Metaphorical Transfer Research Articles

Обзор лингводидактических исследований метафоры методами когнитивной и прикладной лингвистики

Metaphor is a traditional research object in linguistics. Works on the analysis of this phenomenon using methods of cognitive and applied linguistics in texts of various kinds are numerous and continue to accumulate. Peculiarities of the formation of metaphorical competence in language learners and native speakers can also be considered as an urgent area of research. In this regard, compilation of a review of studies on metaphors in the context of teaching and learning foreign languages using methods of cognitive and applied linguistics seems relevant and significant. This direction, on the one hand, is sufficiently developed and multifaceted for the accumulation of a significant number of publications that require comprehension and systematization (up to existence of graduation projects on it), and, on the other hand, it has a sufficient degree of novelty in order not to duplicate existing review materials, since, in particular, in Russian-language studies, problems of the metaphorical competence of students of foreign languages were posed and began to be considered relatively recently. Research materials were English-language and Russian-language research articles with full-text free access, published mainly in peer-reviewed scientific editions over the past 10 years, a total of 40. As a result of processing the material using general scientific methods of analysis, comparison and synthesis, a critical assessment was given in regards to the current state of affairs in the corresponding areas of research. The examination of English-language publications showed that foreign authors pay attention to simple and intuitive cases of metaphorical transfer, and also use conceptual metaphors mainly as a research tool that allows assessing the perception of various aspects of the pedagogical process or the language studied. The review of Russian-language publications revealed that domestic authors actively explore the metaphorical competence of students, develop new methods and techniques, clarify terminology, collect materials for further processing, but they often publish overly theorized works and are not always methodologically accurate. Also, the study of the collected works demonstrates the lack of a common basis for carrying out research of this kind. The results of the study led to the conclusion that application of the cognitive-linguistic approach to studies of foreign languages, largely based on working with metaphors, is considered by foreign and domestic researchers as a promising direction; however, de facto, the results obtained often do not correspond to this optimism: many works are narrow and typical, and at the same time end with bold generalizations; studies in this area as a whole lack a research perspective. The directions of further research, regarded as the most interesting, potentially fruitful and promising by the authors of this article, are also highlighted.

Buzzwords as an example of interlingual lacunarity in various kinds of professional discourse (based on the English language material)

The article is focused on the analysis of structural-semantic features of buzzwords and relating to them problem of interlingual lacunarity in two kinds of professional discourse – business and political-legal discourse. Buzzwords are understood as a special category of lexical units which emerge die to the need of nominating new culture-specific elements, tendencies and trends, as well as attaching novelty to existing in the language phenomena. The study relevance is stipulated by the common understanding that buzzwords represent the newest layer of modern English vocabulary reflecting the most recent changes currently happening in the English language under the influence of modern socio-political processes. The authors draw attention to a close relation between buzzwords and interlingual lacunarity as buzzwords do not have laconic variants of translation, thus demanding the use of various techniques of direct translation such as borrowing, calque and literal translation. Special emphasis is put on some word formation models, according to which many buzzwords are formed. Such word formation methods include affixation, abbreviation, blending and metaphoric transfer. Having considered the results of the research, the authors come to conclusion that different word formation models prevail in different kinds of discourse, as well as different direct translation techniques can be applied to translate them from English into Russian. For political-legal discourse more widespread word formation models include affixation, abbreviation and metaphoric transfer, whereas in business discourse, alongside with abbreviation, blending is also widely used. The most common translation technique is literal translation, sometimes together with other methods. For instance, while translating buzzwords belonging to political-legal sphere, in particular, those formed by affixation using the suffix -ism and the prefix post-, it is possible to provide borrowing as the translation of the new word. Nevertheless, further such borrowed lexical unit will demand additional explanation which is usually represented by the literal translation of its definition. Lack of equivalents of buzzwords in lexicographic sources in Russian proves the fact that they belong to the category of interlingual lexical gaps.

The Correlation Between Metaphor Content and the Message Persuasive Power

The article considers the problem of the metaphor power, namely, how the contents of metaphorical mappings in speech affects the persuasiveness of a given message. The author analyzes the relationship between the contents of a speech message and decision making, as well as studies that are aimed at analyzing the content of metaphors and its function. On the basis of the original methodology, an empirical study is implemented, it is based on the hypothesis that the metaphor content really affects the persuasiveness of a message and that there is the possibility of a quantitative calculation of the strength of this persuasive effect. As a research methodology, a two-stage experiment is used, where in the first stage 20 authors wrote texts on a given topic, and in the second 162 respondents identified the author’s point of view. The texts were analyzed using the metaphor content index (MCI), after which the original and perceived author’s viewpoints were compared with the content of the metaphors used. The results showed that the calculation of the metaphor content index can only partially be used to determine the strength of the speech impact of the metaphor. Intercultural, intra-social, professional, inter-linguistic variations lead to significant variations in both the producing and comprehension of metaphorical mappings. The main conclusion of theoretical and empirical study is the fact that the specific content of metaphors, as well as their variations, can be an effective tool for enhancing persuasiveness. However, each researcher should analyze the content of metaphorical transfers in relation to specific extralinguistic, that is, primarily cultural and social factors.

Многозначность как способ создания нелинейного текста в китайской языковой культуре

The article is devoted to the problem of polysemy in the Chinese language as one of the ways to expand the meanings of the written text. Polysemy as an integral part of any language is also widespread in Chinese. Characters become ambiguous under the influence of cultural, social, historical factors, due to metaphorical and metonymic transfer, etc. The situation with ambiguity in the Chinese language is further aggravated by the fact that the meaning of a syllable (written by a certain character) can be expanded not only due to the acquisition of new vocabulary meanings, but also new grammatical forms, since almost any syllable in the Chinese language can become both a noun, a verb, an adjective, a particle, etc. Chinese philologists were engaged in the interpretation of various meanings of hieroglyphs as far back as the pre-Qing era, this work does not stop to this day. The second part of the article provides an example of the polysemy of the character 道dào in modern dictionaries as a result of the expansion of the original meanings indicated in the etymological dictionaries of Sho Wen Jie Zi and Zi Yuan. The third part of the article provides concrete examples of the use of polysemic words by native speakers of the Chinese language in order to create nonlinear multidimensional texts. Examples of such texts are selected from ancient poems as well as from the couplets of duilian, such folklore phenomena as riddles, anecdotes, as well as examples of the creativity of modern Internet users (memes). Thus, the article shows that this technique is historically rooted in the written culture of China, which means that when reading texts in Chinese, it is necessary to consider not only historical, cultural, etc. realities and connotations, but also all derivative senses of words used in the text to identify additional senses in the text.

Особенности метафоры животных в баснях И. А. Крылова

The study aims to determine specific features of animal metaphors in I. A. Krylov’s fables. The article clarifies distinctive features of wolf, fox, lion, dog and donkey images, provides a structural analysis of metaphorical images, describes their characteristics. The research is novel in that it identifies the predominant way of metaphorical transfer, as well as a productive model of its creation. As a result, it was proved that the majority of indirect nominations in I. A. Krylov’s fables are based on contrasting human and animal behaviour, and the unique feature of conveying a moral lesson to the reader is built on reinterpretation of the verbal component of a metaphor - on predicativity.

КОНЦЕПТ «СМЕРТЬ» В СТИХОТВОРЕНИИ «ОСЕНЬ» СТИГА ДАГЕРМАНА

The article is devoted to the representation of the concept death in poem “Autumn” («Höst») written by Stig Dagerman in 1954. Author wrote it 10 days before suicide. Thus, poem may be considered as occurring before death. This writing is one of a number works where Stig Dagerman addresses himself to a topic death. Concept death is one of the key concepts for humanity: philosophers, painters and writers have been studying it for centuries. Death concept realization can be found in language with the help of various linguistic means: direct and indirect naming units (on the form of metonymic and metaphorical transfers), conventional epithets, colours and images which can be either culture-universal or authorial. In poem of interest concept death is present mostly by metaphorical transfers and colour epithets and one realization through the use of metonymic transfer. The poem includes traditional, universal cultural as well as authorial images. On the one part these speak about importance of studying the concept in global culture, on the other part these speak about Stig Dagerman’s high level of excellence as a poet.

Лингвокультурный трансфер метафоры в художественном тексте

This article aims to assess the degree of transfer of the original metaphorical image into a foreign language linguistic and cultural space and to identify the general patterns of translation of the author’s metaphor in a literary text. An attempt is made to determine the nature of the correlation between the transfer and the communicative-pragmatic effect of the conversion unit. The study uses a three-dimensional model of metaphor, which is a synthesis of the proper linguistic (language), mental (thought) and communicative aspects. The actual linguistic aspect means the logical and semantic structure of the metaphor. Understood as the general properties of an object and its reflection arising from the principle of similarity, the tenor, the vehicle and the ground are revealed. From the point of view of the mental aspect, the metaphor is considered as a universal cognitive mechanism for the nomination of the surrounding reality and the creation of artistic images. The communicative aspect includes the study of metaphor from the perspective of its functioning in speech — the pragmatic attitude of the speaker determined by the content and form of his statement is pointed out. The semantic equivalence of metaphors in the original text and in the translation text is established on the basis of the componential analysis. The results are classified according to two criteria: 1) the preservation of the principle of implicit metaphorical rethinking and 2) the identity of the meanings actualized during the renaming process, which allows to identify cases of the complete and the partial transfer of the metaphor and to describe the concomitant lexical and grammatical interlanguage transformations. The partial transfer is to be recognized as the most common phenomenon that takes place during the translation of the metaphorical expression. The impossibility of the complete transfer of the source metaphor is explained by both the features of the internal development of languages and the nature of the linguistic thinking of the two peoples. The absence of the metaphor in translation is considered as a factor that reduces the pragmatic equivalence of texts.

Lexical phrases with anthroponymic components in medical terminology

This article analyzes anthroponymic component language chunks in medical terminology. The research focuses on a large group of medical fixed phrases containing anthroponyms in their component composition. The main attention is paid to structural, semantic and etymological analysis. The basic lexical sets of anthroponymic component language chunks have been distinguished. The main sources and models of lexical phrases used in the formation of medical terms have been defined. The collected material allows us to state that the words syndrome, symptom and disease, being the structural core of medical phraseological units, are often distinguished in the phraseological units analyzed. The dependent component in a noun phrase is represented by an anthroponym. As a rule, this is the name of the scientist who made important discoveries in the medical field. Much attention is paid to the proper name semantics as part of a phraseological unit. Based on the etymological analysis of the material under study, the classification of medical phraseological units with a proper name component has been developed. The analysis showed that the origin of phraseological units with a proper name is based on real personalities, scientists, ancient and biblical mythology, literary works associated with the names of characters. Phraseological combinations associated with national and cultural specifics are of outstanding interest for linguistic analysis. The study showed that a proper name is a special linguistic sign that involves ethnic culture. The article discusses lexical chunks formed by metaphorical transfer in detail. The metaphorical transfer of names in the terminological system is noticed regularly, which is due to the constant development of medical terms’ new names and meanings formation through the scientific rethinkingof common words.

Metaphorization as a basis for transterminologization in the sphere od subject terminological nominations

The purpose of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of terminological metaphorization in the context of the hypothesis that this process is the cognitive basis for transsterminologization in the field of subject terminological nominations. The authors have selected such areas as programming and stock trading as an empirical base. To solve the research issues, the authors used the following general scientific and linguistic methods: descriptive method, method of definition analysis, method of continuous selection. The selection of 78 metaphorical terms of software development and exchange trading selected by the method of continuous selection from the total corpus of 2870 analyzed terms has served as the material for the research. The analysis has shown that a significant number of terms in the areas of programming and exchange trading are formed on the basis of metaphorical transfer. Subject terminological nominations designating certain fragments of the professional picture of the world has moved into this area without changing their form (simple terms) and served as the basis for the construction of derived term combinations based on a metaphorical transfer in new subject areas. The transition of a term to a different field of knowledge is conditioned by an analogy in the description of the phenomenon, or an analogy in the structure of the term, in its stylistic properties, in the functional and lexical meaning of the words that make up the term. The process of transsterminologization appears as a multi-stage and multidimensional phenomenon, which includes both the discursive use of the term, and its formal and semantic-stylistic characteristics. In general, the process of metaphorization plays an important role in term formation. The properties of metaphors suggest that the metaphor should be considered within the framework of an anthropocentric approach with the help of the cognitive-linguistic analysis.

Transfer of Lamarckisms and emerging ‘scientific’ psychologies: 19th – early 20th centuries Britain and France

The paper argues that transfer of assumptions, concepts, models and metaphors from a variety of Lamarckisms played a significant role in the endeavors to constitute psychology as a scientific discipline. It deals with such efforts in the second half of the nineteenth century and until early twentieth century in Britain and in France.The paper discusses works by Herbert Spencer, John Hughlings-Jackson, Théodule Ribot and Sigmund Freud. It argues that certain crucial facets of their work as discipline-founders could and should be looked upon as resulting from such transfer of/from Lamarckisms. Specifically it looks at the constitutive roles of notions of hierarchical order, parallelism, self, memory and collectivity.

Виды и подвиды перцептивного компонента, представленного в образе фразеологизма

The paper aims to identify the basic metaphorical models of phraseological units with a perceptive component. The emphasis is made on metaphorical reinterpretation. Scientific originality of the study lies in the fact that the perceptive component of a phraseological image formed as a result of metaphorical transfer has not been previously investigated from the viewpoint of forming a feature-based and verbal image. The findings indicate that the perceptive component of a phraseological image is formed on the basis of two types of perceptions: 1) a person’s actual state and 2) a person’s activity.

WAR LESSONS OR HOW SOCIAL AND PERSONAL BACK-GROUND SHAPES OUR PERCEPTION

It is well-known that cognitive metaphor can reflect the process of conceptualization of the surrounding world in the human mind. The metaphorical transfer of the source domain’s conceptual features to the target domain shows the essence of the reality perception in the consciousness. This study is focused on the intracultural variation of cognitive metaphors, particularly the phenomenon of the implicit-explicit dispersion in metaphors, dependence of their perception on the occupation, gender, and age of members of a culture, and type of metaphors. Based on conceptual metaphors, associated with the target domain WAR in the Russian culture, the researchers elaborate a novel approach to the analysis of conceptual metaphors, providing full-fledged scrutiny of the reflection of the surrounding realm in the minds of native speakers. The study involved 124 people, some of whom have direct professional experience in the military sphere. The obtained differences in the perception of simulated metaphorical models allow us to talk about intracultural variation of the WAR cognitive metaphor and the significant influence of personal experience on the perception of reality.

Peculiarities of nomination and usage of color tones in the French language

This article is dedicated to studying the methods of designation of color tones in the French language using adjectivized nouns. The research material consists of 90 nominations of color tones, acquired by means of continuous sampling from dictionaries and Internet sources. Nominations of such specific color tones are given on the basis of associations with the color of various objects, phenomena, and substances that have similar tone. Classification is conducted on the units under consideration, depending on the type of metaphorical transfer underlying the nomination. Special attention is turned to examination of grammatical peculiarities of application of the indicated units in the French language. The obtained results allowed determining the following types of associations in color designation: with the plant life (names of vegetables, fruit, nuts, flowers, plants, trees); with the animal world (names of fish, birds, mammals); with the natural resources, stones, and minerals; with the natural phenomena (force of sky and sea); with the gastronomy (food, sweets, seasonings, drinks); with various materials, substances and objects. The results of quantitative analysis of color tones in the French language, which was conducted for the first time, allowed revealing most productive associations in formation of color neologisms, among which are plant life, natural resources, stones and minerals. The authors’ special contribution consists in studying the grammatical peculiarities of usage the units in question in the French language. In these constructs consisting of two elements — two nouns without a preposition (main + adherent), the second element is an adjectivized noun that exercise function of an adjective. Due to adjectivization, such constructs significantly expand the capabilities of conveying color tones in the French language.

LESS IS DOWN: корпусный анализ структуры метафорического значения глаголов падать и упасть

The paper raises an issue of possibilities that are provided by corpus-based approach in analysis of metaphorical transfer based on the aspectual pair upast’ / padat’ (‘to fall’). The author reviews the structure of metaphorical meaning of predicates, which enforce the Lakoff ’s metaphor ‘LESS IS DOWN’ and copy some parts of valency structure from the primary meaning’s structure, and also analyses how collocations correlate with valency structure. The empirical base for analysis was extracted from the Russian corpus ruskell 1.6 in Sketch Engine. It consists of 1516 collocates in total used both in primary and metaphorical contexts. Formal corpus analysis of collocations demonstrate that unlike the primary meaning, metaphorical meaning is more strict and less variable when we talk about syntagmatic rules of filling patient (valency A1), source, or primary point (A2) and goal, or final point (A3), and interval (A4). As a result of analysis, we could extract several syntagmatic groups that are correlated with the metaphorical meaning only. Corpus-based analysis helps with identifying typical and marginal types that fill the valencies, nevertheless analysis of collocates that trigger metaphorical shift is more important. In the research, we focus on the syntagmatic group “noun(nom) + predicate” that marks patient’s valency. Semi-automated tagging of patient and semantic analysis of patient let us determine some specific lexical and semantic features and classify semantic groups (as parameter, property) that are typical for the metaphorical meaning. The author suggests that the mixed corpus-based approach, which is demonstrated in the paper, could be used in analysis of more general predicate metaphorical field as “get more <less>”

METAPHOR AS A WAY OF TERMS COINAGE IN MEDICINE

The article is is focused on metaphorical terms of the medical sphere. The aim of the article is to research the existing theories on the cognitive theory of metaphor and metaphors as ways of term coinage. The following research methods are exploited: continuous sampling method, descriptive method, systematization and classification method, statistical method. The method of continuous sampling was used to identify English-language metaphorical terms from thematic dictionaries on medicine and general engineering. The method of systematization and classification was used to describe the morphological and lexical-semantic characteristics of metaphorical terms. The descriptive method was used to describe the metaphorical transfer of the meanings of common words into terms. The statistical method was used to calculate the terms of different categories and their ratios.The study was carried out in 2 stages. During the first stage, the metaphor as a way of term formation and the basic principle of the cognitive theory of the metaphor were studied. As a result, we found out that metaphorization is a productive way of term formation. According to the lexical-semantic classification terms are divided into anthropomorphisms (those that are related to humans) and non-anthropomorphisms (those that surround humans). During the second stage, 250 metaphorical terms of the medical sphere were analyzed and classified according to morphological and lexical-semantic approaches. Dictionaries of professional language medicine were the material of the research. According to lexico-semantic classification, the majority of the metaphorical terms belong to the class of non-anthropomorphisms. From the morphological point of view, the majority of the metaphorical terms are phrases. Most of them are created with the help of such models as N+N or Adj+N. On the other hand, metaphorical term can be divided into 2 models according to the nature of metaphorization. There are “metaphor+term” and “term+metaphor”. The majority of the analyzed metaphorical terms are created using the model “metaphor+term”.

FIGURATIVE MEANINGS IN THE SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF MULTI-VALUED RELATIVE ADJECTIVES OF THE LEXICO-SEMANTIC GROUP ‘‘BIRDS’’

An experimental vocabulary article compiled by the authors is presented that describes the arrangement of the semantic structure of a multi-valued relative adjective. Some figurative meanings characteristic of the adjectives of the thematic group “Birds” are revealed and fixed. Attention is paid to the method of metaphorical transfer, the result of which is new lexico-semantic variants of qualitative semantics and stable phases containing figurative meanings as semantic components.

Semantic Production as a Way of Forming Legal Concepts (Based on Russian Laws)

The research featured legal terms formed according to the semantic method, e.g. semantic generalization, expansion / narrowing of meaning, institutional specification, metonymic or metaphorical transfer, their correlation, etc. The author highlighted the interconnection of semantic term formation and polysemy. The article contains a list of factors that cause ambiguity of legal concepts: (a) the author of the legislative text and the recipient; (b) the open nature of the legal terminological system, as well as the reproduction of multivalued lexemes in the laws and their reinterpretation; (c) the development of various variants of legislative definitions, etc. The paper focuses on semantic generalization and institutional specification of legal concepts. The author describes the interconnection of denotative-predicative and logical-conceptual approaches, as well as the mechanism of generalization and abstraction of lexical meaning. The differences of metonymic and metaphorical transfers were interpreted in terms of contrasting functions, models of education, and connotation potential. The research revealed a high productivity of metonymic transfer and legal concepts based on a combination of different types of semantic terminology. The study featured the texts of Russian Federal and regional laws. The author applied various approaches, e.g. discursive, contextual, intertextual, component, denotative-predicative, logical-conceptual, interpretative, comparative, etc. The results, conclusions, and illustrative material presented in this work may be of some interest to scientists and practitioners who study legal terminology, legal texts, and issues of the Russian language as a state language.

Метафорический перенос в процессах гибридной номинации (на материале немецких слов-гибридов понятийного поля «Образование»)

The article reveals peculiarities of metaphorical transfer in hybrid nomination. For the first time this problem is examined in the diachronic aspect by the material of the German hybrid words of the conceptual field “Education”. The choice of a composite component for metaphorical transfer is justified taking into account the anthropometricity of a metaphor. The mechanisms of metaphorization of original and borrowed hybrid word components are analysed. The peculiarities of using terms-Anglicisms in the figurative meaning are identified. The necessity for metaphorical transfer in hybridization in the conceptual field under study is justified.

Monomodal and Multimodal Film Representation of the Metaphor: “Time Passing Is Motion” An Analytical Approach with the Conceptual Integration Model

“Metaphors often allow us to express subtle nuances of thought and feeling that would otherwise be inexpressible” (Ritchie, 2006, p. 2).Inspired by this citation and the latest developments of cognitive science, in this paper we shall attempt to analyse the cinematic representation of the conceptual metaphor “Time Passing Is Motion”. The principle tools in this study are the theory of Conceptual metaphor and the Conceptual Integration model. We will discuss the editing of film frames as ‘montage of mental spaces’ whose interaction and integration leads to the emergence of concepts, ideas and feelings in the spectator. The cases examined are extracts from two films, “The Last Laugh” by F. Murnau (1924) and “I Am Twenty” by M. Khoutsiev (1965), and serve as examples of research that seeks to explain the emergence of time metaphor in cinema. We attempt to give a response to the question how the cinema can communicate abstract signification to the observer. This article argues that the metaphorical transfer of abstract thought is possible in the cinematic medium, by means of image schemata and via the activation of cognitive mechanisms of the spectator. Could the theory of Conceptual integration help us to untangle and understand the process of film metaphor construction, and its impact on the spectator?

Good Brexit, Bad Brexit: Evaluation Through Metaphoric Conceptualizations in British Media

Brexit, i.e. the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, is a major event in European and global politics. It has been debated from a multitude of social, economic, and cultural angles. This paper offers a cognitive linguistic perspective on Brexit, and investigates its metaphoric conceptualization on the first days after the 2016 referendum. That period seems especially important as, arguably, it was then that for many UK citizens, Brexit suddenly became more than just a hypothetical possibility. T he investigation is quantitative and follows Socio-cognitive discourse studies principles. It registers frequencies of source-domain use in UK online media, and traces preferences as to general source-domain semantics. The findings strongly suggest the presence of negative source-domain preferences. This negative metaphoric construal comes in stark contrast with the 3-year par between the Leave and Remain stances in the UK. To explain that discrepancy, the paper argues in support of the importance of ‘levels’ in source-domain use. Admittedly, throughout Lakovian works (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999), conceptual metaphoric transfer has been argued to take place at what Rosch et al. postulate as basic-level categorization (1973). However, as the present paper suggests, Rosch’s ‘levels’ in prototypology can be seen as functioning through conceptual metonymy. That, in its turn, combined with the all-pervasive cognitive mechanism of spreading activation (first introduced into linguistics by de Beaugrande and Dressler in 1981) suggests all semantic levels can be co-activated in the process of metaphorization, regardless of which level is currently being highlighted and drawn on. As a consequence, different semantic levels are believed here to have the potential to co-influence inferences and connotations resulting from conceptual metaphorization. Thus, the approach adopted in the present study also has the potential to explain why it has been so difficult for scholars to pinpoint and formulate metaphoric transfers. Importantly, the ‘levels’ proposed here should be differentiated from, although not interpreted as contradicting, the metaphor-relevant levels specified in Kövecses (2010).