Metaforiniai terminai

Renata BALTRŪNAITĖ Kauno Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas METAPHORICAL TERMS The lack of logic in everyday language is glossed over through the use of metaphors. Logicality and metaphoricity are two complementary aspects of a text. V. Nalimovas Metaphor is one of the most effective means of expression in language, and has therefore attracted interest since antiquity. Aristotle wrote: “Metaphor is the transfer of a word that denotes one thing to another thing; the transfer may be from genus to species, from species to genus, from species to species, or by analogy”1. Contemporary studies of metaphor are not merely a continuation of tradition; interest in it encompasses an ever-wider range of fields: philosophy, logic, psychology, literary studies, visual-art theory, and various branches of linguistics. In recent decades, the main focus of metaphor research has shifted from philology (rhetoric, stylistics, literary theory), where the merits of poetic metaphor were examined, to fields concerned with the study of thought, cognition, and perception. The spread of metaphor not only in artistic language but also in the language of science has drawn researchers’ attention not only to its literary but also to its applied value. Without metaphor, the vocabulary of “invisible worlds” (the inner life of a person) and abstract concepts would be harder to understand. The study of metaphor helps us understand the material from which the meaning of a word is formed. Once metaphor’s influence on thought was understood, it was concluded that metaphor not only shapes the image of an object, but also determines the way and style of thinking about it. J. Lakoff and M. Johnson were particularly interested in this line of inquiry. 1 Aristotelis. Poetika. V., 1959. P. 74. 36 Metaphor can determine our perception of the world and our behavior. People have been inclined since antiquity to perceive and describe the world metaphorically. In the Middle Ages, the universe was imagined as a unified entity in which everything had a particular purpose. The first scientific model of the universe in the 16th–17th centuries was also metaphorical: the universe came to be understood not as an organism but as a mechanism (the universe as a machine, the human being as a machine). Many scientific theories are still presented as particular metaphors. For example, F. Saussure was interested in how language could be understood and treated as an object of scientific study. As Ivić writes, in order to make his ideas on this question clearer and more vivid, he “hit upon an ingenious comparison with the game of chess”2. A. Schleicher (the family-tree theory), J. Schmidt (the wave theory), and others created metaphorical comparisons in linguistics. According to N. Arutiunova, the perception of similarity is a common impulse behind the creation of metaphors in both practical and scientific discourse. In both cases, metaphor is only the beginning of thought. Comparison is not an end in itself. The wave theory of light in physics was not devised in order to compare light to a wave. Once an idea has been put forward for consideration, metaphor often “fades away.” It is merely a tool for scientific inquiry, not its result3. In this article, metaphorical terms are defined as words used in a figurative sense, or one of the constituent parts of a fixed phrase, that has such a (figurative) meaning and denotes a concept in a specialized field of science, technology, art, or another area of social life. Metaphorical terms belong to the group of linguistic (lexical, lexicalized, dead, obsolete, nominative, etc.) metaphors. A linguistic metaphor takes root in language as a permanent feature, often losing its imagery and expressiveness. In science, such a metaphor performs the function of the primary word: the scientific object has no other name. In this respect, metaphor in science differs from metaphor in poetry. The emergence of metaphors in scientific style, where imagery and expressiveness are not among the most important general characteristics of the language of science- 2 Ivič M. Lingvistikos kryptys. V., 1973. P. 127. 3 Арутюнова Н. Метафора и дискурс // Теория метафоры. Москва, 1990. С. 9. 37 of language features may be motivated by the interrelations and influences among functional styles in language as a system in general. The essence of this objective phenomenon is that the scientific style is not a closed system but an open one, influenced by other styles. Elements more characteristic of another sphere of communication may enter scientific style4. Another important reason for the emergence of metaphorical terms in the language of science is the reduction of memory load and the limited resources of linguistic means. In the language system, it is impractical to express every concept—which are infinite in number—with a completely different word. Yet the language of science requires words—terms—with one precisely defined meaning. As science expands, more and more new terms are needed; new fields are discovered and investigated, and new words are created to name their objects, or new meanings are assigned to words already in use. Metaphorical terms are motivated words. They not only name the desired thing but also indicate its relationship to another thing (or things), or even describe its most important features. Thus, the informativeness of metaphor is another reason why it is tolerated in the language of science. As in any other functional style, metaphor in the language of science is neither an end in itself nor an embellishment of the text; rather, it conveys information and effectively stimulates thought and the reader’s imagination. When a metaphorical term is created, the features considered by the speaker to be the most important and most informative are selected. However, when the concept itself allows considerable freedom in choosing the motivation for its name, essential features do not always take precedence. Naming may also be determined by fairly arbitrary associations or by the vivid imagination of the word creator, e.g.: flying saucer, mare’s tail (a popular name of English origin for pre-frontal clouds) (meteor.), Aristotle’s lantern (zool.), wood lice (Trehoptera) (zool.), etc. Metaphor is possible in the language of science because of its capacity to connect two concepts emotionally and logically, making it possible to transfer the name of one object semantically to another and thereby give the latter name new content. 4 Калмыкова Е. О динамике метафоры в научном стиле // Филологические науки. 1974. No 2. С. 124. 38 The motivations for the emergence of metaphorical terms in the language of science make it possible to distinguish several functions of these terms: nominative (the object in a field of science has no other name), communicative (the object is named and information about it is provided), distinctive (especially common in taxonomic terminology, where one species must be distinguished from another), heuristic (a comparison or image arising from an emotional impression is deliberately created to make the idea under consideration easier to understand), and linguistic economy. New linguistic constructions that enter the language of science as figurative naming units acquire a distinctive, precise character, are incorporated into the usual context of cognitive linguistic activity, and gradually adapt, losing their vivid metaphorical colouring and becoming conventional. According to the degree of adaptation, three groups of metaphorical terms can be distinguished: 1. Fully adapted terms. Terms that enter a field of science as figurative concepts can become so integrated into the system as a whole that their metaphorical colouring often fades to such an extent that one no longer notices that the word once had an entirely different, non-terminological meaning. Such metaphors have lost their vividness and are perceived only as a kind of index, as the name of a scientific concept. One of the most faded metaphorical terms is the term force. In general usage, this word is understood as “the physical or mental power of living beings.” The word force has been adopted and terminologized by more than one field of science. In economics—labour force (energy for producing something); in military affairs—manpower (soldiers); in engineering—horsepower (now archaic, a unit of machine power); in physics—force (energy as the cause of an effect). The term force is common enough in physics, and various technical collocations are formed with this word, e.g.: frictional force; limiting, or static, force; nuclear force, force impulse, force field, and so on. The abundance of collocations formed with this term indicates its complete adaptation and the fading of its metaphorical colouring; it has lost its vividness and emotionality. This term is no longer identified with the word’s original meaning and is understood as the direct name of a phenomenon. 2. Partially adapted terms. This group of metaphorical terms includes those that have become established in the language of science, 39 have been accepted and used in a particular field of science for some time, yet their metaphorical expression is fairly easy to recognize and retains its vividness and emotionality. Some terms (e.g., cap, crown, step) acquire an emotional-expressive connotation through terminologization, while others (e.g., Indian summer, devil’s birds, witch’s broom) do not lose it through terminologization, since only their lexical meaning changes, acquiring terminological semes. Admittedly, the motivation of terms used over a long period gradually fades, but their metaphorical colouring often remains. 3. Occasional terms. Terms of this type are relatively rare in the language of science, since the requirements of scientific style restrict the use of individual metaphorical terms. In linguistics, perhaps the greatest number of individual metaphorical terms can be found in the works of American linguists, because new theories are constantly being developed there, often short-lived and quickly superseded by new ideas; consequently, the metaphorical terms retain their individuality and unconventionality. Metaphorical terms in scientific texts have a distinctive meaning. A given word is chosen as a term not by chance, but on the basis of a certain similarity between phenomena or concepts. Often, only external similarity is needed for such a transfer of a term; that is, it matters only that one thing (a property or phenomenon) resembles another thing (a property or phenomenon) in some way. Sometimes, however, there are also stronger connections between the things being named. Therefore, the ways in which the meaning of a term is transferred metaphorically can be divided into two groups: 1. Transferring a term on the basis of internal similarity, that is, according to function, operating principle, construction itself, or properties. For example, a device intended to orbit the Earth or another planet was named artificial satellite, that is, something that accompanies, a companion, by analogy with its function. This group also includes metaphorical terms that indicate certain properties of an object. For example, a tree, the wood of which is notable for its high density (it sinks in seawater) and hardness (a revolver bullet ricochets off it), is called iron birch (a synonym for Korean birch). Here the element iron of the term indicates properties which 40 brings the birch closer to iron5. This method of transferring the meaning of terms is characteristic of technical terminology, since it is precisely here that the principle of operation and function are important. 2. Transfer of a term based on external similarity, i.e. by analogy of form. When a word’s meaning is transferred in this way, detailed knowledge of the phenomenon (property or object) is not as essential as it is in the case of technical analogy. Here it is enough for some secondary, incidental feature of one phenomenon (property or object) to coincide with, or bear some resemblance to, a feature of another phenomenon (property or object). Perhaps the most widespread type of meaning transfer in terminology is that involving a person or their activity. Such names are especially numerous in zoological nomenclature. For example: ledinis naras (Gavia immer): naras “a person who performs underwater work”; žuvininkas (Pandion haliaëtus): žuvininkas “1. a fisherman, one who fishes. 2. a fish seller”; šienpjoviai (Phalangida, Opiliones): šienpjovys “a hay cutter”, gulbė nebylė (Cygnus olor): nebylys (–ė) “a person who has lost the ability to speak”; šventasis ibis (Threskiornius / aethiopicus): šventas (–a) “virtuous, noble, honorable”, and so on. In other fields of science, terms formed from the names of human professions are generally avoided in order to prevent confusion between the agent, whose name would have its literal meaning, and the object being named. Although similar terms are sometimes found here too, for example, the previously mentioned physics term palydovas. The basis for transfer may also be a separate part of an object (person, animal, or plant) that externally resembles another whole object. For example: sparnuotieji žodžiai (ling.), audros akis (meteor.), uodega (meteor.), liežuvis (meteor.), kūnas (phys.), petys (phys.), plaukas (phys.), kamienas (ling.), šaknis (ling.), spygl ys (meteor.), vainikas (phys.), kekė (phys.), and so on. In terminology, an object may also be named after an animal or plant, for example: ėžys (a snowflake shape), skraidantieji šunys (Pteropoidei), žirgeliai (Odonata), sliekinė pavara, vilkelis, žiogelis, etc. 5 Лотте Д. Основы построения научно-технической терминологии. Москва, 1961. С. 44. 41 Some metaphorical terms consist of names borrowed from the sphere of everyday life: clothing, luxury goods, tools, architectural elements, food-related concepts, and so on. For example: šarvas, rankovė, kepurė, karūna, patranka, priekalas, kryžius, skraidančioji lėkštė, pluta, grūdai, kamuolys, židinys, žvakė, būgnas, balso stygos, skaidrumo langas, and so on. Abstract words from the general language are also transferred into terminology: akimirkos veiksmažodis, jonosferinė audra, elektroninė griūtis, etc. An interesting group of metaphorical terms consists of names of literary and mythological characters, for example: atlantas anat. “the first cervical vertebra of reptiles, birds, and mammals”, chimeros syst. “a subclass of cartilaginous fish”, medūzos zool. “solitary, bell- or umbrella-shaped, free-swimming marine coelenterates”, sirenos syst. “one of the orders of higher mammals”, and so on. R. Kocourek identifies the following possible cases of metaphorical transfer of meaning: a) from concrete to concrete: inanimate to inanimate, inanimate to animate, animate to inanimate; animate to animate (animal to person, animal to animal, etc.); b) from concrete to abstract; c) from abstract to abstract6. Metaphorical terms can be explained through the motivation of the metaphors, which in some cases substitutes for a special definition of the term and thereby weakens or almost eliminates the distinctions between literal and definitional meaning. Nevertheless, such metaphors more often explain how terms are formed, but do not determine their meaning. They usually provide an etymological explanation, but do not necessarily reveal anything about the essence of the thing named. The meaning of a metaphorical term may be very far removed from the word’s original meaning. Because of the law of semantic congruence, there are cases in language where a metaphorical term requires a linguistic context associated with the transfer of meaning. In our opinion, this happens most often when, 6 K o c o u r e k R. The status of English Metaphorical Terms // Applications and implications of current LSP research. Volume II. University of Bergen, 1994. P. 527. 42 when the object of such a term is not only named but also described, with its main features specified. For example, in physics we find the following uses of metaphorical terms: ... force pushes a body (IFŽ:8); ... eddy currents (IFŽ:79); ... current flows (IFŽ:105); the magnetic force is weak (IFŽ:105); atoms bind together, forming microeddies (IFŽ:7), and so on. Two words are semantically compatible and form a correct and meaningful combination if their meanings have semantic features that coincide or are at least similar7. The meaning of the verb stumti is explained as follows: “to use force in an effort to move, push away, or drive something” (DŽ₃:740). The noun jėga is explained as: “energy as the cause of an effect” (DŽ₃:267). Thus, in the combination jėga (pa)stumia, the metaphorical term jėga is semantically related to the verb pastumia as an agent and the action it performs. Thus, even a metaphorical term can retain semantic coherence determined by facts of reality. In scholarly texts, there are cases in which an entire system based on meaning transfer is created. For example, A. Schleicher’s idea of language as a living organism led to the creation of terms such as kalbų šeima, mirusioji (negyva) kalba. On the basis of the family-tree theory, terms such as šaknis, vienašaknis žodis, kamienas, lizdas, lizdinis būdas, sinchroninis pjūvis and so on emerged in linguistics. In this way, an entire system based on a single underlying metaphor is formed. Terms in such metaphorical systems are also incorporated into other semantic relations among words, where their metaphorical nature fades: the idea remains, but the imagery disappears. Most metaphorical terms do not form such systematic groups; they are isolated cases of meaning transfer, e.g., kapiliaras “a narrow tube in a thermometer” (there are no corresponding parts in instruments: vena, arterija, gysla, or the like); balso stygos (in phonetics, speech organs are not described as musical instruments or their parts: the tongue is not called keys, the nasal cavity a drum, or the lungs bellows); and so forth. Most often, such metaphorical terms do not require the context in which ordinary words were used before they became terms. 7 Jakaitienė E. Leksinė semantika. V., 1988. P. 70. 43 Examination of terminological systems in various languages and fields shows that the metaphorical method of term formation is used quite widely. The fewer international terms a field of terminology adopts, the more terms it contains that are formed by meaning transfer8. Nevertheless, it is often thought that the abundant creation of metaphorical terms should be avoided, since such terms do not lend scholarly style the seriousness and formality characteristic of it. This view is partly correct. From a terminological point of view, it is also important that a derivative or borrowing should not be ridiculous, vulgar, or misleadingly associative. The history of scholarly language and terminology offers many examples of neologisms that failed to take hold, mainly because they had a strong emotional-expressive connotation9. In terminology, the metaphorical method of term formation is applicable only when: 1) concepts belonging to different functional styles or different terminological systems do not overlap—that is, when a word is not used with both meanings in the same scholarly text; 2) a term or its element transferred metaphorically from one terminological system to another is not used with a different meaning in that system; 3) the structure (construction) of the term does not stand out excessively from the other classification terms in the system. The renowned Russian terminologist D. Lotte proposes that the following criteria be used when assessing and forming new words or word combinations transferred metaphorically into the terminology of science and technology: 1) terms should describe a concept with sufficient precision and should not evoke undesirable associations; 2) metaphorical terms or their parts, in context with other terms, should not form tasteless and awkward combinations, for example, gele- 8 Лотте Д. Основы построения научно-технической терминологии. Москва, 1961. С. 50. 9 Gaivenis K. Lietuvių terminų vaizdingumo klausimu // Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai: Lietuvių leksikos ir terminologijos problemos. V., 1991. T. 29. P. 28. 44 In railway terminology, the head of a hump (голова горки) is defined as “the part of a marshalling hump from the crest to the foot of the yard.” The upper part of this “head” is markedly higher and is called горб горки in Russian (literally, “the hump of the hill”) and even ослиный горб (“donkey’s hump”) (cf. Fr. bosse des dane; Ger. Eselrücken, Bückal; Eng. cat’s back); in Lithuanian, the recommended term is kalnelio ketera. 3) avoid recurring metaphors; 4) one should not overuse metaphorical meaning transfer from the animal world, and there is little reason to use such transfer especially widely; 5) “anthropomorphic” terms, which are sometimes adopted for no reason, should be assessed with particular care10. In meteorology, the term adata “the shape of a snow crystal” was not accepted because the external resemblance was insufficient. This term was later replaced by another, more precise term, spyglys. Thus, the metaphorical method of term formation itself was not rejected; only the motivating word that gave rise to a misleading association was discarded and a word that more precisely indicates the essence of the object was selected. The technical term gaisrinė rankovė (=gaisrinė žarna) was assessed and revised in a similar way. In Lithuanian terminology, the transfer of terms for close kinship relations (mother, father, daughter, etc.) into the scientific domain has been abandoned, since these are calques that do not meet the requirements of standard Lithuanian. For this reason, the following are corrected: dukterinis (=antrinis) atomas (fiz.); motininė (=pirminė) medžiaga (fiz.); motininė (=kilminė) uoliena (geol.). Because of excessive semantic divergence, emotional-expressive coloring, and too weak an associative link, some metaphorical terms have been abandoned in terminology, for example: aklas (=neakytas) sūris (food industry), kraujo indai (=kraujagyslės) (anatomy), silkių karalius (=juostažuvė) (Regalecus glesne) (zoology), gatvės kišenė (=įgatvis) (roads), padas (=vagos dugnas) (agriculture), piemuo (=elektrinis aptvaras) (agriculture), šakutė (=kištukas) (technology), and so on. 10 Лотте Д. Основы построения научно-технической терминологии. Москва, 1961. С. 51. 45 The results of observing metaphorical terms allow the following conclusions to be drawn: 1. Metaphorical terms arise in the language of science because of the interrelations among functional styles as an integrated language system, the economy of language, convenience of use, and the informativeness of metaphor. 2. Metaphorical terms perform nominative, communicative, distinctive, heuristic, and language-economy functions. 3. According to degree of vividness, metaphorical terms are classified as fully adapted (faded), partially adapted (fading), and occasional (individual). 4. Meaning transfer is possible by analogy of technical function (operating principle, function, construction) or by analogy of form. 5. Metaphorical terms can attract into the language of science words that share certain semantic features, but more often they are used without regard to their figurative meaning, alongside non-metaphorical specialist words in the relevant field of science. 6. Metaphorical terms are acceptable only when they describe a concept precisely, do not evoke undesirable associations, do not form awkward combinations in context with other terms, their structure does not stand out excessively from that of other terms in the system, and the term or one of its elements is not used with both meanings in the same scientific text. Received 1998 07 03 Literatūra 1. Aristotelis. Poetika. V., 1959. 2. Gaivenis K. Lietuvių terminų vaizdingumo klausimu // Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai: Lietuvių leksikos ir terminologijos problemos. V., 1991. T. 29. 3. Ivič M. Lingvistikos kryptys. V., 1973. 4. Jakaitienė E. Leksinė semantika. V., 1988. 5. Kocourek R. The status of English Metaphorical Terms // Applications and implications of current LSP research. Volume II. University of Bergen, 1994. 6. Арутюнова Н. Метафора и дискурс // Теория метафоры. Москва, 1990. 7. Калмыкова Е. О динамике метафоры в научном стиле // Филологические науки. 1974. No 2. Лотте Д. Основы построения научно-технической терминологии. Москва, 1961. 46 Sutrumpinimai DŽ – Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas. III leid. / Vyr. red. St. Keinys. V., 1993. IFŽ – Oxlade Ch., Stockley C., Wertheim J. Iliustruotas fizikos žodynas. K., 1997. 47