Metafora (Metaphor)

Metafora (Metaphor) adalah cara untuk menggambarkan sesuatu dengan menyamakannya dengan sesuatu yang lain. Ini adalah perbandingan antara dua hal yang berbeda yang memiliki karakteristik penting yang sama.
Misalnya:
"Freddie is a pig when he eats," Freddie adalah pemakan yang ceroboh seperti babi.

Contoh-contoh Metafora dalam kalimat:

A blanket of snow fell today.
After years of misbehaving, he turned over a new leaf this year.
All the world's a stage.
A new crop of students entered school.
Anne is the apple of my eye.
America is a melting pot.
A tidal wave of donations came in.
Give him room to grow.
Have a ball.
He is a road hog.
He is a mountain of strength.
Her home was a prison.
He showered her with gifts.
He was boiling mad.
How's life in the fast lane?
I got cold feet before I was supposed to talk in class.
I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders.
I have butter fingers today; I keep dropping things.
I have too much on my plate already.
I'm all thumbs; I just spilled my milk.
I'm drowning in work.
I'm no angel.
It is a recipe for disaster.
Keep your eyes peeled.
Life is a dream.

Love is a red, red rose.
My memory is foggy.
My name is mud ever since I caused so much trouble.
My roots run deep.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Peter tried to pull the wool over my eyes.
A roadmap to peace was discussed.
He is a couch potato.
She is my old flame.
She works for an arm of the government.
A storm of controversy followed her.
He has a half-baked idea.
Their ideas are food for thought.
Ahh, that's the sweet smell of success.
The comic had the audience eating out of her hand.
Their ideas are difficult to swallow.
There are plenty of fish in the sea.
The police dug up evidence.
The ribbon of highway stretched for miles.
There is a bumper crop of games in the stores.
They hatched a new plan.
They're rug rats.
We're in a dry spell at work.
You are my sunshine.
You light up my life.

Contoh Metafora menurut penggolongannya:

Metaphors tentang responsibility

I have to bear the responsibility for this.
The responsibility was weighing on my mind.
I don’t want to be a burden to you.

Metaphors juga idioms

Spill the beans.
Give someone a hand.

Metaphors tentang relationships

I was very attached to him.
She has split up with her boyfriend.
They greeted us warmly.
It was a very stormy relationship.

Metaphors tentang emotion

The news has hit him hard.
It had a huge impact on them.
He has a fiery temper.
The book was received warmly.
I felt a chill of fear.
She treated us with cool indifference.
The future looks very bright.
The news lifted her spirits.
There’s no point in having these dark thoughts.
They were eaten up with hatred.
Mistrust had poisoned their relationship.

Metaphors tentang thought and knowledge

A few doubts remained at the back of my mind.
The thought crossed her mind that he was lying.
I don’t want to put any ideas into your head.
I had already planted the idea in her mind.
It was a carefully constructed theory.
Let me know if you dig up anything about him.
I see what you mean.
They recognized the fact that they needed to improve.
We want to get a range of different views.
He kept us in the dark about his plans.

Metaphors tentang place and position

We are in a situation where there are no real winners.
They found themselves in a very difficult position.
I’ve been caught between a rock and a hard place.
This is a potential minefield for beginners.
You’ve lost me. What do you mean?
I really think you’re barking up the wrong tree.
I found out I’d been taken for a ride.
They met on a rainy day in January.
He lay awake all through the night.
This week’s gone so fast.
One day, in the distant future, I might go and live abroad.
The weeks crawled by until we could meet again.
She didn’t notice the time slipping by.

Metaphors tentang journeys and travelling

The baby arrived just after midnight.
They remembered the departed in their prayers.
His life took an unexpected direction.
What’s the best way of doing it?
I’ve tried being reasonable, and I don’t want to go down that road again.
I haven’t yet reached my goal.
I’d like to return to what David was saying earlier.
He always says things in a roundabout way.
The conversation drifted towards the subject of money.
This term, we will be exploring the psychology of sport.
It is an excellent guide to English vocabulary.
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Metaphors tentang up and down

This is an area of high unemployment.
They had raised their prices to unreasonable levels.
The temperature had been falling steadily all day.
There was a collapse in the price of oil.
It is the true story of a millionaire’s meteoric rise from poverty.
They were downtrodden and oppressed.
She had never wanted to climb the greasy pole of politics.
They look down on everyone who isn’t as rich as they are.
They regarded tradesmen as their inferiors.
I felt as high as a kite.
They seem very down about it all.

Extract from: Language Awareness: Metaphor by Dr Rosamund Moon.
Reff. enchantedlearning.com
Metafora (Metaphor)

Tips Untuk Guru 

Tips for Teacher ; Exploring metaphors in the classroom

When our students listen to pop songs in English, browse web sites in English or watch movies in English they frequently meet language rich in its use of metaphors. Yet metaphors are often rather neglected in the classroom. So what kinds of metaphors should we teach, why should we teach them and how can we do so effectively?

• Kinds of metaphors

• Increasing student vocabulary

• Two activities

• Improving knowledge of 'chunks'

• Using English creatively

• Developing student autonomy

Kinds of metaphors
Our students may meet many different kinds of metaphors in English. We usually think of metaphor as being a comparison between two things which are not usually connected with each other, so that the characteristics of the one are carried over to the other. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, for example, Romeo famously compares Juliet to the sun, so that the qualities of the sun (radiance and warmth) are carried over to Juliet. Not only literary English, but everyday English is full of these kinds of metaphors. For example, there are many fixed expressions found in dictionaries which can only be understood metaphorically, such as:

• 'a step in the right direction' or

• to 'sell like hot cakes'

There are also many words which can have both literal and metaphorical meanings:

• verbs such as to 'hammer' or 'to stream'

• adjectives such as 'infectious' or 'lukewarm'

• nouns such as 'ingredients' and 'foundation'.

Increasing student vocabulary
Metaphors provide a handy and memorable way of organising new vocabulary to be learned. Most teachers are familiar with the notion of a lexical set, where vocabulary is grouped according to a topic area, such as 'food'
or 'transport'. This idea can be extended to create 'metaphorical sets', where we group together the words and expressions that have a metaphorical, rather than a literal, meaning. Here are some examples:

• Body vocabulary
  
  • the heart of the city
  • the foot of the mountain/bed/stairs
  • to give a hand
  • to break somebody's heart

• Weather vocabulary
  
  • a warm welcome
  • to freeze somebody out
  • to be snowed under
  • to storm out
  • a hail of abuse

• Colour vocabulary
  
  • to see red
  • a grey area
  • a white lie
  • to give somebody the green light.

Two activities
In the classroom, there are different ways we can incorporate this idea of metaphorical sets.

• One way is to ask students in groups to research and design a poster related to a particular topic. Take the body, for example.
  
  • Students could be asked to draw an outline of a human body on a large sheet of paper, and to include a heart, feet, hand, eye, nose, etc.
  • Using English dictionaries, they could then research any metaphorical uses of language connected with the different parts of the body and write them in the appropriate place on the poster.
  • The same activity can be done for weather vocabulary (using little sketches of different types of weather) or for colours (using sheets of paper of different colours).

• Another way is to ask students to brainstorm the words in a particular lexical area, such as plants. They may come up with words such as: roots, branches, seed, to blossom, to bloom, to plant.
  
  • Once you have checked that students have understood the literal meaning of all the words involved, ask them to guess what the metaphorical meaning of these words might be.
  • And once you have established the metaphorical meanings for these words (such as the roots of a problem or to plant an idea in somebody's mind) ask students to write a story using as many of these words as they can.
  • I find the stories are always very inventive, and reveal the real pleasure that students take in using another language creatively!

Improving knowledge of 'chunks'
Many metaphors occur not as isolated words, but in 'chunks' of language. Some of these 'chunks' are idioms that cannot really be varied. Some examples are:

• to be 'down in the dumps'

• to 'fight like cats and dogs'

Other 'chunks' can be varied, but generally occur as collocations in fairly limited combinations. Some examples are:

• a 'fatal mistake / decision'

• to 'waste time / money'

When teaching metaphors we should encourage students to note them down and learn them as 'chunks' - this will help students to remember them better and use them appropriately.

• We can revise students' knowledge of these chunks by writing a list of chunks on the board with important words missing, e.g. fatal in fatal decision, or cat in to fight like cat and dog. Working in teams, students should then fill in the missing words and write sentences using the chunks.

Using English creatively
As we have seen, many metaphors in English form part of the ordinary repertoire of the native speaker. We can help students to learn some of these fixed metaphors while simultaneously encouraging them to play creatively with language. One way is to ask students to write short poems with one of the following titles:

• Weather metaphors
  
  • A sunny smile
  • An icy look
  • A stormy relationship

• People metaphors
  
  • A chip off the old block
  • A rough diamond
  • A shoulder to cry on
  • An ugly duckling
  • A fairy godmother

• Parts of proverbs
  
  • A new broom
  • Early birds
  • Birds of a feather
  • Silver linings
  • A rolling stone

Developing student autonomy
Finally, we can develop students' awareness of metaphors by encouraging students to 'collect' metaphors - by noting them down when they encounter them on the Internet, in pop songs, etc. These metaphors can then be explained and discussed in the classroom. You may even want to keep a record of these on a wall poster….and at the end of the term ask students to vote on the most useful metaphor, the most surprising metaphor, their favourite metaphor, etc.!

Further reading
Cameron, L. and Low, G (1999) Metaphor, Language Teaching, Volume 32, No 2. Cambridge University Press.
Deignan, A. (1995) English Guides 7: Metaphor. Harper Collins.
Lakoff, G and Johnson, M (1980) Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.
Lazar. G. (2003) Meanings and Metaphors (Activities to practise figurative language). Cambridge University Press.
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2002). Macmillan.
Gillian Lazar, Senior Lecturer, Middlesex University, London 
Originally posted in teachingenglish.org.uk
Tips for Teacher ; Exploring metaphors in the classroom