Metaphor

In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Typically, a first object is described as being or having the properties of a second object. In this way, the first object can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second object can be used to fill in the description of the first. Some (particularly in cognitive linguistics) see metaphor as a basic cognitive function, while others prefer the term analogy for this concept. However, metaphor is not always used for practical description and understanding; sometimes it is used for purely aesthetic reasons. Metaphors are commonly confused with similes, which use the words "like" or "as."

References

• A. Ortney, Ed. (1993). Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, Chicago University Press.
• George Lakoff. (1990). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago, Chicago University Press.
• Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. I. Bywater. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. (1984). 2 Vols. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
• Max Black. (1962). Models and Metaphor. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
• Donald Davidson. (1978). "What Metaphors Mean." Reprinted in Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation. (1984). Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Jacques Derrida. (1982). "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy." In Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
• I. A. Richards. (1936). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Paul Ricoeur. (1977). The Rule of Metaphor. Trans. Robert Czerny. Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
• A short history of metaphor