Literal and Figurative language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

     “Dinah era pisica.”

     Another example is the following sentence:

       “I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t remember where.”

     This phrase, taken from one of the dialogues between Alice and the king, presents the words in their literal meaning.

       “Am citit asta undeva dar nu mai ştiu unde.”

     The Romanian translation is literal, with no figures of speech.

     Though if we take the whole dialogue and the function this phrase has in it we will see an example of nonsensical talk:

  “Don’t be impertinent,’ said the King, ‘and don’t look at me like that!’ He got behind Alice as he spoke.

     ’A cat may look at a king,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t remember where.’ 

     ’Well, it must be removed,’ said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, ‘My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!’ 

     The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said, without even looking round.”

     The incidents Alice encounters in Carroll's novels are both ridiculous and nonsensical. Still, the creatures of Wonderland continually take Alice's speech as absolutely literal. When Alice comes across a difficult situation, too sophisticated for her childish mind, she wants still to look smart to her audience. Carroll makes a contrast between the absurdity of the plot and the rationality behind the character's comprehension of Alice's language and their literal manipulation of words, phrases and names:

     “‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.’”

     And the Romanian translation:

     “ ‘Asta fac’ răspunse Alice în grabă ‘sau…cel puţin…cel puţin gândesc ceea ce spun; asta, să şti, e acelaşi lucru.’”

     Very interesting and funny are the names of the characters. Let’s take for example “The Footman” (in Romanian ‘valet’). This is a character whom Alice meets at the house of the Duchess. In fact it is Alice who gave him this name. The creature looked more like a fish but because “he was in livery” Alice called him a footman (this function characteristic of a person rather than of a fish). The names of the characters have a figurative meaning, but not everything about them is unreal, i.e. figurative. Further in the text we see that the actions and sometimes the speech of the characters are presented in a literal language:

     “The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations.”

     “Valetul găsi că acesta este momentul potrivit ca să repete remarca sa cu câteva variaţii.”

     Another example would be the Cheshire cat. Alice first encounters it at the Duchess's house in her kitchen, and then later outside on the branches of a tree, where it appears and disappears at will, engaging Alice in amusing but sometimes vexing conversation. The cat sometimes raises philosophical points that annoy or baffle Alice. It does, however, appear to cheer her up when it turns up suddenly at the Queen of Hearts' croquet field, and when sentenced to death baffles everyone by having made its head appear without its body, sparking a massive argument between the executioner and the King and Queen of Hearts about whether something that does not have a body can indeed be beheaded. At one point, the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat.  Everything seems figurative about this character, but not always and its speech which is literal and sometimes philosophical:

     “‘Well, then,’ the Cat went on, ‘you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.’”,

     Or:

       “Call it what you like,’ said the Cat. ‘Do you play croquet with the Queen today?”

     As we could see the author creates words and expressions and even invents new meanings for words:

     “‘Ah! Then yours wasn’t a really good school,’ said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. ‘Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, “French, music, and washing – extra”.’

    ‘You couldn’t have wanted it much,’ said Alice; ‘living at the bottom of the sea.’

    ‘I couldn’t afford to learn it,’ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. ‘I only took the regular course.’

    ‘What was that? enquired Alice.

    ‘Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the Mock Turtle replied; ‘and then the different branches of Arithmetic  – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision.’

    ‘I never heard of “Uglification”,’ Alice ventured to say. ‘What is it?’

   The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. ‘What! Never heard of uglifying!’  it exclaimed. ‘You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’ 

    ‘Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: ‘it means – to – make – anything – prettier.’

    ‘Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, ‘if you don’t know what to uglify is, you must be a simpleton.’”

     Amidst the wide range of thematic subjects presented by the Mock Turtle, some are quite conventional – ‘Arithmetic’, ‘Music’,  ‘French’ –, but others are rather unexpected – ‘Ambition’,  ‘Distraction’, ‘Derision’. The one that puzzles Alice the most is ‘Uglification’. We don’t need a dictionary to understand the meaning of the word. The game-like process is simple. We take a recognizable everyday word, such as ‘ugly’, and, using the rules of word formation, we turn it into a verb, ‘uglify’, or a noun, ‘uglification’. Grammar rules are at the mercy of creative writers, such as Carroll, who are able to challenge and subvert them, recreating language one word at the time. It is so effective because it is both unexpected and unusual. But even after a sense of the pattern is established, the perceptive use continues to surprise. This method pushes readers to examine the use of language and articulation.

       Anything is possible in Wonderland, and Carroll's manipulation of language reflects this sense of unlimited possibility.

     As there can be seen the literal and figurative language are always parallel. An work based only on the figurative use of language may risk to remain misunderstood. At the same time a work in which the language is used only literally cannot be called a literary one. Yet in our case it is very difficult to find literal language in a work full of figures of speech, and which is based on language play.

       
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     Conclusion

     Meaning  is  more  than  just  a  sum  of  the  parts.  Human understanding  of  figurative  language  requires  more  than the monotonic  combination  of  individual word meanings.

     In this paper, we have drawn a distinction between literal and figurative speech. A crucial condition of whether language use is considered literal or figurative is introduced by the particular ontology referred to.

     Literal and figurative language is a distinction in traditional systems for analyzing language. Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their defined meaning. Figurative language refers to words, and groups of words, that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of the component words. Figurative language may involve analogy to similar concepts or other contexts, and may involve exaggerations. These alterations result in figures of speech.

     The precise definition of a figure of speech has proved to be as difficult as determining the limits of figurative usage. A figure of speech is a use of a word diverging from its usual meaning, or a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, such as a metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or personification. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation.

     The figure of speech comes in many varieties. The aim is to use the language inventively to accentuate the effect of what is being said. During history scholars meticulously enumerated and classified figures of speech. Rhetoric figures of speech proved to be the most widely used and the more colourful presented.

     The analysis have shown that literal language is translated literally, what cannot be said about the figures of speech- they need various techniques of translation.

     When a writer or speaker uses figurative language, he is describing something through the use of unusual comparisons.  This is often done to make a point, generate interest in the topic, but very often results in making things unclear. English writers and poets use figures of speech in plenty.

     As the analysis of sample examples have shown, there is no division between literal and figurative language in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is such a kind of literary work where figurative almost replaces the literal, and nonsense replaces the common things. It is very hard to find a sentence in the work that has no figure of speech in it. Lewis Carroll uses and confuses the meanings to create nonsense and humor.

      Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”  is an excellent example of literary work based on figurative use of language, being thus full of various figures of speech, used very successfully by Carroll: personifications (12,63%),  epithets (27,36%), puns (9,47%), metaphors (5,25%), similes (6,31%), synechdoches and metonymies (10,52%), irony (5,25%), and other figures of speech (23,21%).

     Understanding the way figurative language works is essential for a true appreciation of art and literature, but figurative language is used not only in art and literature; it permeates our culture and our lives. Politicians, advertisers, sportscasters, everybody uses figurative language, and many use it badly. Understanding how it works helps us to interpret what other people are saying, what they are really saying, and what they are trying to say. It also helps us write and speak more clearly ourselves.

     Ultimately, we hope  that  the  results  of  our  current  work will  contribute  to  the enrichment of knowledge on correct language use of the English language speakers. 
 
 
 
 
 

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Books Used:

41. Carrol, Lewis, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
42. Carol, Lewis Aventurile lui Alice în Ţara Minunilor Trad. de Popescu Bogdan, Editura didactică şi pedagogică : Bucureşti, 1971.

 

Dictionaries:

43. Simpson, J. A. ,  The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Univ.PR., E. S. C. Weiner, 2009.
44. UK: Longman Dictionary of the English Language, Longman (Harlow, Essex, England),1984.
45. US: American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1985.

  
 
 
 
 
 

     Appendix

Literal and Figurative Use of Language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”  by Lewis Carroll

1. Examples of Literal Language:

        Dinah was the cat.(p. 12)     

        Dinah era pisica.(p.5) 

      I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time.(p.12)

      Sper că or să-şi aducă aminte de farfurioara ei cu lapte la cină.(p.5) 

      I wish you were down here with me!(p.12)

      Aş  vrea să fi fost cu mine aici jos!(p.5) 

      However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted! (p.14)

      Totuşi, la a doua încercare, dădu peste o perdea pe care n-o observase mai înainte, şi, în spatele ei era o uşiţă cam de cincisprezece ţoli2 înălţime; încercă cheiţa la încuietoare şi, spre marea-i încântare, se potrivi!(p.5) 

      Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.(p.14)

      Alice deschise uşa şi văzu că dă într-un coridor îngust, nu mult mai mare decât o gaură de şobolan; îngenunche pe podea şi privi în lungul lui spre cea mai frumoasă grădină  pe care aţi văzut-o vreodată.(p.5) 

      So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake. (p.18)

      Aşa că se puse pe treabă şi foarte repede termină prăjitura.(p.7)

      And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it.(p.20)

      Şi începu să se gândească cum va reuşi…(p.8) 

      It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.(p.20)

      Tot ce putea face era să se culce jos pe o parte ca să privească  în grădină cu un ochi; dar să treacă dincolo era mai puţin probabil ca niciodată; se aşeză jos şi începu iarăşi să plângă.(p.8) 

      Stop this moment, I tell you!(p.20)

      … te rog!(p.8) 

      How queer everything is to-day!(p.22)

      Of, of! Ce ciudat este totul astăzi!(p.8)