USE OF METAPHORS IN FICTIONAL NARRATIVE: A GENREWISE COMPARISON OF SELECTED WORKS BY AFRICAN WRITERS

This study is a comparative textual analysis of use of metaphors in three literary genres of prose, poetry and drama as represented by one literary work each. The metaphors were identified, isolated from the text, listed down and classified according to their respective categories as guided by Newmark’s (1988) classification of metaphors, namely; adapted metaphors, ii) Cliché metaphors, iii) Dead metaphors, iv) Original metaphors, v) recent metaphors, and vi) Stock or standard metaphors. The overall findings indicate the predominance of poetry, as represented by ‘Song of Lawino’, over other genres in the use of metaphors though not so in similes. The comparative distribution showed that there was rich diversity in and unequal distribution of metaphors both across the genres and across the metaphor types. Cliché Metaphors dominated above all others in the three texts, with the play towering above all else. As for the similes, adapted Metaphors dominated all other with a total of 90 occurrences with the poetry taking the lead. At structural level, as guided by Tarasova’s (1975) typology of metaphors, the findings indicated that there was predominance of metaphors serving the predication function over those with an identifying function, notably in the drama, while structurally, word category was more dominant followed by propositions.