Figurative (metaphorical, in the broad sense of the term) representation of phenomena and categories of linguistics is an optional pragmatically marked and multifunctional means of implementing the author’s communicative intentions. The article examines a series of facts of figurative writing in the texts of several phonetic-phonological and grammatical works by M. V. Panov and in the book by V. V. Vinogradov “Russian Language”, as well as similar phenomena in some other linguistic texts. Figurative representation of linguistic objects was considered in two main aspects: 1) the semantics of the rheme of images, which depends on what phenomena from extra-linguistic reality the author draws on to create a figurative presentation of the topic – from the sphere of “man” or from the sphere of “nature”, “artifacts” or other; 2) what function of figurative representation of the topic is a priority for the author – cognitive, propaedeutic, persuasive, aesthetic or other. It is shown that anthropomorphic images predominate in Panov’s texts, created most often for propaedeutic purposes. It is different in the book by V. V. Vinogradov: here the rhemes of images consist of designations of various forces and processes in inanimate nature; the rhemes are non-emphatic, lexically and stylistically they are close to bookish speech and are organic in the text, which is created with the aim of maximally completing authorial understanding of the grammatical structure of the language and revealing new knowledge to the professional reader.