It is easier to identify a conceptual metaphor than to state the identity of a simile — because the metaphor is 'closed' in the sense that it is culturally self-explaining; example, the French @MeToo = @Balance ton porc! ("Report your pig/swine") — you are supposed to know what the animal predicat means. In simile, any A is like B counts, but it is always possible to add a third element: A is like B in respect to C, a sort of explanatory interpretant, which 'opens' the trope so that any A-to-B-{C} is possible, without a cultural pre-knowledge. This is a huge difference. A metaphor will never add such a C, because the conceptual force of this trope depends on this shared pre-knowledge. In other words, a simile is not culturally given, just an open formula.

Cognitive Linguistics (CL) extends the understanding of 'metaphor' beyond the traditional figure-of-speech approach and into the conceptual domain. Translational studies influenced by CL will refer to 'metaphor' in this sense. Their linguistic data may or may not include 'similes'. 'Similes', while not explicitly marked as such, can legitimately be included in a study of '(conceptual) metaphor'.

Dear Mohammed,

In science, what looks like a simile is actually an analogy such as ‘‘the atom is like a solar system” (see Gentner on this). That's why there is no real talk about simile. In fact, Gentner came to a point where metaphor is considered an analogy and vice versa.

I will attach a couple of Gentner's articles, which are all available online.

One of the main problems in translation is the recreation of the message intended by the source language author. Sometimes the translator's analysis of the text may not yield its real meaning because the meaning requires a cognitive interpretation deeply rooted in one's encyclopedic rather than linguistic knowledge. In a figurative device like the simile, the topic and image are clearly signaled by overt comparison signals involving a lower level of cognitive interpretation. However, in the case of metaphorical expressions , the interpretation touches the depth of cognition so that the recovery of the associative meaning is not always easy. Accordingly, researchers involved in translation tend to focus on the complex nature of metaphors in order to demystify the complexities which may adversely influence their proper translation .

The prevalence of metaphors in science is so much that it is unnoticeable. The translation of the atom structures to diagrams of molecules and physical organs are all metaphors at one level. In a cognitive semiotics perspective, all language is but a metaphor. When I mean metaphor, it is something that is so connected to the referent that there is almost indistinguishable unity between the two.

It is easier to identify a conceptual metaphor than to state the identity of a simile — because the metaphor is 'closed' in the sense that it is culturally self-explaining; example, the French @MeToo = @Balance ton porc! ("Report your pig/swine") — you are supposed to know what the animal predicat means. In simile, any A is like B counts, but it is always possible to add a third element: A is like B in respect to C, a sort of explanatory interpretant, which 'opens' the trope so that any A-to-B-{C} is possible, without a cultural pre-knowledge. This is a huge difference. A metaphor will never add such a C, because the conceptual force of this trope depends on this shared pre-knowledge. In other words, a simile is not culturally given, just an open formula.