Unit 9b Metaphor 2 It is preferable to complete a whole unit before sending it in. Please use the 'incomplete' option only if you have no other alternative. Enter your name: Enter name of school: Enter your e-mail:

1) Read the texts below. a) Write the numbers of the texts which are witty (funny and clever) below. Numbers: b) Translate them. 1) a) The scale of this map is 1:5000.     b) Music students spend much time practicing scales. 2)a) It was pure chance that I met him that day. 2) b) I thought I would never get another chance to show off my acting skills. 3) - How is your project coming along?     - Fine. The skeleton is ready. Now we are starting to put some flesh on it.     - And when will it be live and kicking? 4) - He took the plunge and left the kibbuts.     - And, did he go under?     - No, he's actually doing very well. 5) After months of incubation, the traffic police has finally hatched a simple and revolutionary idea for tracing stolen cars. Hopefully, the Minister won't be too chicken to implement it. Some linguistic background - live and dead metaphor Metaphors range on a continuum from live to dead. A metaphor is dead when it loses its metaphorical aspect - the metaphorical meaning of a word has worn off and the word now simply has more than one meaning, e.g. 'scale' = הדימ הנק & ילקיזומ םלוס (text 1); 'chance' = הרקמ & תונמדזהב (text 2). We call this type of word a polyseme (הימסילופ) from Greek: poly = many; seme = meaning (semantics = the study of meaning). On the other end of the continuum are live metaphors, which are easily recognized, and might even be one-time, speaker-specific utterances, e.g. 'put some flesh' and 'live and kicking' (text 3) and 'go under' (text 4) make the dead metaphors 'skeleton' and 'took the plunge' live again. Metaphor lends itself to originality and creative use of language. Mixing literal and metaphorical meaning, inventing new metaphors or playing around with them usually produces humour and witticism. Live metaphors are a real challenge for the translator because of their demands on creativity. Metonymy 2) Read the sentences below and translate them. 1. He's been in uniform for seven years. 2. The work involves a lot of travelling so you'll be spending hours at the wheel. 3. Children can spend hours at the keyboard playing games. 4. He heads the European desk in the Foreign Office. 5. The rumor was denied by the White House. Some linguistic background - metonymy A word can have more than one meaning and not be a polyseme: language sometimes uses a part to convey the whole. This phenomenon is called metonymy. Example: 'in uniform' has two meanings: 1) wearing the same clothes worn by a group of people 2) in the military (Uniforms are commonly identified with the army and the word has come to mean 'the military'). Note Metonymy does not usually present a problem to the translator. 3) Read the passage below. a) In the table below, write all the metaphors, polysemes, and cases of metonymy (columns 2-4). b) In column 1, try to put the metaphors on a continuum from live to dead (when it has become a polyseme). 1 LIVE--->DEAD 2 METAPHORS 3 POLYSEMES 4 METONYMY Genius We found it very difficult to follow the flow of his argument. We couldn't make any sense out of it. He had completely lost us. When someone from the floor remarked she had not grasped the main point, he erupted in anger and emitted an avalanche ofinvective. Everyone looked down rather sheepishly. Suddenly I had a brainwave. I suggested that we split up into groups and pool what each of us had understood. He snorted and made a snooty remark about having apparently overrated our intellectual ability. A genius? Maybe, but I'd hate to be his wife. 4) Translate the passage. To sum up When the metaphorical aspect has worn off, and the metaphor is dead, the word becomes a polyseme - the different meanings co-exist side by side, the context determining the appropriate translation. In this unit we have also looked at metonymy - a part used to denote the whole. In the final passage, you have reviewed all the areas of semantics you have dealt with up to now.

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