Metaphorhumans

Metaphorhumans is a neologism used in some strands of literary theory and discourse analysis to describe people whose identities are framed mainly through metaphorical language rather than explicit descriptions. The term emphasizes how figurative speech can co-construct how individuals are seen, understood, and treated in social contexts.

It draws on conceptual metaphor theory and related work in cognitive linguistics, which argues that metaphor structures thought and perception. In this view, everyday talk about people repeatedly uses metaphor to map complex traits onto familiar images, shaping expectations and social roles before any direct statement about a person is made.

Applications of the concept appear in analyses of literature, media, and political rhetoric. Metaphorhumans may be discussed when a character is described through recurrent metaphors, or when a demographic group is framed with stable figurative identities, such as referring to a city as an organism or a company as a living body.

Scholars note advantages of this lens for revealing hidden norms and biases encoded in speech. Critics argue that the label can oversimplify lived experience, risk essentializing individuals, and ignore the ways people resist or reinterpret metaphorical frames.

Related concepts include metaphor theory, cognitive linguistics, and discourse analysis, as well as identity construction. The term remains debated and is most often used as a descriptive tool rather than a settled category.