Here, the writer can sum up that the logic is when the expression of language had become a part of metaphors; this language cannot be understood
anymore or read as literally, dictionaries meaning. Logic no longer useful because metaphor do not wanted to be understood by using a logical thinking.
Because metaphor made to be understood as a symbolic things, a figurative one. If we use a logical thinking to read a metaphor, then we can only find a
contradiction.
E. Tenor and vehicle
A metaphor is an expression in which a word or phrase and the concept represented stand figuratively for another word or phrase and its
concept. Remember that figuratively is the opposite of literally.
37
The key notion in seeing metaphor as cognitive is the recognition that in metaphor two concepts are operative simultaneously.
38
I.A. Richards was the first to baptize the two ideas active together in metaphor. He called them
tenor and vehicle.
39
For your consideration, look at this sentence, a violet is a flower
, and if we fragmented:
37
Zoltan Kovecses, Metaphor: A Practical Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 34
38
Although there are several passage concerning the trends of metaphorical research in the second chapter of Kovecses book, the description or the explanation is too short to be comprehended.
He admitted that had not done any research on the topic. What he does is give possibilities for doing research on metaphorical range of conceptual metaphor in English. From the quotation, it can be
assumed that Kovecses had the same ideas from Richard’s book Principles of Literary Criticism. [Kovecses, Ibid. pp. 36-39]
39
Richard Bradford, Stylistics, London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 35-36
A violet --- n is subject is --- v is linking verb
flower --- n is object The subject is described by the object, by way of the linking verb is. In
a poetry or prose, the components of the second statement are slightly renamed. Take a look at this sentence, my love is a violet:
My love --- n is tenor is --- v is copula or coupling verb
a violet --- n is vehicle This is the conventional model for the metaphor. We see that a tenor
or central subject that is described by the vehicle. The sense of vehicle used here is that which serves as a means of transmission, or as a material
embodiment or manifestation of something. The sense of tenor is “purport” or “drift,” as of an argument. The metaphor, then, is neither the vehicle nor the
tenor but the two conjoined. The difficulty with these terms becomes evident when we try to make precise the interaction between them. This will lead to
some terminological changes in later formulations. First, the writer need to explain some metaphor nomenclature: In a
typical metaphor, something a is something b. Example: Jennifer is a fox a = Jennifer, b = fox.
Lakoff Johnson, in their book, Metaphors We Live By, use the labels tenor
for a, and vehicle for b. Whether they invented the labels or someone else did, is unknown to this author. In order for a metaphor to work, the tenor
and the vehicle must have a common ground. In this case, in American English, the generally accepted common ground is beauty
. The metaphor is sometimes further analyzed in terms of the grounds.
The ground consists of the similarities between the tenor and the vehicle. When Wordsworth compares the tenor “evening” to the vehicle “nun”,
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration
He points to a single similarity, namely stillness or hush, attributing to it a kind of sanctity or reverence. The evening is “breathless” in the sense that
it is calm, no breeze is blowing; and this is like the breathlessness of the nun as she adores her Savior.
40
Unfortunately, Richards offered no explicit definition. Nonetheless, we can say that the vehicle is the idea conveyed by literal meanings of the
words used metaphorically. The tenor is the idea conveyed by the vehicle.
41
Anyhow, as the writer can sum up, in a metaphor, a word that in standard or literal usage denotes one kind of thing, quality, or action is
applied to another, in the form of a statement of identity instead of
40
Kittay, p.16
41
Ibid.
comparison. The examples above can be analyzed into two elements. In a usage now widely adopted, Richards introduced the term tenor for the subject
to which the metaphoric word is applied, a principal one, the topic addressed “my love”, and term vehicle for the metaphoric word itself, the analogue or
the subject carried over from another field of reference to that of the subject. “violet rose”.
F. Assortments of Metaphor
