Literary and Economic Metaphors

Elham Ghanbari

Research has shown that metaphorical expressions play significant roles in specialized texts. Findings regarding the importance of metaphorical language in different texts and its prospected implication in developing the texts can pave the way for better communication in different genres. Metaphor is a pervasive feature of language. We use metaphors to talk about the world in both familiar and innovative ways, and in contexts ranging from everyday conversation to literature and scientific theorizing. However, metaphor poses serious challenges for standard theories of meaning because it seems to cause so many important boundaries: between language and thought, between semantics and pragmatics, between rational communication and mere causal association, and also between written texts of different genres. Metaphorical language refers to phrases or expressions in which the intended meaning is independent of and typically not directly computable from the literal meaning of the constituent elements.

The present volume looks into metaphor in two fundamental types of texts: literary and economic texts. It, in essence, makes a comparison between the metaphoric language use in economic and literary texts so that new findings might be reached concerning the application of metaphor in authentic texts.