The Role of Similarity in the Metaphor and Simile Preference

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of similarity in the metaphor and simile preference and offer empirical evidence against the equivalence view of simile and metaphor. This evidence was obtained from two experiments to examine the correlation between the similarity ratings and the preference ratings. The results suggest that Korean people choose the metaphor form when the similarity of a target and a source increases, whereas they choose the simile form when the similarity of a target and a source decreases. The results from these experiments are consistent with Chiappe and Kennedy's (1999, 2001) findings. Moreover, the experiments found that Korean people were more likely to express particular comparisons as similes over metaphors than American people.