ABSTRACT

From the perspective of most cognitive theorists, the very existence of simile is somewhat dubious. Although some language theorists have analyzed simile as a distinct figurative category, simile is more often lumped into the superordinate category of metaphor, a category that has achieved a transcendent importance in cognitive disciplines. This chapter argues that metaphors involve the selective mapping of structure from one conceptual domain to another, whereas similes really are a kind of comparison. People have been thinking of simile and metaphor as twin figures for a very long time. In his classical text Rhetoric, Aristotle first laid out the form-based distinction between simile and metaphor that would endure for centuries: The simile also is a metaphor; the difference is but slight. Literature is one of the most deliberate discourse types, and therefore an incredible showcase for creative similes.