VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
A STUDY ON SIMILES USED IN THE NOVEL
DAVID COPPERFIELD BY CHARLES DICKENS (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng biện pháp tỉ dụ trong tiểu thuyết
David Copperfield của Charles Dickens)

MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Hanoi, 2010

NGÔ THỊ THÚY HẰNG


A STUDY ON SIMILES USED IN THE NOVEL
DAVID COPPERFIELD BY CHARLES DICKENS (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng biện pháp tỉ dụ trong tiểu thuyết
David Copperfield của Charles Dickens)

MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Hanoi, 2010NGÔ THỊ THÚY HẰNG Field:
Code:
Supervisor:

English Linguistics
60.22.15
Dr. Hà Cẩm Tâm


1.1. Word meaning…………………………………………………………………… ….4
1.1.1 The meaning of the word ……………………………………………………….….4
1.1.2 Collocation and contextual effects ……………………………………………… 5
1.2. Meaning transference …………………………………………………………… 6
1.2.1 Metaphor ………………………………………………………………………… 6
1.2.2 Metonymy ………………………………………………………………………… 6
1.3. Contextual meaning ……………………………………………………………… 8
1.3.1 Context…………………………………………………………………………… 8
1.3.2 Co-text …………………………………………………………………………… 9
1.4. Simile……………… ……… … 10
1.4.1 Definitions on similes ……… ……10 v
1.4.2 Components of simile …………………………………………………… …… 11
1.4.3 Nature of simile …………………………………………………………….… 12
1.4.3.1 Simile as a figurative comparison ……… …………………………… … … 12
1.4.3.2 Simile and Metaphor …………………………………………………… … 14
1.4.4 Functions of similes 16
1.4.4.1 Simile is used to create images …………………………………………… … 16
1.4.4.2 Simile has the function of decoration ……………………………………….……17

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY …………………………………………………….…… 19
2.1. Research question ……………………………………………… ………… … 19
2.2. Data collection …………………………………………………………….… … 19
2.3. Analytical framework…………………………………………… …… ….… 20
2.3.1. “AS” simile …………………………………………………………….…… 20
2.3.2. “LIKE” simile ………………………………………………………….…… … 20
2.4. Data analysis and discussion ……………………………………………….… 21
2.4.1 Simile in terms of structures ……………………………………………….… 21
vii

LIST OF CHARTS

1. Chart 1. The frequency of simile in depicting characters’ features ………………… 22
2. Chart 2. Vehicles of simile in depicting the characters’ features ………………… …25


understand similes because their meaning is not just based on the literal meanings of certain
words or phrases. Because ―though a simile is easily recognized, it is not always easily
understood: in most cases, the reader has to discover the aspects for the claimed similarity
and this is the central problem in the interpretation of similes (Chippe & Kennedy 2001:
270-271). However, due to its appearance in different types of discourse in different fields,
especially in literature, readers face a lot of difficulty that prevents them from being able to
comprehensively understand the figurative meaning of simile as well as the implied
message of a text.
Simile is a figure of speech used in general language as well as specialized language, in
everyday conversations as well as literary, journalistic and promotional texts. Research on
simile which is carried out within rhetoric (Mortara Garavei 2002 (251-252), literary studies
(Wellek & Warren 1973: 186-211), linguistics and psycholinguistics (Ortony 1993: Bredin
1998) often discussed simile along with metaphor. However, simile is still less investigated.
Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to consider simile as a figure of its own right, to illustrate
some of its basic forms and functions through exploring how similes are constructed in
literature in general and in the novel in particular. 2
It is well known that Dickens‘s novels include various linguistic techniques and
tropes that make his descriptions of characters, their backgrounds or surroundings more
graphic and real. The novel David Copperfield is famous for Dickens‘s language with
humor and vivid style as he makes particular use of figurative devices such as simile to
observe and describe the characters successfully.
With these ideas in mind, I chose to study similes used in depicting features of the
characters in the novel David Copperfield by the famous English writer, Charles Dickens
with the hope to study the nature and the way to obtain deeper understanding on simile in
order to demonstrate its strong power in the world of novel and to help gaining more
comprehensive understanding about the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.


 Part I: Introduction. This part introduces the relevant, the aims, the scope and
methodology of the study.
 Part 2: Development. This part is composed of two chapters.
- Chapter 1 is Literature Review which provided the theoretical background of the
study. Its focus was on introducing important concepts relevant to the topic of the
thesis. This chapter gave a general picture of simile.
- Chapter 2 is the main focus of the study which investigates similes used in
depicting features of the characters in the novel David Copperfield. In this chapter,
the research design applied in the study was reported and the results of the studies
were presented.
 Part 3 is the conclusion of the study which summarized the issues addressed
in the main part and offered implications for teaching as well as further study.

4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Word meaning
1.1.1 The meaning of the word
There has been quite a number of attempt designed to define what the meaning of
the word is. Acccording to Nguyen Hoa (2004: 67) ―words are regarded as the smallest

- An emotional or affective connotation is acquired by the word as a result of its
frequent use in contexts corresponding to emotional situations or because the referent
conceptualized and named in the denotative meaning is associated with emotion.
- Evaluative connotation expresses approval or disapproval.
- Intensifying connotation which is expressive and emphatic.
In short, connotation meaning is relative unstable. It varies considerably according to
culture, historical period and the experience of the individual.

1.1.2 Collocation and Contextual effects
According to Saeed (2003: 62), it is clear that words cannot be defined independently
of other words that are semantically related to them and delimit their senses. Usually, it is
easier to define a word if you are given the phrase or sentence it occurs in. It means that
word should be put in particular context. Without context, the potential of ambiguity is
real. These contextual effects seem to pull word meanings in two opposite directions:
The first restricting influence is the tendency for words to occur together repeatedly,
called collocation. In other words, collocation is the habitual association of a word in a
language with certain particular words than other. Then we have collocative meaning.
Nguyen Hoa (2004) states that collocative meaning consists of the associations a word
acquires on account of the meaning of words which tend to occur in its environment.
Halliday (1966) compares the collocation patterns of two adjectives ―strong” and
―powerful‖ which might seem to have similar meaning. For example, we talk of ―strong
tea‖ rather than ―powerful tea‖ but ―a powerful car‖ rather than ‗a strong car‖.
The second contextual effects, according to Saeed (2003: 62) can also pull word
meanings in the other direction, towards creative and semantic shift. In different contexts,
words have different meanings. For example, with different contexts, the noun ―run‖ can
have different meanings: I go for a run every morning and There‟s been a run on dollars.
The run of the first example might be in relation of near synonymy to another noun like
jog, but in second example it might be interpreted as “a passion”.
According to Nguyen Hoa (2004: 109), metaphor may be classified into three kinds
as followings: living metaphor, faded metaphor and dead metaphor. Living (poetic, 7
individual) when a word is used in unusual meaning and metaphor is felt. Faded (trite)
metaphor is metaphor which lost its freshness because of long use and became habitual.
Dead metaphor - where metaphoric sense is not felt. Dead metaphors are words which
have lost their direct meaning and are used only figuratively.

1.2.2 Metonymy
Nguyen Hoa (2004: 110) defined metonymy as ―the substitution of one word for another
with which it is associated.‖ Metonymy works by contiguity rather than similarity, i.e.
instead of the name of one object or notion we use the name of another because these
objects are associated and closely related. For example, we can use the word ―crown‖
instead of ―monarchy‖. There exists a somewhat more complicated possibility for
extending word meaning based on a quite different conceptual relation, not a similarity
between the instance of the two categories but a strong associationor contiguity of notions.
According to standard tradition, metonymy is defined as a ―figure in which one word is
substituted for another on the basis of some material, causal, or conceptual relation. Some
substitutions include place-for-institution, thing-for-perception, or object-for-possessor, or
part-for-whole, or place-for-event. In classic tradition, the following cases of metonymy
are often presented:
- We use the name of container instead of the thing contained. E.g.: to drink a glass
- Name of parts of human body may be used as symbols. E.g.: clever head
- The concrete is used instead of abstract. E.g.: from the cradle to the grave.
- The materials are used for the things made of the materials. E.g.: glass
- The name of the author is used for his works. E.g.: Picasso
- Part is used for the whole and vice versa. E.g.: roof for house (we all live under the
same roof).

In Brown and Yule (1983: 37), Firth‘s model of context is quoted which embraces
the following categories. First, the relevant features of participants including persons,
personalities, the verbal action and non-verbal action of the participants. The second
category is the relevant objects and the third is the effect of the verbal action. In terms of
context of culture, Saeed (2003: 192) considered background knowledge as context which
include sociocultural and real-world knowledge. He also mentioned that we are all
members of different communities. Each community implies certain types of knowledge
which might be shared or not shared with other members. He takes the following example
as a good illustration:
A: Come over next week for lunch.
B: It‘s Ramadan 9
If A and B are Muslims then A will propably infer that B‘s reply means ―No‖. We can see
that context of culture provided the basis for implication.
In short, we can decode the meaning of the sentence or utterance with the help of context.
Then context include all relevant features of the situation in which the sentence is uttered.

1.3.2 Co-text
Geoge Yule (1996: 129) defined co-text of a word (known as linguistic context) ―is
the set of other words used in the same phrase or sentence‖. This surrounding co-text has
strong effect on what we think the word means. In terms of sentences, Nguyen Hoa (2004)
stated that when a sentence is uttered, it is not usually placed alone by itself, but rather it is
surrounded by other sentences, which help to realize its meaning. This kind of surrounding
is called co-text. In terms of utterance, co-text is the stretch of language that aoccurs before
or after the utterance which needs to be interpreted. (Halliday, quoted in Nguyen Hoa,
2000: 43)
Lyons (1995: 266) stated that context includes not only the relevant co-text but also
all relevant features of the situation in which the sentence is uttered. Context can contribute

According to Bredin (1998), one of the leading authors on figurative language,
simile is defined as a semantic figure based on comparison, a mental process playing a
central role in the way we think and talk about the world, which often associates different
spheres. Comparing entities leads to, and concludes with, a judgment, i.e. a statement that
can have an affirmative or negative form: the affirmative form asserts similarity between
entities compared, i.e. the sun is like an orange and the negative one denies likeness, e.i the
sun is not like an orange.
Harmon and Homan (1996: 560) defined simile as ―a figure of speech in which a
similarity between two objects is directly expressed or another way of expressing, it is to
say that in a simile both TENOR and VEHICLE are clearly expressed and are joined by an
indicator of resemblance, like or as.‖
Richards & Schmidt (2002) state that every simile involves a comparison, which
explicitly signals itself in the text with a comparison marker such as like and as. The
occurrence of a comparison marker is a necessary condition of simile. By this definition,
the tenor and the vehicle are essentially unlike things or states or affairs linked at the
linguistic level by a comparison marker. The comparison marker signals an iconic relation
between the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor is represented via the functioning features of
the vehicle, brought forth as a result of the tenor‘s suppression of the other features of the
vehicle in the context. The functioning features of the vehicle in turn point to the iconic
analogy − or the selective similarity − that is predicated of the tenor. 11
Sharing the same view, The American Heritage College Dictionary (1997: 1270)
defines simile as ―a figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are explicitly
compared, usually by means of ‗like‘ or ‗as‘. This definition, which is fairly typical of
what one finds in dictionaries and rhetorical handbooks, captures at least three essential
properties of simile. Firstly, they involve some form of comparison. Secondly, this
comparison is explicit. Finally, the comparison involves entities which are not normally
considered comparable–that it is, in some senses, figurative.

tenor. The vehicle has a number of dimensions which may be mapped or transferred back
onto the tenor and hence create new meaning.
Similes are easily recognizable by the presence of one of a variety of comparison
markers. In English, the available markers include the following:
Verbs: seem, look like, sound like, resemble, remind
E.g. A white BMW which looks like a modern bathroom cabinet than a car.
Adjective: similar to, the same as:
E.g. my essay is similar to yours.
Nouns: a sort of, some kind of, the size of
E.g. My kitchen is approximately the size of a postage stamp.
Prepositions (in comparative phrases): like, as
E.g. Music is like medicine because it takes away the pain
Conjunctions (in comparative clause): as, as though, as if, as when
E.g. She treats him as if she were his mother.
According to Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1630, 1656), the compound adjectives
are a way of compressing information into a two-word lexeme, where noun functions as
vehicle. They typically occur in attribute position, and are an alternative to a full relative
clause:
N-like adjective: e.g. native-like proficiency, Robinson Crusoe-like life
N-shape adjectives: e.g. an-L-shape room
N-style: e.g. Star Trek-style command seal
N-type adjectives: e.g. terrorist-type offences

1.4.3 Nature of similes
1.4.3.1 Simile as a figurative comparison
Miller (1993) defines that comparison in general is a mental act in which two or
more entities are evaluated along some parameters. While comparison is an inherently 13

connections between the source and target. It is essentially a figure of speech-in fact, an
explicit form of comparison; but unlike literal comparison, simile is essentially figurative, 14
making unexpected connections between literally unlike concepts. These observations are
simple, but they have important consequences for the forms similes take, the meanings
they convey, and ultimately for the rhetorical functions they serve. We hope we have
provided an adequate glimpse of some of these consequences here - enough, in any case, to
make simile seem a little less simple and a little more alluring.

1.4.3.2 Simile and Metaphor
Figures of speech consist of different types such as allegory, metaphor,
synecdoche, metonymy and simile, etc. However, the distinction between simile and
metaphor is among the oldest and most widely recognized in rhetorical theory. It is also
one of the most tenuous. Understanding the relation between simile and metaphor will help
us to master more about the nature of simile.
For many analysts, it is a distinction almost without a difference–as Aristotle puts
it, ‗the simile also is metaphor the difference is but slight‘ (Rhetoric III, 4).Traditionally,
what difference there is has been seen as a matter of form: a simile simply makes explicit
what a metaphor merely implies. Since the difference between the two is apparently so
superficial, theorists have tended to define one figure in terms of the other. One venerable
tradition, stretching from Quintilian to Miller (1979) sees metaphor as a sort of elliptical
simile. Another tradition, uniting theorists as diverse as, Larkoff and Johnson (1980), and
Gluckberg and Keysar (1990), takes metaphor as the more basic of the two figures, and
view simile as the explicit expression of a metaphorical mapping. There is a vast literature
on metaphor, but the literature explicitly devoted to similes is less extensive. In their
second edition, Lakoff and Johnson (2003) added an afterword in which they deny that a
metaphor is a kind of simile or that metaphors are based on similarity, but they do not
explore the phenomenon of similes in any detail. Therefore, simile and metaphor must be

describes a comparison. A simile often expresses something true whereas a metaphor always
expresses something untrue and even paradoxical so readers or listener have to make sense
of.
Moreover, one of the most striking differences between the two figures is explicitness.
While metaphors need not be overtly marked, similes, by their very nature, must be. Simile
is fundamentally a figure of speech requiring overt reference to source and target entities,
and an explicit construction connecting them. Metaphor, on the other hand, is ultimately a
figure of thought. Many conceptual domains are essentially metaphorically structured, and
this structuring is often evident not just in metaphorical uses of language, but also in social
practices and conventions (Lakoff, 1993). Unlike metaphors, similes require distinction of
both source and target concepts, and an evaluation of what they have in common. 16
In brief, simile and metaphor are powerful figures of speech which both compare two
seemingly unrelated objects but between them exists distinctive features.

1.4.4 Functions of Simile
As mentioned above, simile plays an important part not only in language but also in human
cognition. The nature and functions of simile are studied by a lot of linguists and
researchers in different fields such as science, linguistic philosophy, sociology and
anthropology, literature and translation. Similes can fulfil various functions, for example,
they serve to communicate concisely and efficiently: they are one of a set of linguistic
devices (figures of speech) which extend the linguistic resources available. Furthermore,
they can function as cognitive tools for thought in that they enable us to think of the world
in novel, alternative ways, namely, they can create relations of similarity. In discourse,
they can also fulfill more specific functions depending on the textual genre in which they
occur. However, in my thesis two main functions are mentioned, one of which is to create
image. The other function is to decorate or ornament.


Besides image, another related term is imagery which is considered to be most
investigated in literature in general and in novel in particular. Sometimes, in order to
extend the description of the subject matter, simile can create not only one image but a
network of different images. Imagery, that means images taken collectively, is defined as
―the total sensory suggestion of poetry‖ (John Ciardi, World Book Dictionary). According
to M.H. Abrams (1985), imagery has three main functions. Firstly, it is used to ―signify all
the objects and qualities of sense perception referred to in a poem or other work of
literature, whether by literal description, by allusion, or in the analogues (the vehicles) used
in its similes and metaphors‖ (M.H.Abrams, ed, 1985: 81). Secondly, it is employed to
signify only description of visible objects and scenes. Thirdly, the most common use of
imagery is to signify figurative language, especially the vehicles of metaphors and similes.
As can be seen, image and imagery are essential parts of a literature works, especially for
a novel and they make novels more concrete. With them, it is possible for creative writers
to develop the function of similes that is to create concrete images so as to explain abstract
concepts as well as bring aesthetic effects to their works of art.

1.4.4.2 Simile has the function of decorating
According to Wellek & Warren (1973: 198 - 199), in literal text such as poetry,
novel or drama, similes fulfil aesthetic function. Thus, simile has got a prominent function
that is to decorate or ornament something. Carrying this outstanding function, simile is 18
commonly found in creative writing such as poetry, literature, public oratory and other
registers. One of the representatives of figurative language is Aritotle. His main treatment
of simile and metaphor is to discuss the functions of its in literature language, especially
the language of tragedy. Such similes of perception are often extended to situations that the
reader would be most unlikely to have experienced personally.
In literary texts, we can find an original use of standard similes, as in the
following example: They behave like little dogs (W. Shakespeare, Othello, London,

by Charles Dickens will be carried out with the view to illustrating the construction,
frequency and effects of simile in such creative language as novel. CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

In this chapter the procedure in which the study was carried out is reported in details and
the results are revealed.

2.1. Research questions
 How is simile used in depicting features of the characters in David Copperfield ?

2.2 Data collection
There are 99 similes depicting features of characters in 64 chapters of the novel which are
chosen as the data for analysis. The vehicles in these similes are classified into four groups:
Animals, supernatural beings, natural phenomena, and man-made objects. The selection is
based on the following reasons:
Firstly, we chose Dickens‘s novel as the main resource of data because of his
popularity in English literature.
Secondly, we chose his work because of their suitable language for a thesis. The
novels by Dickens have proven themselves worthy of deep reflection and criticism, and the
fact that they have endured for over a century show that the works are more than
superficial. The simile device in this novel plays a significant role for Dickens in depicting
particular features of various characters elaborately or fancifully. Thus, I will explicate
the mechanism of his use of simile here, focusing on the grammatical forms and semantic
relation in the following section.
Thirdly, the language of the novel is of the 19
th
century which is quite near to
contemporary in English. Thus it is authentic and reliable for a linguistic study.