Kussainova Gulnara Samenovna

сandidate of Philology (PhD in Linguistics),

Shakarim State University of Semey, Kazakhstan.

Foundations of theory of metaphor.

For many centuries the traditional object of research in Linguistics has been a metaphor – its stylistic opportunities, semantics and functions, the form of a metaphorical sign, regularity of metaphorical process.

The Oratory of Gorgias, an ancient Greek sophist (nearby 483 – about 375 B.C.), comprised many innovations: symmetrically constructed phrases, sentences with the identical endings, rhythmic partitioning (division) of speech, metaphor and comparison. The wide usage of metaphors was one of the characteristics of Gorgias’s style, which later resulted in establishing of a new term in Rhetoric «Gorgian figures». At that time many linguistic phenomena were called "metaphors", later those phenomena would be named “tropes”. During this period «Gorgian figures», i.e. metaphors, become an obligatory component of art prose style.

The principles of the theory of metaphor have been introduced by Aristotle in his treatises "Poetics" and "Rhetoric". In European scientific tradition it was the first analyses of a metaphor, the analysis which tried to reveal the mechanism operating on semantic changes.

The metaphor for Aristotle is means of oratorical influence. Aristotle opposes a metaphor to common words, the metaphor stands above an ordinary "low" syllable (style), only few people can use it, and it is a component of oratorical and poetic speech.

Aristotle defines in a metaphor the following aspects: 1) the metaphor is built on analogy or comparison; 2) metaphor should combine lucidity and a riddle; 3) metaphor enables a person to learn about the unknown on the basis of known and gives a name to it; 4) metaphor is the individual act of formation of a concept and it reflects individual knowledge.

The concept which has been introduced by Aristotle, can be considered as a first step in studying the cognitive aspect of a metaphor – he was the first to raise the question about ability of a metaphor to cognize the world and to fix knowledge in language.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman politician, the orator and the writer (106 – 43 B.C.), differentiated kinds of metaphorical changes: he distinguishes a linguistic metaphor – catachresis, and a literary metaphor which is actually a metaphor. Cicero differentiates "metaphorical" and «metonymical» expressions, specifies the concept of "metaphor", defining it as «the comparison reduced up to one word» [1]. Cicero accentuates a pragmatical function of the metaphor – an effect of influence of oratorical speech on the audience, but he leaves out the linguistic approach to studying a metaphor.

The other well-known Roman orator and the theorist of Oratory Marko Fabije Kvintilijan defines metaphor as the most beautiful and the most generally used trope. According to Kvintilijan, the metaphor represents the shortened comparison and consequently the structure of a metaphor can be fully revealed in comparison.

Kvintilijan systematized tropes. Into the system of tropes he includes a metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, catachreses, an epithet, periphrases, antonomasia. The modern system of tropes has undergone minor alterations: its some separate units have been specified, more detailed development has been introduced, but as a whole the system of tropes was kept in the original form.

As a whole Antique Rhetoric introduced the following tasks: metaphor should be studied as means of oratorical influence that had caused the further studying of its expressive and communicative features; there had been raised a question about logic bases of a metaphor and its heuristic opportunities had been put; it was necessary to research how metaphor and expression of new knowledge of the world were connected and, that was the most important, the metaphor was treated as a phenomenon comprising a problem, instead of something finally solved.

In medieval Rhetoric the basic object of studying becomes a symbol and allegory. This, first of all, had been directed to a problem of interpretation of the Sacred book of Christianity.

Why a symbol, but not a metaphor, became an object of interest of rhetoricians and philosophers of the Middle Ages? For this purpose it is necessary to consider those parts of a symbol which distinguish it from a metaphor. In symbol a concrete meaning is fixed in concrete figurative means. Designated is not represented directly, the meaning of a symbol, its secret are clear and accessible only to the few, it remains hidden for uninitiated. In metaphor, unlike in symbol, designated and an image are merged, means of expression bears the sense concluded in it.

Metaphor is based on likening, and it expresses subjective perception of the world, it represents designated in certain light, depending on the author’s intention. All these features distinguish metaphor from a symbol. And this was a primary factor which made Metaphor unacceptable for interpretation of the Scripts. Not a metaphor, but allegory as a method of conditional, symbolical information appeared the most suitable means for the analysis of transcendental senses of the Scriptus.

Renaissance stimulates interest to studying of a metaphor as a sign of the creative nature of the language that allows to cognize creative opportunities of the person. According to Renaissance theorists, metaphor, rather than words in direct meaning, better describes the reality and promotes other perception of the world. Metaphor as a version of illusionism, allegory is the way of reflection of the reality in which basis the principle of fictitiousness has been put, that is an assumption of similarity between subjects and the phenomena.

Later the principle of a fictitious identification als ob – "as though" has been developed by I.Kant, the ancestor of German Classical Philosophy (1724-1804). According to I.Kant’s Philosophy of Analogy, a person tries to correlate abstract things with concrete ones by means of analogy, tries to interpret the abstract concept through the prism of sensual experience. This correlation is carried out by means of a principle of a fictitious identification als ob. [2].

The Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) continued to study creative and cognitive opportunities of a metaphor in the science of New time in the epoch of baroque [3]. Vico puts a problem of a metaphor as means of formation and expressing knowledge, puts forward the idea about a metaphor as a natural way of expressing something different in our attitude. The metaphor, by Vico, appears as a way of expressing an attitude in its national and time specificity: each epoch designs the myth, the difference is only in metaphors used at every time.

Thus, Antique Stylistics and Stylistics of Renaissance had the double approach to a problem of a metaphor: on the one hand they had turned to Logic as to the science about methods of knowledge, and on the other hand – to Psychology of Language. From the point of view of Logic (Aristotle) metaphor is the latent (hidden) comparison, from the point of view of Psychology of Language (Vico) – metaphor represents a myth – special type of attitude and outlook in the certain interval of time. This dialectics of a metaphor has allowed treating the idea of the unity of thinking and language within the limits of a question about world outlook and cognitive functions of the language.

Later Vico’s approach has been developed by Humboldt (1767-1835) [4].

Linguistic concepts of Vico, V.Gumboldt, A.A.Potebnya, about the language as creative activity, enabled to analyze a metaphor in a view of its role in formation, and expression of knowledge of the world in different languages.

Literature.

1. Античные теории языка и стиля. – СПб., 1996. – 362 с., с.231

2. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, Translated by J. H. Bernard, New York: Hafner Publishing, 1951.

3. The bases of the new theory of a science about the general nature of the nations.– 1940. XXVI. – 620 p.

4. W. Humboldt,   Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts. W. von Humboldt's Gesammelte Werke, 6. Band, Berlin, 1848.