Read, translate and analyze the following paying special attention to stylistic function of antonomasia.

1. He pretends to be old deaf deer Kaa but no one mistakes his intentions. You’d better stay aside and take care. (R.Chandler)

2."When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was Always."(Rita Rudner)

3."If the waiter has a mortal enemy, it is the Primper. I hate the Primper. HATE THE PRIMPER! If there's a horrifying sound a waiter never wants to hear, it's the THUMP of a purse on the counter. Then the digging sound of the Primper's claws trying to find makeup, hairbrushes, and perfume." (Primper is a girl who usually doesn’t buy at the bar but spends much time there, from to primp – to doll oneself) (Laurie Notaro)

4. Jerry: The guy who runs the place is a little temperamental, especially about the ordering procedure. He's secretly referred to as the Soup Nazi.
Elaine: Why? What happens if you don't order right?
Jerry: He yells and you don't get your soup.
(Jerry Seinfeld, the US Senator)

5."I told you we could count on Mr. Old-Time Rock and Roll!"
(Murray referring to Arthur in Velvet Goldmine)

6."I'm a myth. I'm Beowulf. I'm Grendel." (Karl Rove)

7. In the dining room stood a sideboard laden with glistening decanters and other utilities and ornaments in glass, the arrangement of which would not be questioned. Here was something Hurstwood knew about. He took no little satisfactio0n in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something of what the art of the thing required. (Th.Dreiser)

8. “Rest, my dear, – rest. That’s one of the most important things. There are three doctors in an illness like yours,” he laughed in anticipation of his own joke. “I don’t mean only myself, my partner and the radiologist who does your X-rays, the three I’m referring to are Dr.Rest, Dr.Diet and Dr.Fresh Air.” (D.Cusack)

9. Kate kept him because she knew he would do anything in the world if he were paid to do it or was afraid not to do it. She had no illusions about him. In her business Joes were necessary.(J.Steinbeck)

10. Where one man would treasure a single Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Mr.Ferraro bought wholesale.(G.Green)

11. (The actress is all in tears). Her manager:

“Now what’s all this Tosca stuff about?”(D.Salinger)

12. “You’ll be helping the police, I expect,” said Miss Cochran. “I was forgetting that you had such a reputation as Sherlock. (D.Sayers)

13. ”Christ, it’s so funny I could cut me throat. Madame Bovari at Columbia Extension School!”(D.Salinger)

14. “Duncan was a rather short, broad, dark-skinned, taciturn Hamlet of a fellow with straight black hair. (D.Lawrence)

15. Her mother said angrily, “Stop making jokes. I don’t know what you’re thinking of. What does Miss Fancy think she’s going to do?” (J.Steinbeck)

16. Then the boss spied a fellow at the far end of the soda fountain, a tall, gaunt-shanked, malarial, leather-faced side of jerked venison, wearing jean pants. Old Leather-Face did show. (R.P. Warren)

17. I'm through with behaving like the Madame of a private bordello for him, taking down telephone numbers for him saying, “Mr. Brenner is busy now, Yvette or Odile or Miss Big Tits, can he call you back? (I. Shaw)

18. He was fainting from sea-sickness, and a roll of the ship tilled him over the rail on to the smooth lip of the deck. Then a low, gray mother-wave swung out of the fog, tucked Harvey under one arm, so to speak, and pulled him off and away to lee-ward; the great green closed over him, and he went quietly to sleep. (R. Kipling)

19. Dexter watched from the veranda of the Golf Club, matched the even overlap of the waters in the little wind, silver molasses under the harvest moon. Then the moon held a finger to her lips and the lake became a clear pool, pale and quiet. (Sc. Fitzgerald)

20. Point to the most prominent traits of character for those who bear the following “speaking names”: Mr.Bean, Miss Holiday Golightly, Lady Carefree, Mr.Goldfinger, Mrs.Sunbury, Mr.Logic, Miss Noproblem, Mr.Chatterino.

Metaphor

Etymology

The English metaphor derives from the 16th-century Old French metaphore, from the Latin metaphora “carrying over”, Greek metaphora “transfer”, from metaphero “to carry over”, “to transfer”.

The most frequently used, well known and elaborated among lexical stylistic devices is a metaphor – transference of names based on the associated likeness between two objects or phenomena, as in the “food for thought ” for “mind work’, or “silver dust for “stars”, or “Father, who art in heaven” for “God”. So there exists a similarity based on one or more common semantic components between dust and stars, father and God. And the wider is the gap between the associated objects the more striking and unexpected – the more expressive – the metaphor is. Structurally metaphor is a non-marked device, i.e. it’s used without such syntactical elements as- as if, like, seem like, etc. giving a direct nomination to the object.

The structural mechanism of metaphor is the following:

Tenor Vehicle

Bases for comparison

Thus in “Time flies” time (tenor) is compared with something that is capable of moving in this fast way (vehicle). In “Life is a journey” life (tenor) is associated with a journey (vehicle) creating a special image of living which is like a journey may bring a lot of both pleasant and unpleasant things.

In A.Huxley’s “Point Counter Point” Molly d’Exergillod is called“a professional athlete of the tongue” because the attempts she had been making (to develop her native power) before any social gathering can easily be referred to a hard training time of a sportsman on the eve of an important competition. This is hardly complimentary because it underlines her rather physical efforts to remember something original than to understand it. The association is crystalline and evident and is based on common strong efforts to win in the end, in Molly’s case – in the conversation no matter how silly she looked.

In the example below the man who died was the entire world for the poet – at large and in every trifling detail. The poet gives him very expressing names – South, North, underlying his utmost need and the impossibility to live without him. On the other hand, Sunday, rest though seems to be of minor significance, is as necessary for anyone as other things mentioned before:

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest (W.H.Auden)

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 and these are metaphors “we live by”, i.e. we are not aware of their once expressive effect:

the hand of the clock; time flies; the river runs hurriedly to the East; my watch stopped or is slow, or fast.

Such metaphors are dead (trite). Stylistic function of metaphor is complex and the effect of its realization depends not only on its originality and freshness but on the ability of the reader to discern it. This demands rich associative connections in reader’s mind, erudition and extensity of reading. Metaphor high-lights the most important streaks, lines and traits of the hero displaying the image in all its depth and complexity. For instance:

“Sara was an empress” (J.Carry)

To comprehend the image created by this only one word portrait you should consult the dictionary for the associated meaning: “emperor, feminine empress, title designating the sovereigns of the ancient Roman Empire and, by derivation, various later European rulers; it is also applied loosely to certain non-European monarchs. In republican Rome (c. 509–27 BC), imperator denoted a victorious general, so named by his troops or by the Senate. Under the empire (after 27 BC), it was regularly adopted by the ruler as a forename and gradually came to apply to his office”. (Encyclopedia Britannica) According to the definition Sara must look like a monarch, i.e. grand, solemn, and unapproachable. She’s the person to worship, idolize and admire. In other words for the narrator she’s the one to obey because she’s invincible inherently. And if the reader has seen the pictures of empresses it won’t be difficult to imagine both Sara’s appearance and character.

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

When the speaker (writer) in his/her 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.

"All the world's a stage and men and women merely players.”
(W. Shakespeare. As you like it).

There’re two metaphors in this very famous example which represents a cluster or extended metaphor because the first association of the world with the theatre is further sustained by a somewhat detailed notice about the function of men and women in this world. Thus the image once created is developed adding all necessary subtle connotations.

There are also some types of metaphor based on the lexical, semantic and structural features. Their number is great and here there’re some examples.

A dead or trite metaphor is one in which the sense of the transferred image is absent and the originality is gone due to a regular usage. Examples: "to grasp a concept" and "to gather what you've understood" use physical action as a metaphor for understanding, most do not visualize the action; dead metaphors normally go unnoticed. Some people distinguish between a "dead metaphor" whose origin most speakers ignore, e.g. "to break the ice". Others use dead metaphor to denote both concepts, and generally use it to describe a metaphoric cliché.

Other types of metaphor have been identified as well, though the nomenclatures are not as universally accepted:

An absolute or paralogical metaphor (sometimes called an anti-metaphor) is one in which there is no discernible point of resemblance between the idea and the image, e.g. “light” as a metaphor for virtue. This type is commonly accepted as original because the gap between the tenor and the vehicle is great.

A dying metaphor is a derogatory term coined by George Orwell in his essay ‘Politics and the English Language”. Orwell defines a dying metaphor as a metaphor that isn't dead (dead metaphors are different, as they are treated like ordinary words), but has been worn out and is used because it saves people the trouble of inventing an original phrase for themselves. In short, a cliché. Example: Achilles' heel. Orwell suggests that writers scan their work for such dying forms that they have 'seen regularly before in print' and replace them with alternative language patterns.

An epic metaphor or Homeric simile is an extended metaphor containing details about the vehicle that are not, in fact, necessary for the metaphoric purpose. This can be extended to humorous lengths, for instance: "This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if you've got a moment, it's a twelve-storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof saying “This Is a Large Crisis.” (Blackadder- British sitcom of 1983) This example is also a developed sustained metaphor of a growing hyperbolized character with a definite hilarious effect.

A simple or tight metaphor is one in which there is but one point of resemblance between the tenor and the vehicle. Example: "Cool it". In this example, the vehicle, "Cool", is a temperature and nothing else, so the tenor, "it", can only be grounded to the vehicle by one attribute.

Cognitive linguists emphasize that metaphors serve to facilitate the understanding of one conceptual domain, typically an abstract one like 'life' or 'theories' or 'ideas', through expressions that relate to another, more familiar conceptual domain, typically a more concrete one like 'journey' or 'buildings' or 'food'. Food for thought: we devour a book of raw facts, try to digest them, stew over them, let them simmer on the back-burner, regurgitate them in discussions, cook up explanations, hoping they do not seem half-baked. Theories as buildings: we establish a foundation for them, a framework; support them with strong arguments, buttressing them with facts, hoping they will stand. Life as journey: some of us travel hopefully, others seem to have no direction, many lose their way.

Some theorists have suggested that metaphors are not merely stylistically, but that they are cognitively important as well. In Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that metaphors are pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but also in thought and action.

A common definition of a metaphor can be described as a hidden comparison that shows how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in another important way. They explain how a metaphor is simply understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. The authors call this concept a ‘conduit metaphor.’ By this they meant that a speaker can put ideas or objects into words or containers, and then send them along a channel, or conduit, to a listener who takes that idea or object out of the container and makes meaning of it. In other words, communication is something that ideas go into. The container is separate from the ideas themselves. Lakoff and Johnson give several examples of daily metaphors we use, such as “argument is war” and “time is money.” Metaphors are widely used in context to describe personal meaning. The authors also suggest that communication can be viewed as a machine: “Communication is not what one does with the machine, but is the machine itself.” (Lakoff, 1980).

Some metaphors are so common that we may not even notice that they are metaphors. Take the familiar metaphor of life as a journey, for example. We find it in advertising slogans:

"Life is a journey, travel it well."
(United Airlines)

"Life is a journey. Enjoy the Ride."
(Nissan)

"Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride with a GM reward card."
(General Motors)

"Life's a journey--travel light"
(Hugo Boss Perfume)

The same metaphor appears in the lyrics to the Aerosmith song "Amazing":

Life's a journey not a destination
And I just can't tell just what tomorrow brings.
(from the album A Little South Of Sanity)

Some linguists also find the following the visual metaphor:

a
le
af
fa
ll
s)

L one

L iness

As you may have noticed, this short poem by E.E. Cummings (or, as he preferred, e.e. cummings) is actually a double metaphor. He associates loneliness with the falling of a leaf, and also visualizes the experience by isolating letters as they fall down the page.

In the epoch of the Internet metaphor became widely spread on the Netspeak.

Opening a new window lets more enlightening in!

My desktop is cluttered with icons.

I’ve not much space on my hard drive.

A program’s tools never need sharpening.

A corrupt file wreaks havoc on the computer.

Thus the stylistic function of metaphor is to reveal the image through original comparisons based of various associations. The farther are the tenor and the vehicle the more fresh, vivid, and uncommon the images are.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 4005