隐喻对词义发展的负面效应

The Negative Effects of Metaphor on the Development of Lexical Meaning

通过分析隐喻产生的原因,认为隐喻有时也会对词义发展造成负面效应。首先,在语言发展的初期,人们受当时词汇量所限,被迫借用一事物描述另一事物,有时会把属于不同种类的事物联系起来,当作是相似的事物,在某种情况下会造成隐喻的不恰当。这种隐喻一旦约定俗成,人们往往不愿意去寻找或者使用更为贴切的喻体,从而导致语言中一些令人费解的表达方式存在。其次,由于语言、文化、地域、教育背景、年龄和行业等差异,人们在选择喻体时,如果出现选择结果不一致的情况,就有可能造成语言交流的困难。

Lexical meaning usually changes by means of metaphorization. However, in analyzing the causes of metaphor, we find its occasional negative effects on the development of lexical meaning. First, ancient people had to borrow the name of one thing in order to describe another because of their limited vocabulary. Sometimes they would associate completely different things, consider them to be similar, and create an improper metaphor. Once such kind of metaphor has been conventionalized, people will never try to find or use another more suitable vehicle. Therefore, there are some metaphoric expressions which seem incomprehensible in the language. Second, because of different languages, regions, cultural backgrounds, professions and the like, people might choose different vehicles, which might pose some obstacles in interpersonal communication.