Patricia Schulz : The relativity of the concept of metaphor
By observing how native speakers use the word metaphor in a metalinguistic way, the present article tries to show that they refer to the same "object" referred to by linguists. Furthermore, this concept seems to be characterized by linguists as well as by native speakers through a deep "negative aspect", which, according to the author, is due to its scope as a phenomena of "deviation", based essentially on the negation of the deep meaning of words, that is of the linguistic or semantic value attached to words. Metaphor is in deed generally described as an "improper use" of words, where "sentence meaning" is given up for/replaced by "utterance meaning". But, as the author tries to show in a second part, against common believes metaphor is not in itself an "object", which would be, so to speak, really present in our languages. It is not, as such, a "phenomena", but a fact, i.e. it is depending on an observer and, furthermore, on a theoretical point of view on language. This point of view includes specific hypotheses concerning the nature of this even language, and more concretely, the nature of "meaning". If metaphor seems to correspond to a certain degree with reality in ordinary language, this is because of a powerful illusion at the heart of natural language, and of which every speaker seems a victim: the illusion that there is some kind of extra-linguistic reality behind our words and phrases. As a consequence, by avoiding both this "referential" illusion and this point of view the concept of metaphor is no longer necessary to describe meaning.
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