Conceptual metaphors in Hungarian and Bulgarian banking terminology

Abstract

The current paper offers a contrastive conceptual analysis of Hungarian and Bulgarian banking terminology through public documents issued by the Hungarian OTP Bank and the Bulgarian DSK Bank. The qualitative research shows that Hungarian uses authentic indigenous words and the cognitive images behind them are presumably transparent to native speakers of Hungarian. In Bulgarian, on the contrary, the majority of terms are loan words from foreign languages, especially English, and the conceptual metaphors underlying them are not carried over to Bulgarian. At the same time, both languages are characterized by the MONEY IS A LIQUID metaphor as well as BANKING INSTITUTIONS ARE FAMILIES and BANKING INSTITUTIONS ARE PLANTS metaphors. Both languages exhibit creativity in the use of miscellaneous terms related to banking transactions.