Re-accounting For Essence Of Metaphor

Scholars both at home and abroad agree that similarity is indispensable in metaphor and similarity is essence of metaphor. Without similarity between source domain and target domain, there is no metaphor. Therefore, research on similarity constitutes a main part of metaphor studies. However, previous achievements on similarity in metaphor are not comprehensive, which are scattered in metaphor study. Similarity in metaphor is considered to be pre-existing in classical rhetoric while similarity in metaphor can be created in cognitive linguistics. The author agrees with cognitive view on similarity because the interpretation accords with people's cognitive psychological process of understanding metaphor in reality.This thesis is to re-account for essence of metaphor from multi-perspectives and aim to provide a new perspective for metaphor study. The author proposes that both similarity and fuzziness are essence of metaphor. Similarity in metaphor is subjective, dominant and relative while fuzziness in metaphor is objective, recessive and inherent. Fuzziness in metaphor is a manifestation of recessive logical laws, a product of psychological categorization as well as a result of fuzzy thinking. Metaphor keeps to recessive logical laws, and is dependent on psychological categorization as well as fuzzy thinking.