FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING UNDERSTANDING METAPHORS Crabtree Publishing Company www crabtree books com BY ROBIN JOHNSON I tZ AN
WHAT IS A METAPHORPE Have you ever been called a chicken You don't have feathers or make clucking sounds do you But maybe you get scared sometimes A chicken gets scared sometimes too It is afraid it will be made into stew You and a chicken can both get scared so you have something in common If someone calls you a chicken he or she is using a netaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two unlike things It describes something by showing how it is the same as some thing else The two things are different in most ways but they share an important characteristic A characteristic is a feature or quality that identifies a person or thing
FIGURATIVE OR LITERALP We use two types of language when we speak and write We use literal language to describe things as they really are We say Our teacher is strict He gives us extra homework if we misbehave These sentences state facts which are true The teacher really is strict He really does give extra homework for bad behavior We also use figurative language This type of language takes words beyond their normal literal meanings We say Our teacher is a tyrant He gives us a mountain of extra homework if we misbehave The teacher is not acutally a tyrant A tyrant is a harsh or cruel ruler But tyrants and teachers both make people follow rules And the teacher does assign extra homework for bad behavior but it isn t actually piled as high as a mountain We use both literal and figurative language to tell our stories FTCURATIVE LTERAL T ve got more homework now than I've ever had beforer The first sentence is literal and does not compare unlike things The second sentence is figurative It uses a sea metaphor to describe the amount of homework Do you sea the difference'm drowning in a sea of
