‘같은’ 수식 명사구 구문에 나타난 직유 분석

Abstract

Kim, Haeyeon. 2019. An Analysis of Similes in Kathun ‘like’ NP Constructions. Korean Journal of Linguistics 44-4, 765-784. The purpose of this research is to explore the uses of similes in the kathun ‘like’ NP constructions as a way of understanding figurative expressions in Metaphor Theory (MT). After providing a brief overview of prior treatments of similes in the study of figurative expressions, this research points out problems of treating similes in terms of comparison of similarity between comparing and compared objects. This study shows that similes can be divided into two subtypes: (i) overt similarity of concrete objects, and (ii) description of an entity in terms of salient features of the compared objects. Bearing these types of similes in mind, this research claims that simile should be viewed as a device for representing the referent in the target domain (i.e., topic) by utilizing cognitively salient feature(s) of the compared entity in the source domain (i.e., vehicle). An analysis of the kathun NP constructions in a corpus shows that similes have the following characteristics in Korean: (i) similes show different degrees of metaphoricity, rather than displaying a sharp distinction between explicit vs. implicit comparison, (ii) the comparing entity in the topic and the compared entity in the vehicle do not have a one-to-one correspondence relation as a whole, and thus simile is a device of representing attributes of the topic in terms of certain salient feature(s) of the vehicle, (iii) the use of simile should be understood as a cognitive process of coding the most prominent features in the use of the figures of speech. In sum, this research claims that simile should be viewed as a cline on the continuum of metaphoricity. (Chung-Ang University)