Simile
Simile Definition
A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things. Unlike a metaphor, a simile draws resemblance with the help of the words “like” or “as”. Therefore, it is a direct comparison. We can easy found the simile in literary cause this simile always use in the novel, short story, movie, poem etc.
Example:Taken from a short story Lolita written by Vladimir Nabokov,
“Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.”
This simile produces a humorous effect by
comparing old women leaning on walking sticks with the ancient leaning tower of Pisa.
Example:
Taken from the poem the Daffodils.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o’er vales and hills.”
The poet envisions himself as a free lone cloud that floats in a blue sky above valleys and the mountains. By choosing this simile, Wordsworth describes his loneliness.
Thats all the little describe about simile, now bellow the text you can more understand about simile.
Subjectivity and Pragmatic Features of Similes
The research has shown that similes are characterized by pragmatic features of modality, evaluation, transparency, and expressiveness, the set of which forms the notion of subjectivity in language. In modern communicatively orientated linguistics, the concept of subjectivity has broadened its meaning implying intersubjectivity and interactionality that are of the speaker/the writer and the listener/the reader. From some novel Capote’s story The Grass Harp (1980) has shown that similes in the former depict the objective reality in gloomy and dark colors, while in the latter they are very soft and romantic (see Examples 2-3).Example
(2) Warren’s All the King’s Men
(a) It (the word) had disturbed like an itch that comes when your hands are full and you can’t
scratch.
(b) They had worked over his face until it looked like uncooked hamburger.
(c) My brain felt as juiceless as an old sponge left out in the sun for a long time.
(d) I got out of bed very carefully handling myself with awestruck care as though I were a
basket of eggs.
(e) In the town like Mason City… time gets tingled in its own feet and lies down like an old
hound and gives up the struggle.
Example
(3) Capote’s The Grass Harp
(a) The answer, a little while in coming was fragile as the flight of a moth.
(b) “You cold?” Dolly said, and I wiggled closer, she was good and warm as the old kitchen.
(c) Sunmotels lilted around like yellow butterflies.
(d) I loved those love collected inside me like a bird in a sun-flower field.
(e) It was almost morning, beginning light was like a flowering foliage at the windows.
In respect to similes, we can following general types and forms of evaluation offered by Wolf (1985):
(1) rational and emotional-expressive;
(2) comparative and absolute;
(3) De dicto and De re forms.
We consider that the rational type of evaluation, which is based on the objective qualities of a thing, is realized only in ordinary comparisons while the emotional-expressive evaluation.
The Cognitive, Psychological, and Metaphorical Essence of Simile:
Its Invariant Model
One of the universal ways of the world perception is the comparison of one object (a thing or an event) with another aiming to point out their common and differential features that leads to further penetration into the essence of the TO (target object) enabling it to be viewed from a new angle.
Simile: The word simile ids derived from the Latin word “Simile”meaning „resemblance and likenesses‟,
technically it means the comparison of two objects with some similarities. Shamisa (1383) has said simile is the claim of likeness of two things in one or two attributes. “Simile is fundamentally a figure of speech requires overt reference to source and target entities, and an explicit construction connected them”.
In English, for this comparison some similarity markers such as, “like”, “as”. Mr. Smith is as changeable as a weathercock. He eats like a horse. In literary texts, simile is used with metaphors to enhance the effect and beauty of the text.
As metaphor is a covert comparison, simile is an overt one which explicitly and precisely explains the object and it the first and simplest method for conveying the beauty of message which is used in poetry, prose and also usual conversations. Even children talking about their desires, use simile as a means of
comparison.
Simile is much less investigated the metaphor, although it occurs in frequently in discourse. “Like metaphor, it is semantic figure, a mental process playing a central role in the way we think and talk about the world, which often associates different spheres”. It can may have an affirmative or a negative form: the affirmative form asserts likeness between the entities compared, as “the sun is like an orange” and the negative one denies likeness, as “the sun is not like an orange”.
According to Fromilhague (1995), a simile has various functions: First, they serve to communicate concisely and efficiently. They are one of the set of linguistic devices which extends the linguistic resources available. Secondly they can function as cognitive tools for thought in that they enable us to think of the world in novel, alternative ways. In discourse, they can also fulfill more specific functions depending on the textual genre in which they occur.
In scientific texts, comparison and analogical reasoning play an important role. Simile also differs from anology, intended in its narrower sense, as former involves four.
Unlike metaphors,similes require individuation of both source and target concepts, and an evaluation of what they have in common, but unlike literal comparisons, they are figurative, comparing things normally felt to incomparable, typically using vivid or startling images to suggest unexpected connection between source and target. Similes have different types and classifications, too. Bredin (1998) remarked about a scale going from the most stereotyped to the most creative similes. At one extreme are situated the conventionalized and fixed similes, and at the other extreme are the creative similes. Between the two extremes, standard (ordinary) and original (fresh, but not totally unexpected) similes can be settled.
Simile Versus Metaphor
The relationship between metaphor and simile has been a controversial topic in linguistics, philosophy, psychology, or rhetoric. The contextual-semantic study of the following structural elements in similes—like/to look like, as, as if, as though, to seem—has enabled us to regard like as the universal marker of comparison for the English language since it is most frequently used, establishing the relation of similarity between heterogeneous objects.
“Mrs. Dundee saw the long white face of Mr. Markham, thin and smooth as a piece of worn soap” (Hudson, 1978, p. 44). As for the two-component markers of comparison as if and as though, we consider them as synonyms, the first part of them as equating two heterogeneous events, while the other part if/though rejects the equation due to the meaning of condition, implied in it.
Besides, these structural elements are capable of merging two heterogeneous events so that both of them could maintain independence of their predications, realized in different clauses
Example: Verena was leaning a hand on Amos Legrand’s head as if he were a walking stick.
Example: Catherine tugged at my head as though it were an apple latched to an unyielding bough.
The absence of a formal indication of comparison in the metaphor makes the analogy it is based on more subtle to perceive. This difference between simile and metaphor leads some scholars to the belief that metaphor is more emotional and consequently more expressive, that it is restricted to more literary style, while simile is believed to be more logical and therefore better fitted to lend precision to the expressed thought due to which it can be used in any type of style.
Structural Types of Similes
we have singled out seven structural types similes the analysis of which we offer below.
Analytical similes are realized in a three-componential structure, having for its central component a P comp. through which the heterogeneous objects are brought together within the conceptual model
( Example ) His mouth was perfect like a Cupid’s bow. (Hardy, 1986, p. 47)
( Example) The sun hid behind the great torn leaves of the plantain and then shot a gold ray like outstretched paw of a Persian cat.
Synthetic similes are represented only by two components, the language markers of comparison like and look like having merged with the name, denoting the RO.
This causes the change of their linguistic status from that of a functional word to a suffixal morpheme which reduces a three-componential structure of simile to an attributive syntagma. Here are some examples of synthetic similes
Example: The raftlike tree-house seemed to be floating over the vaporish waters.
Example: She saw a fresh flowerlike face.
Ordinary and Inverted Similes
In ordinary similes the TO stands in pre-position. And the example about this simile below:
Example: Indeed, like gulls resting on a ship’s mast, they were sitting in the absolute tower of the tree.
Example : Like an inspired frog, Riley hopped and caught hold of one of the sheriff’s dangling boots.
Patent and Latent Similes
We define as patent those similes in which the comparative predication is always explicitly realized by a three-componential structure.
example: “The rain had thickened like a deepening scale of piano notes, it struck its blackest chord and drummed into a downpour that did not at once reach us”
. In opposition to patent similes, we define as latent those similes in which the comparison of heterogeneous objects is only implied,
The italicized attributive syntagmas in the above-given examples can be treated as latent forms of similes as they can be reconstructed in the three-componential sturcture of similes: “Those cornflower-blue eyes” = Those eyes that were as blue as cornflowers; “her magnolia-white skin” = Her skin was as white as magnolia; and “apple-red cheeks” = cheeks, that were as red as an apple. The research has revealed that the comparative predication can be made implicit mostly in those similes in which the TO is qualified according to some color.
Conclusion.
