Association, parallelism, metaphor, analogy, parable.
I guess the appropriate hypernym would be 'likening'.
(Even the concept of hypernymity can also be considered as one, but never mind.)
I always wonder at the sheer number of literary devices that uses 'likening'. Perhaps the keyword here is 'connection'. Human brains like to connect, to associate. Conditioned reflex, for example, associate a certain stimulus with a certain response.
Other examples. Visual learning associate images with concepts and this actually makes recalling more effective. Others may find it easier to memorise a song than a paragraph of the same length. On physical level, intelligence is said to rely upon the number of connections that neurones make. Is it not evident that the brain makes connection?
Association can be made on more or less equal level or different ones.
Generalisation, for instance, is associating a certain common characteristics of a member of a body with that body itself. Contextualisation can also be seen as one since a concept resides in larger body called the context. Of course these two sound more distant than association of things at more or less equal level.
Parallelism juxtaposes a certain event with another event, for instance.
But actually the degree of equality of the levels of things being likened does not matter.
The impact does.
Take Personification which likens dead objects to living things. The matter lies in the impact on the mind. If a pencil is said to dance on the paper, the mind recalls not only writing but also the concept of beauty, of grace, of efficiency, of nimbleness.
Metaphors achieve similar impact. When time is likened to a river, the mind recalls the quality of a river and try to attach it to time. How it is a flow, how it is continuous series of events, and so on.
There is also another kind of impact. Understanding. Take analogies. Analogies may not be full representations of the concepts being analogised but they help in understanding the concepts. The concept of the Trinity, for example, can be analogised to a triangle. The mind recalls the understanding that a triangle is not a triangle without three sides. So the concept of Three-but-One can somewhat be better understood. The metaphor example above also shows that time that is abstract can be partly explained using river that is non-abstract, thus is understood better.
Isn't it interesting? We all are familiar about this, aren't we, since the brain is all about connections anyway, so this knowledge is at the back of our minds but not really thought or spoken deliberately. It is kind of learning epistemology. When I first learned about the knowledge of knowledge, I feel familiar and I had thought about it or kept it at the back of my mind before but now it has form. It is written in words, it is conveyed in language. I feel overjoyed.
I guess the appropriate hypernym would be 'likening'.
(Even the concept of hypernymity can also be considered as one, but never mind.)
I always wonder at the sheer number of literary devices that uses 'likening'. Perhaps the keyword here is 'connection'. Human brains like to connect, to associate. Conditioned reflex, for example, associate a certain stimulus with a certain response.
Other examples. Visual learning associate images with concepts and this actually makes recalling more effective. Others may find it easier to memorise a song than a paragraph of the same length. On physical level, intelligence is said to rely upon the number of connections that neurones make. Is it not evident that the brain makes connection?
Association can be made on more or less equal level or different ones.
Generalisation, for instance, is associating a certain common characteristics of a member of a body with that body itself. Contextualisation can also be seen as one since a concept resides in larger body called the context. Of course these two sound more distant than association of things at more or less equal level.
Parallelism juxtaposes a certain event with another event, for instance.
But actually the degree of equality of the levels of things being likened does not matter.
The impact does.
Take Personification which likens dead objects to living things. The matter lies in the impact on the mind. If a pencil is said to dance on the paper, the mind recalls not only writing but also the concept of beauty, of grace, of efficiency, of nimbleness.
Metaphors achieve similar impact. When time is likened to a river, the mind recalls the quality of a river and try to attach it to time. How it is a flow, how it is continuous series of events, and so on.
There is also another kind of impact. Understanding. Take analogies. Analogies may not be full representations of the concepts being analogised but they help in understanding the concepts. The concept of the Trinity, for example, can be analogised to a triangle. The mind recalls the understanding that a triangle is not a triangle without three sides. So the concept of Three-but-One can somewhat be better understood. The metaphor example above also shows that time that is abstract can be partly explained using river that is non-abstract, thus is understood better.
Isn't it interesting? We all are familiar about this, aren't we, since the brain is all about connections anyway, so this knowledge is at the back of our minds but not really thought or spoken deliberately. It is kind of learning epistemology. When I first learned about the knowledge of knowledge, I feel familiar and I had thought about it or kept it at the back of my mind before but now it has form. It is written in words, it is conveyed in language. I feel overjoyed.
