English and Byelorussian metaphors in economic discourse

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International University "MITSO"

Kukharenka N.S.

Annotation

The purpose of this article is to examine the features of metaphor in economic discourse. Economy-related lexical units as well as structures typical for economic discourse have been actively utilized in individual and group communication. The article discusses samples of economic discourse selected from two British periodicals, the Financial Times and the Economist, and two Bielarusian ones, Звязда and Народная Воля.

Key words: metaphor, economic discourse, conceptual metaphor.

Анотація

Метою цієї статті є розгляд особливостей метафор в економічному дискурсі. Наш вибір зумовлений тією роллю, яку в даний час відіграє економіка в житті соціуму і кожної окремої особистості, відтак і економічна лексика, зважаючи на її активне використання. Матеріалом для дослідження слугували статті економічної спрямованості з двох відомих британських періодичних видань "The Financial Times" та "The Economist", а також білоруських «Звязда» і «Народна воля», що являють собою зразок економічного дискурсу на прикладі огляду найостанніших новин.

Ключові слова: метафора, економічний дискурс, концептуальна метафора.

Аннотация

Целью данной статьи является рассмотрение особенностей метафор в экономическом дискурсе. Наш выбор обусловлен той ролью, которую в настоящее время играет экономика в жизни социума и каждой отдельной личности, следовательно, и экономическая лексика в силу ее активного использования. Материалом для исследования послужили статьи экономической направленности из двух известных британских периодических изданий "The Financial Times" и "The Economist" а также белорусских «Звязда» и «Народная воля», представляющих собой образец экономического дискурса на примере обзора самых последних новостей.

Ключевые слова: метафора, экономический дискурс, концептуальная метафора.

A number of studies on metaphor illustrate the complexity of this lingual phenomenon occurring in virtually any context due to its unique properties. Metaphor is actively involved in shaping the personal model of the world, plays a crucial role in the integration of verbal and sensory-shaped systems of a person. It is also an important element of categorization of the world, thinking and perception. metaphor economic discourse

We witness a growing interest in the study of metaphors in different types of discourse. A bulk of works in Russian discuss metaphor and metaphorical models of political discourse (A. Baranov, Y. Karaulov, 1991, 1994, J. Fedeneva, 1997, E. Sheigal, 2000, A. Chudinov, 2001, A. Stepanenko, 2001), newspaper and journalistic genre in economic texts (Maksyutova, 1984; Putilin, 1986; Zhukov, 1987; Suhopleschenko, 1994; Mytareva, 1995; Starikova, 1996; Yatsenko, 1996; Permjakova, 1997; Shibanov, 1999; Gusev, 2000; Buneeva, 2001; Stepanenko, 2001; Yurkovskaya, 2001; Kataeva, 2002 et al.), while very few publications in Belarusian address the issue of metaphors' functioning in various types of discourse.

he purpose of this article is to examine the features of metaphor in economic discourse. Economy-related lexical units as well as structures typical for economic discourse have been actively utilized in individual and group communication. he article discusses samples of economic discourse selected from two British periodicals, the Financial Times and the Economist, and two Bielarusian ones, Звязда and Народная Воля. he samples under analysis are excerpts of economic discourse and reviews of the latest news.

Journalistic style being multifunctional and diverse in characteristics, occupies a special place among the styles of literary language. Journalistic texts can be of various subjects, as they are effective and in demand in various spheres of human activity -- politics, and education and health care and the economy. Conveying information via the media means requires thorough reflection and appropriate logical presentation of ideas. he main function of journalistic style is convincing a reader or a listener of the correctness of the argued point as well as triggering a desired response rather than providing a large volume of information. Except for logical arguments, the perlocution of this style largely depends on emotional impact that facilitates achieving the above mentioned purpose. As far as economic discourse is concerned, its structuring, content and pragmatics are determined by the social acuity of the addressed economic problems.

Universal means of achieving the above mentioned goals is a metaphor. Traditionally metaphor is viewed mainly in terms of style and rhetoric as a means of creating imagery and emotional impact on the audience. However, since the publication of J. Lakoff, M. Johnson and their famous study [6], which was followed by a number of equally important works on cognitive science, metaphor as a cognitive phenomenon has turned into a dominant subj ect of consideration. Metaphoric mechanism is widely involved in the processes of conceptualization, formation of derivatives and secondary semantics, emergence of terms and structuring of discourse. Metaphors make information more compact and accessible, introduce elements of scientific knowledge to the audience distinguished by age and level of education.

Generally, metaphor is regarded as a means of secondary designation that arises on the basis of a close resemblance of the original object and the one denoted by the designation unit. he source object's portable values are responsible for the emergence of the word's figurative meaning [2]. Structural metaphors are divided into simple (represented by a lexical unit), and deployed, or common, which can be represented by a phrase, sentence or the whole text.

Let us consider metaphors used in economic discourse. We register the use of the so-called “dead” metaphor, that is a metaphor of imagery, figurative nature of which has been shaded (for example, the English expression “field of human knowledge” corresponds to Belarusian metaphor “вобласць ведау”, not “поле ведау”). Ideally, dead metaphors of the original language should correspond to the equivalent dead metaphor in the language of translation. However, the image, which is based on metaphor, may be different in different languages. Sometimes dead metaphors have no match in the target language, and then they are conveyed by neutral, nonmetaphorical often descriptive expressions.

Metaphoric cliches are also rather common economic mass media discourse. Hese are metaphors that have partially lost their aesthetic component, and are increasingly used in a connotative function in order to provide a clearer, brighter, and more emotional expression of ideas. For instance, when we translate the English expression “to reduce expectations” into Belarusian we have to use expressive “знізіць апетыт”. If the target language allows, the choice is normally made in favor of a more emotional tool, as it will have a greater impact on the reader: “not in a month of Sundays” -- in this case there it would have been possible to translate “калі рак свісне”.

Economic discourse is marked by the use of specific sets of conceptual metaphors. he recognition of the idea of conceptual metaphor's being a tool of knowledge acquisition (as argued by J. Lakoff and M. Johnson) has led to employing it as a tool of scientific research, as well as applying it to the methods of teaching foreign languages, particularly in English for Specific Purposes and economic translation. Among the most common economic conceptual metaphors we can distinguish metaphors, united under the following classes: machinery, animals, plants and gardening, fighting and fighting, health and physical condition, ships and swimming, and finally sport. For a proper understanding of the economic problems reflected by a certain metaphor, it is necessary to understand its links within the extra-linguistic reality. Here are some examples.

he most explicit examples of economic metaphors in the Belarusian language are: “a смажаны сом індустрьіі”, «which has the greatest benefit”, “крэдытны хамут” “problems, which concern the credit sphere”. Among the English metaphors frequently used ones are “bulls and bears”, referring to the so-called “exchange slang”, “dead cat bounce” -- a sharp rise in the price of financial assets after its period of substantial decline.

Metaphors used in economic discourse are also culturally marked. For example, the Chinese economic discourse is populated mainly by dragons, and Indian -- elephants. here are also mixed types of metaphors when universal concepts interact with national-specific ones: “when dragons dance with bears”. Another interesting example is the metaphor “triple witching hour”. Its literal translation does not reflect the essence of the phenomenon, which is as follows: one of the four Fridays, when there is the deadline for options and future contracts. hus, we see that, despite the widespread use of English metaphors in Belarusian economic texts, it is useful to explain the importance of the translation of new, still not quite caught on expressions.

So having discussed three types of metaphors found in economic journalism, namely dead metaphor, metaphors-cliches and conceptual metaphors, we can conclude that the preferred methods of their translation into the Belarusian language are: 1) transfer using well-established linguistic conformity (equivalent metaphorical expression in the target language; 2) transfer with a neutral, nonmetaphorical expression; 3) the descriptive and explanatory translation.

Literature

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