The specifics of the functioning of a structural metaphor in a public dialogue

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify and describe the specifics of the functioning of metaphorical transference and its role in public dialogue. The material for the analysis was transcribed video recordings of an interview with Daria Zlatopolskaya in the framework of the program "White Studio" of the television channel Culture. The object of the study is a structural metaphor, "that is, those cases when one concept is structurally metaphorically ordered in terms of another" [11, p. 35]. The subject of the study is the process of origin and the nature of the deployment of metaphorical transference in public dialogue. The authors pay special attention to the description of the mechanism (model) of the functioning of metaphor, as well as the integrating function of metaphorical transfer in public dialogue. In addition, the paper presents linguistic tools demonstrating the transfer of signs of the source sphere to the target sphere in metaphorical projection. The method of scientific observation, the descriptive method (including methods of observation, generalization, interpretation), the method of semantic analysis, the method of contextual analysis, the method of pragmatic analysis. The scientific novelty of the study lies in considering the role of structural metaphor in building a public dialogue, in looking at metaphorical transfer not as an unusual use of a word, but as a transfer of one situation to another, unfolding throughout the whole communicative episode or part of it. As a result of the study, it was concluded that metaphorical transference is the result of the co–creation of speakers, the stimulus of which in most cases is set by the presenter. Metaphorical transference connects the communicative episodes of a TV interview as a communicative event, performing an integrating function. During the conversation, the presenter and the interlocutor actualize certain aspects of the source sphere or the target sphere, as a result of which the metaphor narrows or expands. The constant return to a given metaphor determines the nonlinear structure of public dialogue.