THE PERVASIVENESS OF METAPHOR IN THE LANGUAGE OF ECONOMICS

Abstract

Nowadays, metaphors can be seen in a totally new light, exceeding their primary function of being used only as ornamental tropes and becoming powerful instruments of expressiveness. They are active in the development of a conceptual framework for representing new ideas, as well as in providing new meaning. With their help, readers gain a more precise understanding of the terminology and scientific concepts and therefore, contribute to a greater accuracy in the use of language. Given their pervasiveness, language becomes less abstract and more manageable in concretising, objectivising or even humanising concepts. Economy related topics are part of our everyday’s language. Having a close relationship with human beings and human society, the field of Economics becomes a rich linguistic domain which, if explored, proves to be very productive in offering semantic extension. Applying conceptual terminology to corpus material we shall try to identify, classify and gather information with specific interest in metaphors that belong to the field of Economics.