Figurative Language Versus Literal Language

Figurative Language versus Literal Language

1. An Idiom is a word or phrase that is not easily translatable to another language (Definitions, 2012). For example on several occasions, I have stated or have heard others state when they get mad that they have “hit the roof.” This states that either you were angry or to some that, you actually laughed hard at something. This is a good example of an idiom because one meaning to some may mean something different to someone else. As native speakers of English, we use and understand idioms naturally and automatically. It will seem foreign to someone of a different culture that may not have the same manner of dialect or grammatical rules that we express in our language.

2. An Analogy is a similarity between two things that are very similar or comparable. We tend to use analogies when we are trying to highlight some point of similarity. As Freud stated, an analogy will not settle an argument, but a good one may help to clarify the issues at hand (Nordquist, 2012). For example trying to explain our short term memory, we can use the analogy that our short-term memory is like the RAM on a computer: As I am typing this information for this assignment to submit, somehow the information is recording all my typed information on the screen right now.

However, if I turn off my computer without hitting save all of my typed information to submit will disappear as if I never typed it in the first place. This statement is an analogy to compare our short-term memory to the RAM on a computer. This analogy used is not stating that the human memory functions the same as a computer. It was simply an analogy used to offer an illustration rather than a detailed examination.

3. A Metaphor is a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that does not literally represent its similarity. This is very different form an analogy. An analogy is a figure of language that expresses a set of like...