Literal and figurative language
Literal and figurative language is a distinction that exists in all natural languages; it is studied within certain areas of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics.
Literal usage confers meaning to words, in the sense of the meaning they have by themselves.[2] It maintains a consistent meaning regardless of the context,[3] with the intended meaning of a phrase corresponding exactly to the meaning of its individual words.[4] On the contrary, figurative use of language (a later offshoot being the term figure of speech) is the use of words or phrases with a meaning that does make literal sense but that might also be true.[5]
The Ancient Greek philosopher of rhetoric Aristotle and later the Roman rhetorician Quintilian were among the early documented language analysts who expounded on the differences between literal and figurative language.[6] A comprehensive scholarly examination of metaphor in antiquity, and the way its early emergence was fostered by Homer's epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, is provided by William Bedell Stanford, Greek Metaphor,[7]
In 1769, Frances Brooke's novel The History of Emily Montague was used in the earliest Oxford English Dictionary citation for the figurative sense of literally; the sentence from the novel used was, "He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies."[8] This citation was also used in the OED's 2011 revision.[8]
Within literary analysis, such terms are still used; but within the fields of cognition and linguistics, the basis for identifying such a distinction is no longer used.[9]
Standard pragmatic model of comprehension[edit]
Prior to the 1980s, the "standard pragmatic" model of comprehension was widely believed. In that model, it was thought the recipient would first attempt to comprehend the meaning as if literal, but when an appropriate literal inference could not be made, the recipient would shift to look for a figurative interpretation that would allow comprehension.[28] Since then, research has cast doubt on the model. In tests, figurative language was found to be comprehended at the same speed as literal language; and so the premise that the recipient was first attempting to process a literal meaning and discarding it before attempting to process a figurative meaning appears to be false.[29]
Reddy and contemporary views[edit]
Beginning with the work of Michael Reddy in his 1979 work "The Conduit Metaphor", many linguists now reject that there is a valid way to distinguish between a "literal" and "figurative" mode of language.[30]