ЗМІСТОВНІ ОЗНАКИ І ФУНКЦІОНАЛЬНЕ ПОКЛИКАННЯ МЕТАФОРИ

Abstract

A metaphor is a extremely flexible tool of expression. It serves as method of approbation and introduction of new concepts into communications in the social reality. By virtue of metaphor the stratification of sense takes place: the lack of concept at one metaphoric level is compensated by the surplus of concept at other level. The epistemological value of metaphor is determined, first and foremost, by the possibility of interaction between the emotional and rational levels of cognition. Among the invariant properties of metaphor it is worth mentioning the possibility to combine the processes of thinking and linguistic creativity, to dialectically join the occasional and necessary things, to visualize the unvisual things, to underline the contextual and situational dependence, to persuade in the importance of so called background knowledge. The metaphor is closely linked to the process of thinking. Moreover, the metaphor is deeply rooted in human life practices and is an integral part of our ordinary everyday thought and language. Metaphor is a tool so ordinary that we use it unconsciously and automatically, with so little effort that we hardly notice it. There are several hundred universal metaphors that we learn and regularly use. The significance of metaphor and expression in a metaphorical way is due to the orientation of the epoch to mythology, religion and art. Epochs, oriented mainly on the metaphor, were Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, and modern times. In general, the metaphor is a classic mythological instrument of expression, which confirms the functional and instrumental inexhaustibility of the myth. Keywords: metaphor as tool of expression of ideas, communications of the social reality, principles of action, invariant properties of metaphor, interaction of emotional and rational levels of cognition, processes of thinking and linguistic creativity.