FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

The main issue is how a listener or reader recognises a statement as figurative rather than literal and processes it accordingly. In principle, the process of identifying figurative language can operate lexically in terms of selection restrictions or semantically in terms of failure to conform to a real-world state-of-affairs. Thus, The letter-box disliked the postman could be rejected as a factual statement either because the verb LIKE requires an animate subject or because real-world experience tells us that letter-boxes do not have feelings.

However, this type of analysis does not entirely explain:

 a. How to distinguish a literal comparison such as Copper is like tin, from a figurative simile such as Sermons are like sleeping pills.

 b. How to recognise the metaphorical intention of a sentence such as No man is an island, when the sentence is also literally true.

There are three major solutions:

Incoherence models, where the listener/reader is assumed to derive a literal interpretation of a sentence, assess its likelihood, then opt for a non-literal meaning if a literal one seems improbable. Against this view, studies of reading have shown no difference in the time taken to process literal and metaphorical interpretations of sentences– provided the supporting context is sufficiently clear. Research has also shown that readers are slower to reject a sentence as literally false when it has a potential metaphorical interpretation than when it has none. The conclusion is that they are unable to block out a metaphorical interpretation, even when they are required simply to make a truth value judgement.

 Comparison models, where the reader or listener balances the attributes of two items. One way of distinguishing the sentences in a. is that the literal one is reversible but the figurative one is not. The reason is that there is a salience imbalance in the second sentence which makes the attributes of SERMONS in subject position less important than that of SLEEPING PILLS in complement position.

Interaction models, in which the vehicle of the metaphor illuminates the topic, which then illuminates the vehicle. Thus, in Man is a wolf, wolf serves to point up the animal nature of MAN, while man serves to anthropomorphise WOLF.

An unresolved issue in these approaches is the way in which comprehenders decide which attributes form the basis of the figurative relationship. The attributes selected may be multiple, and not expressible in a single literal word, as with Mary’s been a rock. Or they may involve considerable selectivity similar to that involved in instantiation. The sentence His face was a tomato. potentially draws upon softness, roundness and redness; without a context, the processor has to favour the attribute most likely to be employed in a metaphorical situation. (Major source: Cacciari and Glucksberg, 1994.)

See also: Instantiation, Metaphor

 Further reading: Cacciari and Glucksberg (1994)

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