Metaphor

Metaphor in Writing

As a mode of figurative language, metaphor is often connected with writing. Perhaps most commonly, analysis of metaphor is pervasive in literary fields where novels, plays and poems employing language rife with metaphor are subjected to intensive study. However, limiting metaphor to merely fictional or poetic realms neglects a wide variety of metaphorical usages. Ultimately, metaphor in writing serves as an encapsulation of the triangular relationship among the author, the reader and the text. In terms of the author, employing a metaphor is a compositional choice, one that reflects the author’s style and intention. Moreover, the author also recognizes that the text does not exist within a vacuum, and thus, metaphorical choices will inform the reader’s understanding of the sentence and text. Finally, metaphor is a gesture towards intertextuality, or the concept that texts interact and inform one another. As a writing convention, a stylistic choice or a means of reference to another text or concept, metaphor functions as a symbolic linkage to other writings, thus completing the reciprocal rapport between the three integral concepts of the compositional process.

Metaphor and Culture

While metaphor is most commonly situated in compositional environments, metaphor also has a powerful influence in several facets of society. True, the connection between the author and metaphor can prove deeply personal, yet in larger sociological and anthropological lenses, metaphor unveils itself as a cultural conception. Some metaphors, such as money as a means of exchange, hold near universality, but even in these instances, such metaphors hold differing cultural nuances. This is even more prevalent in metaphors unique to certain cultures. In a now canonical work of anthropology, Clifford Geertz wrote on what he perceived as the symbolic functionality of cockfighting for the Balinese, linking the practice to a number of cultural elements. Indeed, a culture’s symbols and metaphors can speak volumes, helping in understanding that particular culture, yet at the same time, it is important to recognize that every metaphor is both an intensely interpretative and a highly dynamic act. Rarely static in its scope and varying richly from culture to culture, metaphors hold possibility for illumination and misinterpretation; therefore, researchers must work with metaphors carefully.

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