• What is the literal sense?
• What does it mean for something to be "literal"?
• Examples of literal sense
• Literal sense and figurative sense

We explain what the literal sense is, how it is interpreted and various examples. Also, differences with the figurative sense.

All words and phrases have a literal meaning.

What is the literal sense?

In linguistics, the literal sense or literal language is the sense given that the words have. That is, the explicit and obvious meaning, without twists or metaphors, which anyone can understand, the so-called "dictionary meaning", thus opposed to the figurative or metaphorical sense.

All words and phrases have a literal meaning, that is, a literal way of being interpreted, which takes the message the verbatim. It is generally considered as the most elementary of meaning, its primary level, common to all speakers of a language regardless of dialects, sociolects or private semantic codes. That is why it is also the fixed meaning, or at least the one with the most gradual change, that words have.

What does it mean for something to be "literal"?

When we speak of something being "literal" or occurring "literally", we are meaning that it corresponds perfectly with it. language that we use to describe it, that is, we are not using any Figure of speechWe are neither exaggerating, nor are we fictionalizing. It is a way of saying that something happened "as is".

For example, when we say that someone "literally died of cold", we are pointing out to our interlocutor that in this case "dying of cold" does not constitute the idiomatic turn that we normally use to say that it is very cold (as in "I'm dead of cold ”), But that person actually died of the cold, perhaps frozen in the winter. We use "literally" to make it clear to the other person that what is said is not a metaphor.

Examples of literal sense

It is not difficult to find examples of literal sense, since it is the given sense of the words. It is enough to not use any twist or metaphor when speaking.

• When we say that someone literally “starved”, it is because that person died after going too long without eating anything.
• If someone literally "lost his head", it means that he was beheaded.
• Someone cannot literally be a rat, since these little animals are not Humans.
• A couple that "jumps into the water", literally, is because they are together in a pool, or on the beach, and not because they want to get married, as is the figurative use of that expression.

Literal sense and figurative sense

As we have seen, the literal sense is opposed to the sense or Figurative language, in which words and expressions are not interpreted explicitly, verbatim. On the contrary, the figurative sense is hidden, it is creative.

The receiver can deduce this meaning using his imagination, as in the case of literary or poetic language, or it is encoded in the language and the culture, like common places, sayings or the "sayings."

Thus, when we say that we are "freezing to death", it does not literally mean that we are about to lose our lives due to freezing, but that we are very cold. We use that exaggeration to emphasize our message.