Structural-semantic analysis of the English metaphors in road, aviation, and maritime terminology

Abstract

The goal of this article consists in the analysis of metaphors pertaining to transport in the English language on the example of road, aviation, and maritime terminology. According to the authors, metaphor is the use of words and phrases in a figurative sense based on similarity or analogy. It is established that transport terminology contains a wide variety of terms that are formed with the use of metaphors. The subject of this research is metaphors in the scientific-technical text. The object is metaphors in transport terminology. The relevance of this article is substantiated by the fact that despite sufficient coverage of private terminological systems of specific types of transport, there are very few comprehensive and comparative works. In the course of research, the author determines a new statistical indicator – the index of metaphoricity of terminological system, as well as describes the key semantic and structural peculiarities of the terms-metaphors of different branches of transport. The analysis of language material allows determining that most of the terms formed with the use of metaphors are attributed to metaphors based on associations with the elements of human body and animal kingdom. From structural perspective, it is established that terminological combinations are widely represented among the terms-metaphors of all terminological systems that were subjected to analysis, while simple terms – in the terminological systems of road and aviation transport.