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Metaphor

Metaphor occurs when we use words or visual constructions to make novel references in atypical contexts. In the sentences, “Metaphor can dress our ideas more clearly and colorfully” and “Metaphor offers a window on the world,” the words dress and window illustrate metaphor. We do not typically use dress and window to refer to words.

Perhaps the most basic use of metaphor is to expand the reach and repair the inadequacy of our referential system. When confronted by novel subjects, our tendency is to communicate by using words that seem related or similar, based on points of comparison between the novel and familiar subjects. The language of astronauts, as they struggled to describe the moonscape to audiences back on earth, was replete with basic metaphor.

Beyond its capacity to expand the referential system, metaphor can improve communication effectiveness. By associating the unknown with the known or the abstract with the concrete, metaphor can clarify meaning. By creating associations with colorful, picturesque points of comparison, metaphor can raise interest in and magnify the importance of subjects. “She is a volcano who might erupt at any moment,” for example, expresses vividly a speaker's fear over his or her supervisor in a work situation. By creating associations with liked or disliked and admired or despised points of reference, metaphor can also transfer attitudes that often serve hidden communication agendas, often raising ethical questions. “He speaks with Hitlerian fervor,” for example, creates a negative association without justifying the metaphorical pejorative. If the impression is striking enough, we may forget to ask critical questions, such as “What exactly does the speaker mean?” or “What justifies that description?” In all such uses, metaphor becomes a rhetorical strategy, selected for its capacity to promote the communicator's goals and to enable communication.

Classical Conception of Metaphor

The idea of metaphor first took form in the classical rhetoric of the early Greeks and Romans. The theory of expression developed over several thousand years ago diminished the role of metaphor in the creation and control of thinking. In Aristotle's justly famous Rhetoric, Book I deals largely with developing effective arguments. Book II offers a primitive, but insightful analysis of the psychology of the audience. Book III, which deals with the expression of these generated, adapted arguments, finally offers a place for the work of metaphor.

Even more influential in shaping the early theory of metaphor were the famous five canons of rhetoric developed within the Ciceronian tradition. For Cicero, rhetors who systematically practice the art of effective communication must begin by discovering, exploring, and selecting ideas (inventio), arranging these ideas for maximum effect (dispositio), choosing words to convey these ideas with clarity and color (elocutio), committing these ideas to memory for recall during presentation (memoria), and presenting these ideas amplified by the full resources of voice and gesture (pronunciatio). Metaphor was relegated to the third phase of the process as a stylistic device, even though it did occupy a prominent place in the canon. Aristotle, for example, thought that understanding metaphor was the key to grasping the power of language. Still, the metaphor used most often by classical theorists to describe metaphor—as our earlier example indicates—was that it served as the dress of ideas. This metametaphor indicates and signifies how classical rhetoric underestimated the full range of metaphor's work. As they separated ideas from words, and relegated words to an inferior service role in expression, these early theorists restricted understanding of both creativity and expression.

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