The linguist Orlando Alba's proposal to juxtapose Linguistics and Literature, based on the former's real or evident expressions versus the latter's oblique or figurative expressions, has been debated.
Alba argues that Linguistics, like medicine or engineering, is a science characterized by its direct and objective approach to describing and explaining linguistic events. Conversely, he believes that Literature, with its use of metaphors and figurative expressions, deviates from this objectivity.
However, this perspective has been questioned by various academics. Metaphor, as a mechanism for elaborating concepts, is not limited to a specific discipline but transcends all of them. Human understanding and our cognitive apparatus drive the extrapolation of discursive and rhetorical elements, facts of language, according to the different contexts of human experience. This includes phenomena such as light, the specter of the ghost, and even the biological arrangement of matter.
Alba himself self-incriminates in his objectivist zeal by invoking "the root of the verb to count..." or by naming "bread, bread, and wine, wine", despite the root of a plant, that of the feet or electric, the bread of teaching and that my cousin Panchito came drunk yesterday. Similarly, he emphasizes that we should reject other figurative manifestations, such as "the hands of the clock, the voice of the people, a living language". However, if this were the case, we would have to amputate from "ordinary and popular speech" sayings such as "the hands of time, the voice of conscience and a tongue of fire".
This debate highlights the complexity of the relationship between Linguistics and Literature, and how figurative expressions are inherent to language and human cognition, transcending the boundaries of academic disciplines.