ABSTRACT
Literary language is sometimes thought about in terms of its deviations from or distortions of ordinary language. Like many generalizations, this idea is both useful and misleading. It suggests that literary texts are characterized by the use of figures of speech or tropes, conceiving these as basically synonymous – in other words, as deviations from ‘ordinary’ or ‘literal’ language. Thus Chambers Dictionary defines a rhetorical figure as ‘a deviation from the ordinary mode of expression’, and trope as ‘a figure of speech, properly one in which a word or expression is used in other than its literal sense’. Such figures include, for example, hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy and anthropomorphism. Metaphor is the general term for the figure of resemblance, whereby
one thing is likened to another. Metonymy is a general term for the figure of association or contiguity, whereby one thing is talked about by referring to something associated with it. Anthropomorphism is the general term used to refer to the non-human as if it were human. So-called ‘ordinary’ language, by contrast, is thought to use far more literal language, language that calls a spade a spade.
