Lexical Means of Expressiveness

♦Topics for Reports and Discussion

1. Tropes and figures. General notions of metaphor and simile:

a) the structure of the image;

b) extended or sustained images;

c) parts of speech through which a metaphor may be expressed

d) the semantics of the image;

e) imageless poetry.

2. Tropes of contiguity:

a) metonymy;

b) synechdoche;

c) metonymical relations;

d) metaphtonymy;

e) metonymy and metaphor as literary modes. A cognitive approach to metaphor and metonymy.

3. Epithet.

4. Personification.

5. Hyperbole.

6. Irony.

♦ Lecture Digest

Tropes (metaphor, metonymy, epithet, hyperbole, allegory, personification) imply a transfer of meaning, departures from local usage to gain special effects; “figures” or “schemes” are parallel constructions, chiasmus, epiphora, anaphora, etc. Tropes are employed to produce images. An image is one of the fundamental techniques of writing, especially poetry. Images provide a picture or idea of the object through similarities, helping the reader to imagine it for himself. Component “parts” of an image (J.A. Richards): tenor, vehicle, ground. Extended images. Semantics of the image: the concept of foregrounding (“disparity action”); the ambiguity of metaphor, the function of metaphors in cognition and extension of language. Imageless poetry. Conceptual blending (mental spaces) in explication of metaphor: input spaces, generic space, blend. Simile is an explicit image. Metonymy is a trope in which substitution is possible because of logical or essential relation between the components.

Metaphtonymy. Epithet. Personification in which abstractions are made tangible if perceived in terms of the concrete, physical world. Cognitive basis of hyperbole: withdrawing certain structures of knowledge and evaluation from the linguistic conscience. Irony as misrepresentation of the truth: implying the opposite of what one feels to be the case. Images of single nature and extended, developed images. The principal items of the theory dealing with the semantics of the image come to 1) the concept of foregrounding (“a disparity action”); 2) the ambiguity of metaphor; 3) the function of metaphor in cognition and extension of language.

A simile is a trope related to a metaphor. The difference is between explicit and implicit imagery; between the image by analogy (A is like B) and image by identification (A is B). The group of tropes of contiguity comprises metonymy and synechdoche. It is important to subject to the analysis the metonymical relations. The principal difference between the logical attributes and epithets.

Personification, a trope in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities, is referred to a metaphorical group. The value of personification lies in the fact that abstractions are made tangible if we perceive them in terms of the concrete, physical world. Hyperbole and irony are connected; both misrepresent the truth: hyperbole distorts by saying too much (emphasis is achieved by deliberate exaggeration), and irony takes the form of implying the opposite of what one feels to be the case.

♦ Extension

1.

The terms ‘tropes’ and ‘figures’ have come to us from ancient rhetoric schools. Rhetoric is the art of public oratory that flourished in Ancient Greece and Rome. Tropes (metaphor, metonymy, epithet, hyperbole, allegory, personification) imply a transfer of meaning, departures from logical usage to gain special effects; ‘figures’ or ‘schemes’ (parallel constructions, chiasmus, epiphora, anaphora) – a use of a construction aimed at intensifying the meaning and gaining euphony.

The theory of image has been elaborated by St. Petersburg school of stylistics, particularly by prof. I.V. Arnold. It is recommended, therefore, that a student should consult – mainly – the text-book in stylistics belonging to the author mentioned. Special stress is to be laid upon the following points.

Every image may be analysed into its component parts: 1) the tenor, 2) the vehicle and 3) the ground (the scheme is suggested by I.A. Richards). The overall effect of the image depends on the kind of vehicle the author chooses. Images may be of single nature and extended, developed in various ways.

Imageless poetry in its basis has an assumption that figurative language though very essential is not the only property of verbal art.

While speaking on the epithet one has to remember the principal difference between the logical attributes and epithets. The former, however, may also become epithets in the text due to the ‘effect of the irradiation’.

Tasks and questions:

1. On what grounds are tropes and figures differentiated?

2. What does imagery provide?

3. What, according to I.A. Richards, are the component parts of an image?

4. Give the definition of a simile. How does it differ from a metaphor?

5. Why is it sometimes difficult to distinguish between metaphor and personification?

6. In what sense can irony and hyperbole be treated as identical?

7. Can you give a definition of an epithet?

2.

Metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: ‘The [first subject] is a [second subject]’.

More generally, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope that describes a first subject as being or equal to a second subject in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the description of the first.

The metaphor, according to I.A. Richards in The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936), consists of two parts: the tenor and vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the subject from which the attributes are borrowed. Other writers employ the terms ground and figure to denote what Richards identifies as the tenor and vehicle. Consider:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances; - (William Shakespeare, As You

Like It, 2/7)

This well-known quotation is a good example of a metaphor. In this example, ‘the world’ is compared to a stage, the aim being to describe the world by taking well-known attributes from the stage. In this case, the world is the tenor and the stage is the vehicle. ‘Men and women’ are a secondary tenor and ‘players’ is the vehicle for this secondary tenor.

The metaphor is sometimes further analyzed in terms of the ground and the tension. The ground consists of the similarities between the tenor and the vehicle. The tension of the metaphor consists of the dissimilarities between the tenor and the vehicle. In the above example, the ground begins to be elucidated from the third line: ‘They all have their exits and entrances’. In the play, Shakespeare continues this metaphor for another twenty lines beyond what is shown here – making it a good example of an extended metaphor.

The corresponding terms to ‘tenor’ and ‘vehicle’ in George Lakoff’s terminology are target and source. The metaphor discussed above would state that ‘LIFE IS THEATER’. In a conceptual metaphor the elements of an extended metaphor constitute the metaphor’s mapping – in the Shakespeare passage above, for example, exits would map to death and entrances to birth.

Metaphors are also referred to as comparisons without using like.

An extended metaphor, or conceit, sets up a principal subject with several subsidiary subjects or comparisons. The above quote from As You Like It is a very 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.

Metonymy is the use of a word for a concept with which the original concept behind this word is associated. Metonymy may be instructively contrasted with metaphor. Both figures involve the substitution of one term for another. While in metaphor this substitution is based on similarity, in metonymy the substitution is based on contiguity.

Metaphor example: The ship plowed through the sea (plowed instead of navigated).

Metonymy example: The sails crossed the ocean (sails instead of ship with sails).

In cognitive linguistics, metonymy refers to the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex entity and is one of the basic characteristics of cognition. It is common for people to take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a whole or for some other aspect or part of it.

Metonymy works by the contiguity (association) between two concepts, whereas metaphor works by the similarity between them. When people use metonymy, they do not typically wish to transfer qualities from one referent to another as they do with metaphor: there is nothing press-like about reporters or crown-like about a monarch, but ‘the press’ and ‘the crown’ are both common metonyms.

Two examples using the term ‘fishing’ help make the distinction clear (example drawn from Dirven, 1996). The phrase ‘to fish pearls’ uses metonymy, drawing from ‘fishing’ the idea of taking things from the ocean. What is carried across from ‘fishing fish’ to ‘fishing pearls’ is the domain of usage and the associations with the ocean and boats, but we understand the phrase because of the literal meaning of fishing: we know you do not use a fishing rod or net to get pearls and we know that pearls do not originate from, fish.

It can be concluded that translators, whose task is to produce a TL text that bears a close resemblance to the SL text, should be aware of cognitive and cultural issues when translating from, say, Arabic into English or vice-versa. Therefore, it is not enough for translators to be bilingual, but they should be bicultural as well. Because translators suffer twice when approaching some metaphors which are culture-bound and due to their figurative meaning intralingually, it is recommended that translators be trained in coping with metaphor translation not only in foreign-language programs, but also in their native language. Sometimes, even native speakers are not always able to comprehend the figurative meaning of messages in their own language.

Since metaphor is shaped by the socio-cultural beliefs and attitudes of a specific culture, our translation of this linguistic phenomenon is based on the ‘cognitive equivalence’, where metaphors must be looked at as cognitive constructs representing instances of how people conceptualize their experiences, attitudes and practices, and record them. Then operationally, we have drawn a distinction between the individual linguistic culture having its own set of metaphors related to a range of ideas, conventions, and beliefs, and a proposed ‘universal culture’ comprising many individual cultures (i.e. sub-cultures) sharing a set of metaphors reflecting the core values and practices common to most of the individual cultures.

In figurative language metonymy often interacts with metaphor. This interaction L. Goosens called “metaphtonymy”. In “burning heart” metaphor is integrated with metonymy on the grounds that metaphorically an image of an ardent person is created and simultaneously a property of one entity (heart) is associated with the whole (body), in other words, a metonymically used entity is embedded in a complex metaphorical expression. The sentence “the landlady kicked him out of the house” demonstrates (according to N. Riemer) on the one hand, clear metaphorical qualities, as the situation might be conceived both as a real act of kicking and as a non-physical eviction (the result however is the same: the man ended up outside). “Kick out” is just as clearly metaphorically related to the meaning “make leave”, since “kicking” could be one aspect of expelling someone from a house – a cardinal metonymic relation.

Metaphtonymy is the combination of metaphor and metonymy in actual natural language expressions.

As a complex domain, the domain of linguistic interaction intersects with several basic and non-basic domains, such as sound language, human actions, emotions, human cognition, perception, etc. E.g.: to applaud, to giggle, to wheeze (human sound); to bark, to cackle, to purr, to squeal (animal sound); to thunder (natural sound); to blow one’s own trumpet (sounds produced by musical instruments), etc. In the sentence – “Oh, dear”, she giggled, “I’d quite forgotten” a metonymic ingredient – to say or utter with a giggle – is mapped onto a linguistic action of “turning up the mouth at the ends” (direct meaning) and “laughing in a silly way” (metaphoric).

Metaphtonymy may be found out in a great number of linguistic expressions: to bite one’s tongue off (be sorry for what one has just said); to get up on one’s hind legs (to say smth in public), etc. Integrated metaphtonymy is the type in which in one and the same expression a metonymy and a metaphor are combined. This category includes metonymy within metaphor and metaphor within metonymy. Cumulative metaphtonymy implies that a metaphor is derived from a metonymy or vice versa. This is the case where “the end product” is a metaphor.

It is also possible to have a combination of the two types.

Tasks and questions:

1. What is metaphor? From concise definitions below choose the one you would characterize the metaphor with:

METAPHOR is

- transference of meanings

- implicit comparison

- description of one thing in terms of another

- blending of at least two meanings

- speaking of one thing as though it were something else

- implied comparison which creates a total identification between the two things compared

- a concluded equation of terms

- substitution based on similarity

Can you illustrate the chosen definition with an example of your own?

2. Point out to the tenor, vehicle and ground in the metaphor HE IS A LION.

3. What corresponding terms for ‘tenor’ and ‘vehicle’ does G. Lakoff suggest?

4. What is a ‘conceit’?

5. What is metonymy based on?

6. What does metonymy refer to in cognitive linguistics?

7. ‘To fish pearls’ and ‘to fish for information’ are metonymy and metaphor. How do they work?

8. What should the translation of metaphor be based on? How must a metaphor be looked at by a translator?

9. How can individual and universal cultures be viewed?

10. What is metaphtonymy? What two basic types of metaphtonymy could you single out?

♦ List of Works Recommended

1. Ивашкин М.П. и др. Практикум по стилистике английского языка. М.: АСТ: Восток-Запад, 2005. С. 7-11.

2. Skrebnev Y.M. Fundamentals of English Stylistics. M.: Высшая школа, 1994. С. 121-125; 118; 125-126; 129-131.

3. Galperin I.R. Stylistics, M., 2010. P. 167-169 (simile); P. 139-144 (metaphor); P. 157-162 (epithet); P. 144-146 (metonymy); P. 176-177 (hyperbole), P. 146-148 (irony).

4. Kukharenko V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. M., 1986, p. 37-66.

♦ Exercises