Metaphorical Folk Names of English and Ukrainian Homeopathic Plants: Comparative Analysis in Cognitive and Linguocultural Framework

Abstract

This research focuses on the comparative analysis of metaphorical folk names of English and Ukrainian homeopathic plants. The paper identified and interpreted the cognitive and linguocultural underpinning of the metaphors with an emphasis on the isomorphic and allomorphic features of their motivational structures in the compared languages. The study reached four major findings. Isomorphic for the metaphorization processes are input source spaces of "plant distribution area"; "mythical person or creature"; "a diseased organ or symptom"; "behaviour"; "another plant"; "body parts of the animal, bird or human", associated with the plant as a target space in shape, general appearance, location, healing properties, time of existence and way of life. Isomorphic for English and Ukrainian folk names of homeopathic plants are the compound blending models involving more than two input spaces and few blending spaces, as well as the presence in their motivational structure of a symbolic component associated with nationally specific and universal archetypal symbols. Isomorphic for metaphoric plant names is metonymic compression in blending spaces, based on holonym-partonym substitution, and involvement in the blending the possessive and comparative schemas. Allomorphic input sources of English metaphors involve the spheres of "artifact", "body fluids", "mythological characters", "fantastic creature", "particular patterns of behavior"– in contrast to the Ukrainian intercultural synonyms where such conceptual input spaces have not been identified.