Cover not available
Article published In:
Terminology
Vol. 22:1 (2016) ► pp.1–29

Refining the understanding of novel metaphor in specialised language discourse

Novel metaphorical expressions are understudied in traditional approaches to terminology because they behave as sporadic units incapable of structuring whole discourse events. To show that this assumption is wrong, this paper presents a case study of novel bioeconomics metaphors in an academic marine biology research article (Landa 1998). They were analysed following the Career of Metaphor Theory (Bowdle and Gentner 2005), a framework for the description of novel metaphor in usage, and the text-linguistics approach to term description (Collet 2004), which suggests criteria for term definition that challenge the tenets of monolithic terminology models. The analysis of unexpected metaphors identified in the text suggests that these units should be considered proto-terms experienced as deliberate rhetorical and conceptual devices. Pragmatically speaking, the metaphors are part and parcel of the writer’s discursive strategy to communicate specialised knowledge to her peers. Conceptually speaking, the metaphors are essential building blocks of the article’s mental model.
Keywords: text-linguistics approach to LSP, career of metaphor theory, marine biology, novel metaphor and simile, conceptual and rhetorical facets
Published online: 19 May 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.22.1.01ure
References (41)
Battalio, Raymond, John Kagel, and Don McDonald. 1985. “Animals’ Choices over Uncertain Outcomes: Some Initial Experimental Results.” American Economic Review, American Economic Association 75 (4): 597–613.Google Scholar
Baumol, William. 1952. Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.Google Scholar
Boulier, Bryan, and Robert Goldfarb. 1991. “ Pisces Economicus: The Fish as Economic Man.” Economics and Philosophy 7 (1): 83–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourigault, Didier, and Monque Slodzian. 1999. “Pour une terminologie textuelle.” Terminologies Nouvelles 191: 29–32.Google Scholar
Bowdle, Brian, and Dedre Gentner. 2005. “The Career of Metaphor.” Psychological Review 112 (1): 193–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 1993. “Metaphor and Theory Change: What is ‘Metaphor’ a Metaphor for?” In Metaphor and Thought, ed. by Andrew Ortony, 481–533. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Theodore. 2003. Making Truth. Metaphor in Science. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Buchanan, James, and Gordon Tullock. 1962. The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor (Michigan, USA): Universitv of Michigan Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Budin, Gerhard. 2007. “Intederminacy in Postmodernist Science.” In Indeterminacy in Terminology and Language for Specific Purposes, ed. by Bassey Antia, 61–72. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caballero, Rosario. 2006. Re-viewing Space: Figurative Language in Architects’ Assessment of Built Space. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “From Design Generator to Rhetorical Device: Metaphor in Architectural Discourse. In Metaphors in/on Architecture and Urbanism, ed. by Andri Gerber and Brent Patterson, 89–104. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Lynne. 2007. “Confrontation or Complementarity? Metaphor in Language Use and Cognitive Metaphor Theory.” Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 51: 107–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. “Metaphor in Spoken Discourse.” In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by James Gee and Michael Handford, 342–355. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cameron, Lynne, and Alice Deignan. 2006. “The Emergence of Metaphor in Discourse.” Applied Linguistics 271: 671–690. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2011. Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. 2nd ed. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave-MacMillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. “Forensic Deliberations on ‘Purposeful Metaphor’”. Metaphor and the Social World 2(1): 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collet, Tanja. 2004. “What’s a Term? An Attempt to Define the Term within the Theoretical Framework of Text Linguistics.” Linguistica Antverpiensia New Series - Themes in Translation Studies 31: 99–111.Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond. 2007. “Why Cognitive Linguists should Care More about Empirical Methods.” In Methods in Cognitive Linguistics, ed. by Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Irene Mittelberg, Seana Coulson, and Michael J. Spivey, 2–18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goatly, Andrew. 2002. “Text-linguistic Comments on Metaphor Identification.” Language and Literature 11 (1): 70–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knudsen, Suzanne. 2003. “Scientific Metaphor Going Public.” Journal of Pragmatics 351: 1247–1263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005. “Communicating Novel and Conventional Scientific Metaphors: A Study of the Development of the Metaphor of Genetic Code.” Public Understanding of Science 141: 373–392. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krennmayr, Tina, Brian Bowdle, Gerben Mulder, and Gerard Steen. 2014. “Economic Competition is Like Auto Racing.” Metaphor and the Social World 4 (1): 65–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Landa, Janet. 1986. “The Political Economy of Swarming in Honey-bees: Voting-with-the-wings, Decision-making Costs and the Unanimity Rule.” Public Choice 51 (1): 25–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1998. “Bioeconomics of Schooling Fishes: Selfish Fish, Quasi-free Riders, and other Fishy Tales.” Environmental Biology of Fishes 531: 353–364. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics, Vol. 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Magurran, Anne and Sarah Girling. 1986. “Predator recognition and response habituation in shoaling minnows.” Animal Behaviour 341: 510–518. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pecman, Mojca. 2014. “Variation as a Cognitive Device.” Terminology 20 (1): 1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Margaret. 2007a. “Lexical Chains in Technical Translation: A Case Study in Indeterminacy”. In Indeterminacy in LSP and Terminology: Studies in Honour of Heribert Picht, ed. by Bassey Antia, 13–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007b. “Terminological Equivalence in Technical Translation: A Problematic Concept? St Jerome and technical translation.” Synaps 201: 13–25.Google Scholar
Sager, Juan Carlos. 1997. “Term Formation.” In Handbook of Terminology Management, Vol. 11, ed. by Sue Ellen Wright and Gerhard Budin, 25–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steen, Gerard. 2007. Finding Metaphor in Grammar and Usage. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “Deliberate Metaphor Affords Conscious Metaphorical Cognition.” Journal of Cognitive Semiotics 51: 179–197.Google Scholar
Temmerman, Rita. 2008. “Sociocultural Situatedness of Terminology in the Life Sciences: The History of Splicing.” In Body, Language and Mind, Vol II1, ed. by Tom Ziemke, Jordan Zlatev, and Roslyn Frank, 327–360. Berlin: Walter de Grutyer.Google Scholar
Tiebout, Charles. 1956. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 641: 416–424. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ureña, José Manuel. 2011. Metaphor in Specialised Language: An English-Spanish Comparative Study in Marine Biology . PhD Thesis. Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain.
Ureña, José Manuel, and Pamela Faber. 2010. “Reviewing Imagery in Resemblance and Non-resemblance Metaphors.” Cognitive Linguistics 21 (1): 123–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2011. “Strategies for the Semi-automatic Retrieval of Metaphorical Terms.” Metaphor and Symbol 26 (1): 23–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ureña, José Manuel, Pamela Faber, and Miriam Buendía. 2013. “Frame Blending in Specialized Language: Harmful Algal Bloom.” Terminology 19 (2): 175–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ureña, José Manuel, and Pamela Faber. 2014. “A Cognitive Sociolinguistic Approach to Metaphor and Denominative Variation: A Case Study of Marine Biology Terms.” Review of Cognitive Linguistics 12 (1): 193–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wüster, Eugen. 1979. Einführung in die allgemeine Terminologielehre und in die terminologische Lexikographie. UNESCO ALSED LSP Network. Vienna: Springer.Google Scholar
Zlatev, Jordan, Timothy Racine, Chris Sinha, and Esa Itkonen (eds). 2008. The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Du, Jiali, Christina Alexantris & Pingfang Yu
2020. Comparative Research on Terminology Databases in Europe and China. In Human Interaction, Emerging Technologies and Future Applications II [Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 1152], ► pp. 252 ff. DOI logo
Ureña Gómez-Moreno, José Manuel
2020. Non-verbal and multimodal metaphors bring biology into the picture. In How Metaphors Guide, Teach and Popularize Science [Figurative Thought and Language, 6], ► pp. 175 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Theoretical Perspectives on Terminology [Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice, 23], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Slowing Metaphor Down [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 26], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.