphasis is on the analysis of the instrumental or expressive meaning of M. in systems of explanation and argumentation, in suggestive and poetic. speeches (works of Lit-Vedas, philosophers and sociologists dealing with the issues of cultural foundations of science, ideology, historians and other specialists). At the same time, "nuclear" ("root") methods are singled out, which specify axiomatic - ontological. or methodical. - the framework of explanation, embodying the Anthropol. representations in science in general or otd. its disciplines and paradigms, in the spheres of culture, and occasional or contextual M., used by otd. researchers for their explanatory or argumentative purposes and needs. Of particular interest to researchers are the basic, root M., the number of which is extremely limited. The appearance of new M. of this kind means the beginning of specialization. differentiation in science, the formation of "regional" (Husserl) ontologies and paradigms. Nuclear M. defines the general semantic. the framework of the disciplinary "picture of the world" (ontological constructions of reality), the elements of which can be deployed in separate. theor. structures and concepts. Such are the fundamental mathematics that arose during the formation of modern science - the "Book of Nature", which is "written in the language of mathematics" (Galileo's metaphor), "God as a watchmaker" (respectively, the Universe is a clock, a machine or a mechanical system) and others. Each similar metaphor. education sets the semantic framework methodol. formalization of private theories, semantic. rules for matching them with more general conceptual contexts and scientific paradigms, which provides science with a common rhetoric. empirical interpretation scheme. observations, carried out explanations of facts and theor. evidence. Examples of nuclear M. - in the economy, in social and historical. sciences: society as an organism (biol. system with its cycles, functions, organs), geol. structure (formations, layers), structure, buildings (pyramid, base, superstructure), machine (mechanical system), theater (roles), social behavior as a text (or language); balance of interests) and actions decomp. authors, balance (scales); "invisible hand" (A. Smith), revolution. Expansion of the sphere of conventional use of M., accompanied by methodical. codification of situations of its use, turns M. into a model, a scientific concept or a term with def. the amount of values. These are, for example, the main concepts in nature. sciences: particle, wave, forces, tension, field, arrow of time, pervonach. explosion, attraction, swarm of photons, planetary structure of the atom, inform. noise. black box etc. Each conceptual innovation that affects the structure of a disciplinary ontology or basic methodol. principles, expressed in the emergence of new M.: Maxwell's demon, Occam's razor. M. not just integrate spetsializir. spheres of knowledge with the sphere of culture, but also are semantic structures that define contain. characteristics of rationality (its semantic. formula) in a particular area of human. activities.

Lit.: Gusev S.S. Science and metaphor. L., 1984; Theory of metaphor: Sat. M., 1990; Gudkov L.D. Metaphor and rationality as a problem of social epistemology M., 1994; Lieb H.H. Der Umfang des historischen Metaphernbegriffs. Koln, 1964; Shibles W.A. Metaphor: An annotated Bibliography and History. Whitewater (Wisconsin), 1971; Theorie der Metapher. Darmstadt, 1988; Kugler W. Zur Pragmatik der Metapher, Metaphernmodelle und histo-rische Paradigmen. Fr./M., 1984.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

What is a metaphor? This is a word form / phrase that is used in a non-specific sense. In other words, it can be said hidden comparison.

For the first time this term was introduced into literature by Aristotle. In his work "Poetics", he spoke about its special meaning and argued that the text without metaphors is very dry and uninteresting.

Most often, metaphors are used in literary texts. They give the works the greatest poetry and aesthetics. A.S. Pushkin’s entire work is permeated with metaphors: “fountain of love”, “foam of waters”. All of them, of course, impossible to list.

3 components of a metaphor (elements of comparison):

That which is compared (i.e., the object of comparison).
That with which it is compared (i.e., the image).
On what grounds is it compared (i.e. sign).

Functions of metaphors

All of them are diverse, but let's consider the main ones.

Emotional-evaluative function . It is used when it is necessary to create an expression in the text. This is done to make an emotional impact on the reader. For example: " Why are you looking at me like a ram at a new gate?»
Evaluation function . It is used to create some association in the reader about the phenomenon. For example: " wolf man», « cold heart". Thus, the metaphor "man-wolf" is associated with a certain negativity and malice.
Nominative function . With the help of this function, the language is replenished with new phraseological and lexical constructions. For example: " drumming rain», « digest information».
cognitive function. There is not much to explain here. This function helps to notice the main properties of the subject.

Main types of metaphors

Expanded metaphor . This kind of metaphor unfolds in the course of a large piece of text. It can be either a big statement or several sentences.
Erased metaphor . A common type of metaphor that people do not notice in the course of everyday communication (" table leg», « sunstroke»…)
Sharp metaphor . This is a metaphor that links concepts that are in principle incompatible with each other (example: " stuffing statements»…)

Important!

Don't confuse metaphor with metonymy.

Sometimes it is even said that metonymy is a kind of metaphor. They are quite similar to each other, since they are based on hidden comparison and figurative meaning. But: the basis of metonymy is the transfer of the properties of phenomena or objects by contiguity (“ eat a few bowls of soup», « read Pushkin»).

And at the heart of the metaphor is a hidden comparison (“ sky in the palm of your hand», « iron heart"). Don't forget about it.