scholarly journals Metaphorical Representation of the Concept SCARCITY in the Mass Media Discourse

The article considers linguistic means of metaphorical representation of the terminological cognitive concept SCARCITY, as well as the range of its cognitive metaphors in the English-language media discourse in 1970–2000. Following the principles of the cognitive metaphor theory, I established the cross-domain mappings and, in particular, that the concept SCARCITY interacts with the source domains OBJECT IN SPACE (subdomains MOVEMENT DOWN / MOVEMENT UP), MEDICINE (subdomains DISEASE / EPIDEMIC, MENTAL DISORDER, DEATH), LIVING ORGANISM (subdomains MAN, ENEMY), forming cognitive metaphor models SCARCITY is MOVEMENT DOWN / UP, SCARCITY is DISEASE etc., which also participate in the metaphorical representation of the concept ECONOMIC CRISIS that I considered in my previous articles. This can be explained by the fact that lexeme scarcity (n.) as the name of the concept SCARCITY is an element of the nominative field of the concept ECONOMIC CRISIS, in particular, its extension “Shortage of financial resources” motivated by the general semantic property ‘shortage’. The range of metaphors (source domains) for the concept SCARCITY is a part of a historically stable set of source domains of the cognitive metaphor of the concept ECONOMIC CRISIS. The set of the source domains of the concept SCARCITY differs in a more limited range of source domains compared to those of the concept ECONOMIC CRISIS. The former’s set of domains includes OBJECT IN THE SPACE, MEDICINE, LIVING ORGANISM instead of the eight source domains of the concept ECONOMIC CRISIS. There is also a more limited set of metaphorical models in comparison with the concept ECONOMIC CRISIS and absence of metonymic and metaphtonymic models, which indicates a more pronounced degree of terminology for the concept SCARCITY compared to ECONOMIC CRISIS.

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-52
Author(s):  
Sui He

Abstract Cognitive metaphor theory provides a systematic framework to better understand the working mechanism of metaphor. Its recent development further allows translation researchers to have a clearer insight into the movement of metaphor across languages and culture. Building on an empirical study, this paper examines the complementary relationship between two prominent cognitive metaphor theories – Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT), and discusses the practical contribution that this relationship could make to the existing research on metaphor translation. To construct a comparable basis for CMT and CBT, two parameters are adopted for data analysis, which is proven useful to serve the purpose. The two chosen parameters are: projection and provenance, denoting the content and the type of metaphor respectively. Metaphorical expressions analyzed in this paper are sourced from cosmology-themed articles published in Scientific American in 2017 and their Simplified Chinese translations published in Huanqiukexue. Findings show that delineated by the two parameters, CMT and CBT indeed share a complementary relationship owing to their different focuses and organizing mechanisms. Furthermore, the collaboration between CMT and CBT offers a well-rounded analytical framework for translation studies. In turn, the correlation between metaphor parameters and translation solutions provides detailed clues for studying metaphor across culture. Finally, the reflection of this dual-model parametric approach regarding its pros and cons is also shown to shed light on future research.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karsten Senkbeil ◽  
Nicola Hoppe

This paper applies cognitive linguistic approaches, particularly conceptual metaphor theory, to the study of literature, and analyses how Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (1998) by Marya Hornbacher communicates embodied experiences such as sickness, hunger, and (self-)loathing with the help of conceptual metaphors. It explores how the author renegotiates and partly recontextualizes highly conventionalized metaphors around eating disorders, mental illness, and identity to create new meaning, and how this strategy helped explain the mindset of a person with anorexia and bulimia to a broad critical readership in the late 1990s. This paper hence hypothesizes that the book’s emphasis on metaphors as a means to articulate bodily experiences surrounding a mental disorder may hint towards larger trends concerning the representation of the body–mind relationship in literature and culture in the last two decades.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 427
Author(s):  
Hongyan Hua

Vocabulary plays an essential role in foreign language learning, and it is the same with Chinese students’ learning English. However, in China traditional ways of English vocabulary learning focuses on the recitation and analysis of the sound, spelling and meaning of English words without considering their cognitive motivations and thus makes understanding and memorization of them invalid and boring, which directly affects Chinese students’ English level of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Therefore, some effective methods of English vocabulary learning must be found so as to arouse students’ interests and facilitate their learning of English words. Conceptual metaphor theory reveals that metaphor is not only a universal cognitive phenomenon but also a cognitive tool of human beings, which can shed some lights onto English words learning, a kind of cognitive activity. Conceptual metaphor theory also depicts cross-domain mapping as its working mechanism by saying that cross-domain mapping is a kind of thinking link from source domain to target domain. And this thinking link is of great help to the memorizing processes of words and understanding of words’ connotation and can make English vocabulary learning systematic and flexible. This paper explores the application of conceptual metaphor theory into college English vocabulary learning from three aspects, namely, polysemous words, idiomatic expressions and word connections, aiming at cultivating students’ metaphorical awareness and improving their metaphorical competence in vocabulary learning.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 9-28
Author(s):  
Katalin Reszegi

The paper discusses the cognitive mechanics of metaphorical name-giving with a focus on place names, following an overview of cognitive metaphor theory and the questions of metaphorically used proper nouns. In cognitive linguistics, the use of metaphors is a cognitive mechanism that plays a fundamental role in human thought and understanding, and the creation of our social, cultural and psychological reality. A particular form of this also manifests in name-giving, creating a small but influential category of names. The category of place names also influences the application of this name-giving method: it is generally used in more informal names and name types. The creation of such a name requires the speaker to detach themselves from the conventional norms of direct descriptionand metonymic name-giving, and relies on their lingual creativity and ability to detach themselves from dominant name-giving models. However, names in the category can also be divided into subcategories. Beyond the typical common-noun-based metaphorical name-giving, more complex parallels can also be found, resulting in the associations connecting the names of several nearby locations. Place names can also serve as the base of metaphorical name-giving, supporting the complex meaning of these names. Despite the fact that the majority of metaphorical names are available from contemporary data collection, it is obviously a long-standing and ancient method of name-giving, as it is based on a cognitive mechanics that seem to be as old as humanity itself.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Merry Lapasau ◽  
Sulis Setiawati

This study aims at finding the use of life metaphors in tetralogy Laskar Pelangi (hereinafter TLP). Data were analyzed in the framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by using a descriptive qualitative approach. We found 21 life metaphors in TLP and the finding shows that the conceptual metaphor of life as a target domain is mapped into several diverse source domains, and they are: life is a fluid in a container, life is a journey, life is a living organism, life is a precious possession, life is dedication to others, life is a struggle,life is guidance, life is war, and life is hard work. It can be concluded that TLP is rich with the use of metaphors in describing the cultural events of the Malays in detail. The way how the Malay master the problems in their lives, how they see and understand the world, is made clear by their language, which is reflected in conceptual metaphors. The results of this research support the idea that metaphors are not just rhetorical devices to say something more stylistically but they are conceptual in nature and its existence can be different in each culture.


Author(s):  
Yulia Voloshchuk ◽  
Natalya Zhmayeva

The relevance of the research is based on the need for an in-depth study of effective ways, techniques and methods of translating English-language news texts into Ukrainian, in particular news texts of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which is due not only to Ukraine’s membership in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, but also to globalization and the intensive development of international relations, which in turn affect the increasing interest of modern Ukrainian readers in foreign news texts. In addition, the relevance of the topic is due to the increased attention of linguists to modern media discourse, which also includes news discourse, and the peculiarities of its translation. The aim of the work is to analyze the specifics of translating English-language news texts into Ukrainian based on the material of OSCE news texts. To achieve this goal, the following research methods were used: comparative and comparable methods for determining the features and problems of translating English-language news texts into Ukrainian; the method of systematization and the method of complex translation analysis for analyzing and systematizing the tools used in translating English-language news texts into Ukrainian, and also using the continuous sampling method to search for basic research materials. As a result of a comparative analysis of the original English-language news texts with their translations into Ukrainian, the regularities of applying specific translation strategy, as well as the corresponding translation transformations that are necessary to achieve an adequate translation of the English-language news text were determined. The study also analyzed the problem of finding an equivalent when translating news texts.


Author(s):  
Arkadipta De ◽  
Dibyanayan Bandyopadhyay ◽  
Baban Gain ◽  
Asif Ekbal

Fake news classification is one of the most interesting problems that has attracted huge attention to the researchers of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning (ML). Most of the current works on fake news detection are in the English language, and hence this has limited its widespread usability, especially outside the English literate population. Although there has been a growth in multilingual web content, fake news classification in low-resource languages is still a challenge due to the non-availability of an annotated corpus and tools. This article proposes an effective neural model based on the multilingual Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformer (BERT) for domain-agnostic multilingual fake news classification. Large varieties of experiments, including language-specific and domain-specific settings, are conducted. The proposed model achieves high accuracy in domain-specific and domain-agnostic experiments, and it also outperforms the current state-of-the-art models. We perform experiments on zero-shot settings to assess the effectiveness of language-agnostic feature transfer across different languages, showing encouraging results. Cross-domain transfer experiments are also performed to assess language-independent feature transfer of the model. We also offer a multilingual multidomain fake news detection dataset of five languages and seven different domains that could be useful for the research and development in resource-scarce scenarios.


2021 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-142
Author(s):  
Sh.K. Shameyeva ◽  

This article examines different interpretations of the term discourse, gives a definition of economic discourse. The proposed work also examines the main features of the translation of economic media discourse that a specialist needs to know. The characteristics of stylistic, lexical, syntactic features of economic media discourse were given. The article examines the mistakes that a specialist can make, as well as the difficulties that arise in the translation process. These difficulties arise not only due to the lack of knowledge of the language, but also due to insufficient knowledge of the translator in the field of economics. The knowledge that a translator must have in order to translate accurately was examined. For an in-depth understanding, the work provided examples of translation of some terms and phrases from the English language, with examples of their use in certain situations.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document