Classifying Figuration
Literal language precedes figuration. It is the ground for all metaphor, and for every other kind of figuration.
Some examples of literal statement:
The cat sat on the mat
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit .[1]
Figurative language is based in literal language, but extends it. That extension can always be seen as having a from-to structure[2]: figurative language pushes out from literal language (this expression is, of course, itself figurative). There are other versions of essentially the same formulation: the original one of carrying-over, from which the term ‘metaphor’ derives[3]; Terence Hawkes’s transference of one reference to another[4]. All are metaphors drawn from action in space, with a ‘from’ and a ‘to’.
With I.A. Richards' tenor and vehicle[5] the tenor is the ‘to’, the entity (or whatever) being described, or captured; the vehicle is the ‘from’, the entity used to capture it. In, say, 'Johnnie is a pig', 'Johnnie' is the tenor and 'pig' is the vehicle. 'Pig' is pushed from its semantic homeground into another region – that of Johnnie, towards whom farmyard characteristics are beamed.
But the matter is less clear with the many species and subspecies of figuration that lie outside broad-sense metaphor. The following typology might help establish the point; I’ve thrown in most of the kinds I’ve come across, though without much special hunting; a full list would be even longer.
The categories are these:
1. One entity (etc.) is presented as another, the vehicle and tenor lie in separate domains. Here we have strict-sense metaphor and figurative simile, with various subspecies, some geekily arcane: personification[6], synaesthesia[7], hypallage[8], metalepis[9], some catachresis[10]; perhaps anthimeria[11].
2. Like strict-sense metaphor except that the vehicle is intrinsically connected with the tenor: metonymy and synecdoche[12], again with subspecies – autonomasia[13], antonomasia[14], merism[15]. Often treated as wide-sense metaphor, or not distinguished from narrow-sense metaphor at all (for instance by Aristotle).
3. The sprawling third category extends the from-to principle to assert an overall, non-obvious family relationship in figuration. Here, in metaphor’s second cousins, the vehicle-tenor, from-to relation is between an entity and itself:
(i) Through exaggeration or diminution: hyperbole, some euphemism, meiosis/litotes[16];
(ii) Through opposition or contrast: irony/sarcasm, oxymoron; or
(iii) Through intensified or otherwise refocussed self-identification: deliberate tautology[17], some repetition[18], hyperbaton[19], pleonasm[20], hendiadis[21], anaphora (plus epiphora and symploce)[22], possibly also zeugma[23] and aposiopesis[24].
It might help to show all that in a table:
To sum up: figuration has a two-part vehicle-tenor structure: self-evident in the cases of metaphor proper and simile, a little less so with metonymy and synecdoche, least obvious but still of the essence with the hodgepodge of self-referring figurations: hyperbole, irony and so on. All is from-to: a forward or upward (or level or downward) push of literal meaning, endlessly extending semantic possibility.
[1] Second statement: the human foetus loses its (very ancient) gills before it loses its (less ancient) tail. Third: the final sentence of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Ogden translation). Fourth: the opening sentence of The Hobbit, an epiphanic arrival (Carpenter 1977 J.R.R.Tolkien:A Biography 181).
[2] The parallel with Michael Polanyi’s from-to structure – from tacit to explicit knowledge (see his The Tacit Dimension) – is more than coincidental; figuration is perhaps a core example of it.
[3] Greek meta and pher or phor, ‘carry over’ or ‘carry across’.
[4] Hawkes (1972) Metaphor 1-2 and passim
[5] Richards (1936) The Philosophy of Rhetoric 96
[6] Personification: the tin-opener just bit me; the moon has nothing to be sad about.
[7] Synaesthesia: a switch of sensory modality: bitter cold, a smooth move, she’s as sweet as Tupelo honey.
[8] Hypallage: a loose and rather vague term, but ‘transferred epithet’ describes the main kind – ‘dreaming spires’, ‘a restless night’.
[9] Metalepsis: a familiar figurative word or phrase used in a new context: ‘the government’s got blood on its hands’.
[10] Catachresis: faux-inadvertent malapropism or other misuse: e.g. ‘mattermoney’ for ‘matrimony’ in Smollet’s Humphry Clinker.
[11] Anthimeria or (originally) antimeria: using one part of speech for another – nouning verbs and verbing nouns, but it seems to be possible with any part of speech: ‘But me no buts, speak me no but-speak’ (conjunction as verb, noun and adjective respectively).
[12] Metonymy: the shorter OED (1933 ed.) has ‘a figure in which the name of an attribute or adjunct is substituted for that of the thing meant, e.g. sceptre for authority’; synechdoche ‘a figure by which a more comprehensive term is used for a less comprehensive or vice versa’ – respectively England for a football team, hands for workers. Dancygier & Sweetser (2014, Figurative Language 100-1) say the distinction has become a muddle, and use metonymy to cover both meanings – a practice I have generally followed.
[13] Autonomasia: substituting a general term for a particular: ‘gone to town’ for ‘gone to London’.
[14] Antonomasia: substituting an epithet or a title for a proper name (‘the Dane’ for Hamlet); or the use of a proper name to express a general idea (‘a Scrooge’ for a miser).
[15] Merism: a combination of two or more component terms to refer to an entirety: ‘sword-and-sandal’ (film); ‘lock, stock and barrel’ (originally of a gun).
[16] Meiosis or litotes: the opposite of hyperbole: understatement – typically in insipidizing euphemism, or else shading into irony, but sometimes giving strength in its own right: ‘A little ring, the least of rings’ (Tolkien).
[17] Tautology: Heidegger, Poetry Language Thought 188 (with a minor elision): ‘Language itself is – language and nothing else besides. Language itself is language. The understanding that is schooled in logic calls this proposition an empty tautology. Merely to say the identical thing twice – language is language – how is that supposed to get us anywhere? But we do not want to get anywhere. We would like only, for once, to get to just where we are already.’
[18] Repetition: ‘A big big dog’, ‘a dog dog’ – the figure parallels ordinary emphasis: ‘a bi-i-ig dog’, ‘a real dog’.
[19] Hyperbaton: change in word order, again typically for emphasis: ‘Go there I must’.
[20] Pleonasm: Using more words than are needed to convey meaning (other than by repetition): ‘I saw with my own eyes’. Shades into tautology: ‘safe haven’, ‘frozen tundra’.
[21] Hendiadys: linking two words by conjunction instead of having one modify the other: ‘the cold and the wind’ instead of ‘the cold wind’.
[22] Anaphora/epiphora/symploce: repetition of a word or phrase in two or more statements: respectively at the beginning, at the end, or both. ‘First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out ... / Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out ... (etc.)’ is symploce. (From the Nazi-era Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, found in various versions. Niemoller, though at first a Nazi supporter and antisemite, did speak out and was incarcerated for eight years, seven of them in concentration camps.)
[23] Zeugma (also syllepsis): a single word to be understood in two different ways: ‘eggs and oaths are soon broken’.
[24] Aposiopesis: breaking off in the middle of a sentence: ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to ...’.