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Concept
Literal and figurative language
Summary
Literal and figurative language is a distinction within some fields of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics.
Literal language uses words exactly according to their conventionally accepted meanings or denotation.
Figurative (or non-literal) language uses words in a way that deviates from their conventionally accepted definitions in order to convey a more complicated meaning or heightened effect. Figurative language is often created by presenting words in such a way that they are equated, compared, or associated with normally unrelated meanings.
Literal usage confers meaning to words, in the sense of the meaning they have by themselves, outside any figure of speech. It maintains a consistent meaning regardless of the context, with the intended meaning corresponding exactly to the meaning of the individual words. On the contrary, figurative use of language is the use of words or phrases that implies a non-literal meaning which does make sense or that could [also] be true.
Aristotle and later the Roman Quintilian were among the early analysts of rhetoric who expounded on the differences between literal and figurative language. A comprehensive scholarly examination of metaphor in antiquity, and the way its early emergence was fostered by Homer's epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, is provided by William Bedell Stanford, Greek Metaphor,
In 1769, Frances Brooke's novel The History of Emily Montague was used in the earliest Oxford English Dictionary citation for the figurative sense of literally; the sentence from the novel used was, "He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies." This citation was also used in the OED's 2011 revision.
Within literary analysis, such terms are still used; but within the fields of cognition and linguistics, the basis for identifying such a distinction is no longer used.
Figurative language can take multiple forms, such as simile or metaphor.
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