Metaphor

Stylistic Means and Stylistic Devices

In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are made more conspicuous, more effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are called expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic markers, stylistic devices, tropes, figures of speech and other names. When a stylistic meaning is involved, the reader’s attention is arrested by a peculiar use of language media and he begins to decipher it.

The expressive means of a language are those phonetic, morphological, word-building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist in language as a system for the purpose of logical or emotional intensification of the utterance.

Lexical stylistic devices

Lexical stylistic device serves to create additional expressive connotations. In fact we deal with the intended substitution of the existing names. Each type of intended substitution results in a stylistic device called also a trope. The name of one object is transferred onto another, proceeding from their similarity (of shape, color, function, etc.) or closeness (of material existence, cause/effect, instrument/result, part/whole relations, etc.).

Metaphor

The most frequently used, well known and elaborated among lexical stylistic devices is a metaphor – transference of names based on the likeness between two objects, as in the “pancake”, “ball” for the “sky” or “silver dust”, “sequins * ” for “stars”. And the wider is the gap between the associated objects the more striking and unexpected – the more expressive – is the metaphor.

If a metaphor involves likeness between inanimate and animate objects, we deal with personification, as in the “face of London” or “the pain of the ocean”.

Metaphor, as all other lexical stylistic devices, is fresh, original, genuine when first used, and trite, hackneyed, stale when often repeated. In the latter case it gradually loses its expressiveness.

Metaphor can be expressed by all notional parts of speech. Metaphor functions in the sentence as any of its members.

When the speaker (writer) in his desire to present an elaborated image does not limit its creation to a single metaphor but offers a group of them, this cluster is called sustained (prolonged) metaphor.

* a small plate of shining metal or plastic used for ornamentation especially on clothing

Example of METAPHOR: “He was drowning in paperwork” is a metaphor in which having to deal with a lot of paperwork is being compared to drowning in an ocean of water.