ABSTRACT
Figurative and literal are uses of words; the word 'sun' can be used literally or figuratively: 'The sun is in the sky' and 'Juliet is the sun' are literal and figurative uses of the word 'sun'. Searle goes on to challenge the literal meaning hypothesis, arguing that the notion of literal meaning is only applicable relative to a set of background assumptions which are not themselves specifiable in advance. For one's own purposes, however, the important idea is that of words having a literal meaning, such that a literal use of a word is a use of it with its literal meaning. In contrast, there are no figurative meanings of words, only figurative uses. So 'Juliet is the sun' does not draw on a figurative meaning of sun; it uses the word 'sun' figuratively. In contemporary literary theory two kinds of figurative language use metaphor and metonymy have assumed particular prominence.
