SYNESTHETIC METAPHOR IN MEDICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

Purpose. The aim is to consider the issue of medical synesthesia in professional discourse. Thinking syncretism of doctors is manifested in polymodal perception of the information about the patient condition, who, in turn, while describing pain or worries about illness also relies on the system of sensory perception.
 Materials and methods. The material of the study is about 200 terms and terminological combinations taken by the continuous sampling method from the speech of doctors. The following methods are applied: survey of 10 residents and doctors, high-quality processing of the obtained data, differential analysis of synesthetic models, compiling a glossary, semantic and functional analyses of terminological combinations.
 Results. During the study the mechanism of synesthesia formation is described, its cognitive analysis indicates the relationship of the subject’s perception system, their thinking and language. Actualization of synesthetic metaphors in medical discourse is determined by the subject’s perception integrity property: categorization of information is carried out on the basis of various modality sensations (temperature, pain, tactile, gustatory, and auditory) in combination.
 Among figurative expressions in medical speech, it is possible to distinguish synesthetic metaphors nominating diagnosis (cheesy pneumonia, ringworm), symptom of the disease (soft heart murmurs, tapping symptom, apple jelly symptom) or metaphors describing the patient pain nature and being regularly reproduced terminological expressions (buzzing feet, cutting pains, bursting, pulling, constricting, throbbing pain).
 The glossary of terminological combinations presented contains nominations of synesthetic nature which are relevant for a number of key medicine branches: dermatology, gynecology, rheumatology, otorhinolaryngology, neurology, endocrinology and diseases of the urinary and hepatic systems. It is revealed that in medical discourse the tactile-painful type of synesthetic transfer prevails.
 The communication status study of synesthetic metaphors in medical discourse is connected with their identification in the doctor’s lexicon.