We explain what figurative or metaphorical language is, under what circumstances it is used and various everyday examples and in poetry.
What is figurative language?
Figurative language or metaphorical language is a certain creative use of words, which uses them in a different sense from the literal one (that is, its traditional sense or plain language). That meaning is taken from another word or idea, and the interlocutor must unravel it in order to understand.
The different types of simile o metaphor, puns and double meanings are clear forms of figurative language, since words do not mean what they appear, but have a hidden or "secret" meaning.
From an early age, we learn that words always have an associated meaning, but that it is not always just one: a word can mean different things, depending on its use and its context.
Something similar occurs with figurative language, which uses words with a new meaning, more or less distant from the ordinary, either by comparing them with others or assigning them some creative twist.
This often occurs in literary texts, in riddles, in word games, in songs and even in the language daily. It is used especially in those subjects that are considered taboo, or that it is not good to speak in public, or also in the slang or speaks of a particular social group.
Examples of figurative language
To understand the use of figurative language, take a look at different examples, such as:
- When we say that "That boy is always in the clouds," we are not saying that he literally flies, or that he lives in the atmospherebut is always distracted.
- When we call one person "Lynx", "donkey" or "vampire", we are not literally affirming that they are or have the shape of said animals, but we are attributing characteristics (real or imaginary) assigned to said animals. animals in our culture: be very cunning, be very foolish, or profit from the detriment of others, respectively.
- When we affirm that we are so hungry "that we would eat a horse", we are describing by exaggeration the dimensions of our hunger, since the horse is a large animal and we want to convey the feeling we have through figurative language.
- When we say that a soccer player is "lame", in many cases we are not only not saying that he is missing a leg, but we are not saying that he plays so badly that it seems that he is missing a leg, but quite the opposite: it is about an ironic twist to say that he plays very well, or runs a lot, thus expressing the opposite of what we just said.
As will be seen, many of the figurative uses of language depend on a context, be it situational (where, when and with whom we are) or cultural (what does that mean in our culture, what local uses are accepted, what variant of Spanish we speak) .
In some cases, a receiver who does not have enough training or is totally ignorant of the context, may think that we are speaking literally, and become confused.
Poems with figurative language
The figurative sense is very common in the literary field, in which the language is taken to its maximum point so that it says much more than it apparently says. Thus, in the following verses:
"The name of a woman betrays me
A woman hurts all over my body "
(Poem "The threatened" by Jorge Luis Borges)
The figurative sense is clear: the name of this woman "gives away" the poet because when talking about her his feelings for her become evident, just as a woman does not literally "hurt all over her body", but rather it is her way of express the almost physical pain caused by her absence.
"My heart was a living and cloudy wing ...
a terrifying wing full of light and longing "
(Poem "My heart was a living and cloudy wing" by Pablo Neruda)
The figurative sense is in what he says his heart was: a wing, in the first place, perhaps meaning that it is volatile, that it does not stand still and at any moment it leaves. But it is also a "live and cloudy" wing, "full of light and longing", which is obviously not a literal sense, but a way of expressing the way in which the poet conceives his own heart.
"Sometimes the wood
from my table
has a dark crunch
a tear
diffuse of storm "
(Poem “La mesa” by Fabio Morábito).
The figurative meaning of these verses is not so simple to interpret, but it is clear: the poet's table "has" a "dark crack", something that cannot be said literally, since the sounds do not stain.
But then he adds that this sound is a "tear", as if the wood could tear like fabric, and that it is "diffuse from a storm", perhaps meaning that it is a sound like that of a coming storm. In any case, the poet attributes literally impossible concepts to his table.