METAPHORS IN WRITING

Avoid Metaphors in Writing



“Avoid Metaphor When You Write”

Introduction

The topic under study critically discusses the statement, “Avoid metaphor when you write. Any writer who wants to put their ideas across effectively and clearly should use literal language”. The statement describes that while writing, the writer should use words or language that is not figurative. The reader should not perceive the words that are used, as metaphorical. The use of metaphor in language pertains to the use of figurative language or images to make the writing tangible.

Argument

I construct my argument against the statement. Reason is that, Metaphor in use of writing is a world phenomenon in natural languages and been studied by philosophers and linguists all along. From Aristotle in ancient Greek, people had already explored the mystery of metaphor from the angel of rhetoric and metaphor is viewed as a set of extraordinary figurative expressions. While at present, the study of metaphor has not been confined to the rhetoric field, but has extended to linguistics and cognitive psychology. The study about metaphor has reached its most successful stage in the 1970s, which is known as a metaphormania or Metaphoric Revolution. In 1980, the publication of Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphor, We Live By, symbolized the all-round beginning of metaphor study from a cognitive view. Metaphor is no longer regarded as a figure of speech, but a way of thought. From that time on, the cognitive approach to metaphor has grown into one of the most exciting fields of research in the social science. The study of metaphor has been so abound people have become more and more aware of its significance. Scholars begin to realize that the study of metaphor can be connected with a lot of other subjects, that is, metaphor can be applied in a lot of other fields, such as linguistics, philosophy, pragmatics, semantics, psychology, literature criticism, translation, language teaching and so on. One of its significant practicability lies in its application in the field of language writing. The proliferation of acronyms and idioms seems to be a growing trend in the writings of the press and speech of the politicians as well as in the usage of the general public.

Cognitive science research shows that early human beings began to recognize the world by themselves, and they regard themselves as the standard to measure the universe. People often take advantage of similarities between things, form bodily metaphors with their most familiar parts of the body organs to acknowledgement, experience and feeling in other areas. That is why there are many words about body organs, which not only have rich metaphorical meanings but strong word-forming ability.

Metaphor in Writing

Metaphors refers to the manner in which one uses words (both written and spoken) to convey messages indirectly. The one conveying the message chooses to use language in figurative or non pedestrian ways in order for the reader or listener to come to an understanding about what the messenger wants understood about a particular subject matter, ideology, or ...