Chapter 11. Conceptual types of terminological metaphors in marine biology

Metaphor can be analysed from a structural, functional, conceptual, or contrastive point of view. From a conceptual viewpoint, an experientialist account of conceptual metaphor includes: (i) mechanisms of metaphorization, (ii) image metaphors vs. multiple-correspondence metaphors, (iii) motivation for metaphorical transfer, and (iv) conceptual themes (Alexiev 2004). This chapter draws on Alexiev’s parameters to analyse an inventory of metaphorical pairs in English and Spanish extracted from a bilingual corpus of specialized research articles and publications on marine biology. The results obtained point to the existence of cross-linguistic conceptual patterns in specialized discourse in the two languages studied. These findings and their implications are discussed in relation to some of the claims of Lakoff’s (1993) Conceptual Metaphor Theory.