Abstract: It is by "metaphors" that a humanistic text grasps the world. There are three kinds of metaphors respectively corresponding to the genres of history, literature and philosophy in Chinese humanities:metonymy, synecdoche and irony. The historic genre creates historical "facts" and "narratives" in the way of metonymy to summarize the general principles going through the ancient and the present. Metonymy is based on the "sameness of structures" of myriads of things in the world. The narrative styles of history include "from events to principles" and "from principles to events". To realize the "interaction between Heaven and human", the literary genre is comprised of images, whose essence is "synecdoche". Synecdoche is based on the "sameness of essence" of the myriads of things. The literary genre in humanities has two styles, i.e., "from emotions to principles" and "from principles to emotions". The philosophical genre expresses its ultimate concern of "human nature and the Dao of Heaven" in a "paradoxical" way, which can be called "irony". Irony is based on the "sameness of existence" of the myriads of things. The two styles of philosophical genre in humanities are "from principles to the Dao" and "from the Dao to principles".

Key words: metaphor, genre, style, discourse