A metaphor. An immanent feature of the language of poetry or a universal linguistic label?

The article is an attempt at answering the question about the function of metaphors and their formal-semantic shape mainly in poetic and scientific texts. The comparative analysis being carried out proves that metaphorical conjunctions occur in both variants of utterances but their stylistic function, frequency and a degree of conventionalization are of a different character. Innovative and strongly individualized metaphors are characteristic of poetry whereas for the language of science – mainly metaphors considerably standardized based on system models and structures whose genetic innovative- ness we are no longer aware of; rarely innovative metaphors. Therefore it seems unauthorized to treat metaphors as universal linguistic labels typical of each kind of utterance unless we understand such universality in a slightly narrower sense, i.e., as “useful, usable, suitable, helpful”.ulasokolska@o2.plUniwersytet w Białymstoku1223925