Metaphor

The word metaphor is the derivation of the Greek word ‘metaphora’. Converting it to English the ‘meta’ means ‘transfer’ and ‘phor’ means carry or to bear. A metaphor is defined as a comparing two things which are unrelated or contradictory actually but have some characteristic in common. The figure of speech used in comparison is understood, indirect and hidden. In other words, a phrase or words used for referring one thing to the other thing to show that they are related. They are used in every language.

When the metaphors are used in the everyday speech then they do not generate any new meaning but clarify the existing understanding. Taking a metaphor as an example “He drowned in a sea of grief” does not actually mean that there is a sea of grieves but the person has a vast list of problems to be worried about.

The purpose of using metaphor is to create an image in the minds of listener or speaker about the situation. Metaphors are used not only in stories and poems but also in our everyday conversation. Many writers use the metaphor because it improves the writing in many ways and makes it more interesting like it helps the reader in understanding a concept in a deeper way. The situation and the feelings of the character or the person speaking can be conveyed more easily by using a metaphor. If the one word is not enough or become difficult to tell the situation in the simple language then the metaphor is used.

Metaphor and cultural knowledge

The metaphor symbolizes the customs, views, beliefs, philosophies and practical experience of the life of any culture. It reflects the core values and morals of any culture. It can be taken as a cultural metaphor which means the identification of any action or phenomenon by the people of that culture as cognitively or emotionally. It is an important factor to understand and attain the cultural awareness in language learning.

As in Modern Western Europe, print culture is used as a way of thinking and use the verbal metaphor. But the native group use visual metaphor as their way of thinking is based on oral culture. The native group shares the cultural knowledge using the visual metaphor but the modern Western Europe is unaware of it. The understanding metaphor of any culture helps to efficiently, quickly and easily understand the culture of the related area like for the business managers or students who have very less time to study the culture or the custom which is linked with their work.

Metaphors can be applied to a culture. American football is the example of a cultural metaphor. In the United States, it is a very famous sport. The popular holiday in America for the social gatherings and the families is in February because of SuperBowl which is held on Sunday even the Christmas holiday is replaced by it. So it becomes very important for the citizens (both U.S and non-U.S citizens) to understand the intricacies of the American football which helps them in understanding the culture the way in which the U.S managers conduct the business. They are agreeing to take American football as a metaphor to understand the complexities which are growing in the modern business.

In Arab (especially in women) the marriage is depicted as a protection and cover. In case of the kin relationship, this term is used in terms of sharing and integration. In Emirates, the metaphorical folk for marriage is “the sweetness of a dress lies in its internally related patches” (ḥalāt al-thaub rig‘atu minu fīh) which means that it is an integrated dress or a garment which covers the spouses. In Egypt, the metaphor is “zitnā fī digignā” (our flour is infused with our oil) which emphasizes on the sharing and integration bonding the married couple.

Conceptual Metaphors

The basic principle of the theory of conceptual metaphor is that the metaphor works at thinking level. They form the conceptual system of the brain. In easy words, there are two conceptual domains the metaphors link. One is source domain and other is target domain. The source domain involves literal things, characteristics, relationship and experiences like life, sadness, economy, love, war, etc. Related words and expressions are used to express them in a language and are organized in a group. The target domain is abstract and takes its form from source domain through the conceptual metaphorThe conceptual metaphor is categorized into as conventionality and cognitive function. The conventional conceptual metaphor is a manner to understand or to think about an abstract domain.

According to the theorist, the features of target domain are either highlighted or hide by the conceptual metaphor. Let’s take the example of time which is one of the most important human experiences. It was under study by the researchers and the philosophers before the Socratic times. The domain uses to refer ‘time’ in the English language is ‘money’ by English speakers. The expressions like ‘save’ or ‘spend’ which are particularly used for handling the money are used for describing time too. But it is not the same in the Arabic language.

Generally, time is conceptualized as space. Arabic is a vast language and the time can be used to describe many things such as motion, location and entities for example ‘March passed by us and we did not feel that’ here passed by us is used as a metaphor. Similarly, the time is used to express at a fixed location and moving with respect to it like ‘we reached the doorsteps of September’ also it is personified and used to or to wake up. It is used as measuring expressions. Furthermore, it can be lost, won, cut or even eaten one of its examples is ‘he ate his life’ as is the person has canned his years and eat it every day.

Poetic Metaphor

Poets use metaphors as a great mean to liven up their poetry to make people think in depth about their writings. Metaphors are used in poetry to say something and exaggerated in an indirect way. Now its readers job to find the meaning. Metaphor operates on different levels of poetry. Using sustained metaphor is the best example to show that how metaphor works. In sustained metaphor, the metaphor runs continually throughout the whole poem that makes it easy to identify. The sustained metaphors provide an inner complexity and an in-depth to the poem.

The poem is written to express the feelings or any subject using few words. So the maximum meaning is given using the minimum amount of words through metaphors. Readers are encouraged to interpret the words and use their imagination in their own way because instead of explaining the metaphors show the meaning of the subject in an indirect way. Sometimes there remains no choice but to use the metaphors to describe a particular feeling or subject.

William Shakespeare is known as the maestro in using metaphors. He used metaphors extensively in his work either they are drama or poetry. As he wrote in his poem ‘Sonnet 18’ that ”Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day”, he expressed his love for summer in an extended analogy. The metaphors used in rythming couplet till the last stanza.

In another line of the same poem “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” He describes the love by using characteristics of summer as a force which gives life and a force where life itself is possessed in it.

The inspiring work of Aristotle on the metaphors were translated into Arabic. Many metaphorical patterns were established in 9th Cemtuary by famous scholar Ibn Taimiyah. In the Mu'allaqa (Ode) of Imru' al-Qays in the sixth century, a famous traditionally poem there are six metaphors used. Mostly metaphors used in this poetry are constructed using a single phrase or line and are simple. Taking one line of its poem as an example:

“From time to time I used to journey in the morning, whilst the birds were still in their nests, on a well-built short-haired [horse], able to rein in wild game.” (1.53).

In Arabic context this line shows the fast and trim horse as a lock or chain of wild animals.

Conclusion

Using metaphors increase the ability to describe in language the experiences. When it becomes difficult to express the feeling or point exactly then metaphors are used. They are used in all languages and in different fields like in poetry, understanding different cultures, in every day conversations and even in story telling. Its an inborn talent to use the metaphors rightly. There are different ways of using metaphor like conceptual metaphor is used to understand the concept of one domain in terms of the other. The identification of the customs and beliefs of any culture can be symbolized using metaphors. Likewise the poetic metaphors are used by the writers to explain deep feelings to the audience using few words. This also adds beauty to the poetry.