ABSTRACT This paper takes up the much-neglected figure of the closed simile, a simile in which the ground is explicitly stated, as in “the dress is as black as coal.” In the typical case, which we call standard, the ground is a highly-salient feature of the source term (e.g., black is a salient feature of coal), but our concern is with the non-standard closed similes, those in which the ground is a non- or low-salient feature of the source (e.g., “black as a building”). What is the purpose and the function of using a non-salient ground? We identify and discuss three types of non-standard similes, each exhibiting certain semantic and structural traits as well as a distinct pragmatic or communicative function. In the ironic simile, the ground is the antithesis of a salient feature (e.g., “as clear as mud”). In the humorous simile, the surprising ground comes as a punchline to solve a kind of riddle (e.g., “What do politicians and diapers have in common? Both need to be changed often”). And in the poetic simile, the introduction of a non-salient quality encourages the reader to rethink the source term itself (e.g., “waves as formal as scales on a fish”).

中文翻译：

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不像白天那么清楚：封闭明喻中的反讽、幽默和诗意

摘要 本文采用了封闭的明喻这个经常被忽视的形象，这个明喻明确说明了地面，如“衣服黑得像煤”。在我们称之为标准的典型情况下，地面是源项的一个非常显着的特征（例如，黑色是煤的一个显着特征），但我们关注的是非标准的封闭明喻，其中地面是源的非显着特征或低显着特征（例如，“像建筑物一样黑色”）。使用非显着地的目的和作用是什么？我们确定并讨论了三种类型的非标准明喻，每一种都表现出某些语义和结构特征以及独特的语用或交流功能。在具有讽刺意味的明喻中，地面是显着特征的对立面（例如，“像泥一样清澈”）。在幽默的比喻中，令人惊讶的理由是解决某种谜语的妙语（例如，“政治家和尿布有什么共同点？两者都需要经常更换”）。在诗意的明喻中，非显着性质的引入鼓励读者重新思考源术语本身（例如，“像鱼上的鳞片一样正式的波浪”）。