A comparative study of metaphor in Spanish and English financial reporting

Abstract

This paper compares the use of linguistic metaphor and conceptual metaphor in a corpus of English and Spanish financial reports published in newspapers during the October 1997 stock market crash. The findings indicate much similarity in conceptual and linguistic metaphors between the two languages, but some differences in the frequency of particular linguistic metaphors. For example, both languages share conceptualisations of the economy as an organism, of market movements as physical movements and of sharp downward market movements as natural disasters. These conceptualisations show in a number of similar lexical metaphors relating to, for example, physical conflict, physical and mental health, mood, extreme weather conditions and earthquakes. However, while in Spanish reporting there is a preference for metaphors based on psychological mood and personality in English reporting there is a higher frequency of nautically based metaphors. There is consideration of the implications of these findings for economists, financial experts, translators, ESP students and those interested in comparative research into metaphor and economics.