Apakah yang dimaksud dengan "SIMILE" (Dalam Bahasa Indonesia biasa disebut dengan MAJAS)

SIMILE

I.      INTRODUCTION

A. Background or Rational

Semantics is the study of meaning. It is a wide subject within the general study of language. An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language acquisition (how language users acquire a sense of meaning, as speakers and writers, listeners and readers) and of language change (how meanings alter over time). It is important for understanding language in social contexts, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for understanding varieties of English and effects of style. It is thus one of the most fundamental concepts in linguistics. The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased. Some important areas of semantic theory or related subjects include these:

• Symbol and referent
• Conceptions of meaning
• Words and lexemes
• Denotation, connotation, implication
• Pragmatics
• Ambiguity
• Metaphor, simile and symbol
• Semantic fields
• Synonym, antonym and hyponym
• Collocation, fixed expression and idiom
• Semantic change and etymology
• Polysemy
• Homonymy, homophones and homographs
• Lexicology and lexicography
• Thesauruses, libraries and Web portals
• Epistemology
• Colour

This paper is focused on simile. Similes are comparisons that show how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in one important way. Similes are a way to describe something. Authors use them to make their writing more interesting or entertaining. Similes use the words “as” or “like” to make the connection between the two things that are being compared.

B. Purpose

Make semantic interoperability of metadata a reality for digital libraries deals with:

•         providing reusable software for browsing, searching and mapping heterogenous metadata

•         using semantic web technologies

•         identifying issues, gaps and best practice

II.  ANALYSIS

A. Definition of Simile

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A simile is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the word "like" or "as".

Merriam-Webster (1913)

Simile derives from similis. A word or phrase by which anything is likened, in one or more of its aspects, to something else; a similitude; a poetical or imaginative comparison.

Based on Translation

Simile is a word or phrase by which anything is likened, in one or more of its aspects, to something else; a similitude; a poetical or imaginative comparison

Sense: a form of expression using `like' or `as', in which one thing is compared to another which it only resembles in one or a small number of ways
`Her hair was like silk' is a simile.

Simile as a Form of Comparison

Using similes are very effective. The use of similes serves to explain a concept that might be difficult to grasp. The benefit of using a simile is to create clarity of a statement by point of comparison, allowing the receiver to develope his own interpretation using the point of comparison that the simile suggests. A figure of speech bringing color to our daily converse. Using similes will highlight detail and add character to any description.

A simile used to help one imagine the feel of a tiny kittens' paws was compared to raspberries in the palm of your hand. Unusual but quite effective. An unfortunate individual may never have experienced holding a very young kitten, but may have held raspberries or berries in the palm of their hand. With the simile used, they might capture the warming experience by imagining the feel of the kittens' paws. Images prompted by a simile assist in understanding what someone is trying to convey.

While there are the traditional ones such as "As naked as a Jay bird", an explanation using a comical simile could prove quite amusing and certainly get a chuckle out of someone. A witty simile, creating a fleeting picturesque glimpse of something funny, might lighten an otherwise awkward situation. And while traditional similes may be interpreted more accurately due to familiarity, others that are made up along the way do serve their purpose.

"As lazy as a Sloth" might only be interpreted once one had seen the animated movie "Ice Age."

The uses of similes certainly make life interesting. However the comparisons do not always make sense. Comparing someones' behaviour that has just discovered true love is said to be "As smitten as a kitten." This explicit simile would allow a lot of room for the imagination to capture the meaning. Although logic could argue that since one who has befallen the emotion of love and has developed a rosy glow in their face, could not be compared to a kitten, since kittens do not have cheeks with which to sustain a rosy glow. Nevertheless, the use of this simile provides an out of the ordinary example to convey the picture.

Using implicit similes leaves the listener to determine for themselves what the explanation might be referring to. And once again traditional similes are not necessarily the only ones used. An example would be...

"She is like a butterfly," could mean that she is light, or colorful, or simply goes from flower to flower.

To sum up, similes are great for featuring ideas and communicating messages with clarity, while adding interest and color to the conversation.

While there has always been controversy concerning the nature of metaphor, a broad consensus seems to hold with respect to simile. This is partly perhaps because theorists tend not to devote much attention to the matter, but it may also be because standard conceptions of simile are in fact quite serviceable. The American Heritage College Dictionary, for example, defines simile as ‘a figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are explicitly compared, usually by means of like or as’ (p. 1270). This definition, which is fairly typical of what one finds in dictionaries and rhetorical handbooks, captures at least three essential properties of similes: (i) that they involve some form of comparison, (ii) that this comparison is explicit, and (iii) that the comparison involves entities which are not normally considered comparable—that it is, in some sense, figurative. One weakness of this definition is its qualification ‘usually by means of like or as’. The problem is not just that the formulation is specific to English, but also that it gives much too narrow a view of the forms which similes may take. We claim that similes really are just explicit, figurative comparisons, and therefore any construction which can express a literal comparison should in principle be available to form a simile.

Unlike a metaphor, a simile can be as precise as the user needs it to be, to explicitly predicate a single feature of a target or to vaguely predicate an under-determined and open-ended body of features. Empirical research supports the observation that similes are more likely to be used with explicit explanations of their intended meaning; this offers some support to the claim that similes are preferred if a user wants to associate an unusual or out-of-the-ordinary property with a target.

 

Explicit similes

A simile can explicitly provide the basis of a comparison or leave this basis implicit. For instance, the following similes are implicit, leaving an audience to determine for themselves which features are being predicated of a target:

• "My dad was a mechanic by trade when he was in the Army," Raymond Thompson said. "When he got the tools out, he was like a surgeon."

More detail is present in the following similes, but it is still a matter of inference as to what features are actually predicated of the target:

• He fights like a lion.

It means that he has a strong power to fight.

• He swims like a fish.

It means that he is good swimmer

• He runs like a cheetah.

It means that he run very fast

•         Playing chess with Ashley is like trying to outsmart a computer.

The activity “playing chess with Ashley” is being compared to “trying to outsmart a computer.” The point is that Ashley can think in a powerful manner that resembles the way a computer operates, not that she is like a computer in any other way.

•         His temper was as explosive as a volcano.

His temper is being compared to a volcano in that it can be sudden and violent.

In contrast, the following similes explicitly state the features that are predicated of each target:

• When he got the tools out, he was as precise and thorough as a surgeon.
• He drinks copiously like a fish.
• She walks as gracefully and elegantly as a cat.
• He was as a lion in the fight.
• They fought as if they were warriors.

The example of similes:

1.      That puts her on a par with big earners like doctors and airline pilots.” Doctors and airline pilots really are big earners.

2.       “An opportunity to study the great comics like Tommy Cooper and Dave Allen.”Tommy Cooper and Dave Allen really were (in the writer’s opinion) great comics.

3.      Her argument was as clear as glass.

4.      She’s as sweet as sugar candy.

5.      ‘Everybody knew he was slower than molasses in January.’(Harper’s Weekly, 1889; cited by Barry Popik)

6.      ‘The man is meaner than a junkyard dog.’ (Jim Croce)

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III.  CONCLUSION

A. Conclusion

1.    Simile can be explicit and implicit.

2.    Simile is used as a form of comparison.

3.    Understanding similes is an important corollary to understanding metaphors.

4.    Similes tend to focus attention on particular attributes.

5.    The focus of a simile is generally vague and emotive rather than precise and scientific. The reader’s or hearer’s imagination is activated (as opposed to the activation of precise beliefs). This means that similes are particularly valuable as a way of tentatively categorizing something new or unfamiliar.

B. Suggestion

    We thought the semantics subject is very difficult enough to understand its, so as the people who studied this subject (semantics), they have to search many term that explanation more detail. It can help them to be fast and easy to learn about semantics science and the other relation.

 

Reference

Aisenman, R. A. 1999. Structure- Mapping and the Simile-Metaphor Preference.

Metaphor and Symbol 13 (1): 45-51.

American Heritage College Dictionary, 3r d ed. 1997. Houghton Mifflin.

Aristotle. Rhetoric. 1954. Trans. W. R. Roberts. New York: Modern Library.

Fauconnier, G., and M. Turner. 2002. The Way We Think. New York: BasicBooks.

Gentner, D. 1983. Structure-Mapping: a Theoretical Framework for Analogy.

Cognitive Science 7: 145-70.

Http://www.google.com/books-simile/2011/april/20/8