Metaphorical Style as Message

Abstract

This essay explores the relationships among "category," "analogy," "simile," "metaphor," and "style," and attempts to fit metaphor into chomsky's general theory of language. it also develops a whole-text or global approach to metaphorical style that extends analysis to the "metatext", the overall metaphorical pattern of an entire text. the theoretical concepts are illustrated through analysis of ordinary conversational sentences and through analysis of passages from three literary texts: "king lear" by william shakespeare, "gilliver's travels" by jonathan swift, and "the end of the affair" by graham greene.