摘要：Analogy as "the core of cognition", plays a significant role in many aspects of our life, including problem solving, decision making, perception, memory, creativity, emotion, explanation and communication. Its specific explanations differ with various disciplines and subjects. The author mainly discusses about analogy in linguistic sense, especially in rhetorical sense. Its popularity as a rhetorical device lies in its clarity, appeal and persuasiveness. After comparison analogy with simile/metaphor, the writer elucidates its distinct rhetorical functions—for the purpose of persuasion or for the explanation or exposition of an idea. The structural patterns which are distinctly marked but frozen and fixed have also been analyzed with illustrations.
