A Semiotic Approach To Metaphor

Metaphor as the most difficult and charming part of meaning is fundamental to the way natural language systems develop over time and are structured, as well as to the way human beings conceptualize and extend their knowledge about the world. The study of metaphor has been of great interest to scholars in a wide range of disciplines, including rhetoric, linguistics, psychology, philosophy, literature and semiotics. In a series of different disciplines research, metaphor shows its different sides. Advantages and limitations of different research procedures are illustrated. We try to rectify this situation basing on the theory of Semiotics. After reviewing the different study of metaphor in different disciplines, we demonstrate the dilemma, and then point out the legitimacy of the semiotic approach to metaphor.Semiotics as the research methodology in social disciplines has a large explanatory power. In the frame of Semiotics, similarity between the sign significance is the premise of metaphor, constructing similarity by addresser with active association is the dynamic process, stratification of sign significance is the result.Analyzing metaphor with the theory of Semiotics illustrates the explanatory power, meanwhile, Semiotics reach deeper into concrete linguistic problems, which will promote the cross of Semiotics and linguistic.