The Mapping Mechanism From the Source Domain “Electronic Devices” Onto the Target Domain “Human Being”: An Online Vietnamese Article Context

Abstract

The article is a study on the appearance of the metaphor “humans are electronic devices” in online Vietnamese articles to clarify the relationship in Vietnamese people's mind map between "electronic devices" and "humans". Based on the correlation between experiences and knowledge from source domain mapping onto the target domain, this study aimed to decode the conceptual diagram, explain the mapping mechanism and the logically-organized mapping scheme of the conceptual metaphor, identify a unique cognitive style in the conceptual structure which is universally characterized by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The research findings may be beneficial to journalism students who wish to employ conceptual metaphors in writing about physical and mental health. Additionally, hospital website builders, medical staff, doctors, researchers, biomedical therapists, and others in the medical field can use the findings as a reference to improve their skills in using conceptual metaphors in articles about health care and protection, health risk alerts, and understanding the operation mechanism of the human body as a machine. Furthermore, the research results may offer advertisers suggestions on how to use conceptual metaphors for describing health care products in a way that strongly affects consumer awareness about product values and changes their shopping behavior.