Figurative Language

Figurative Language is a traditional rhetorical style, which refers to a group of diverse tropes and uses of words describing pictorial or graphical objects in a non-literal way (Dancygier and Sweetser 2014; Colston 2015). Figurative language acts by contrast to other non-figurative language, just as a metaphorical word acts by contrast when used together with other non-metaphorical words (Ricoeur 2003: 161–162). Genette (1966: 205–221) reports that the contrast between figurative and non-figurative is that of a real language to a virtual one, and that the content depends totally on the speaker’s and listener’s own perceptions. In general, when necessary, all kinds of languages can be used in a figurative sense. Figurative expressions refer to the similarities of on object’s shape, colour, feature or function