Story Metaphors and Recognition of Metaphoricity

Abstract

It has been well known that defining metaphor is no easy work. However, in our communication, we actually distinguish the cases where we feel metaphoricity, as in Juliet is the sun, from those where we don’t, as in A flower is a plant. We comprehend metaphorical utterances by recognizing or creating similarities on at least three different levels: the object, proposition, and story levels. This paper examines the interpretation processes of the three types of metaphorical utterances, and claims that our recognition of metaphoricity is properly explained by a certain characteristic utterance interpretation pattern. This research also reveals, by observing what this paper calls “story metaphors,” that inductive rules such as abstraction play an important role in drawing implicatures in our communication.