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Article published In:
Terminology, Ideology and Discourse
Edited by Katia Peruzzo and Paola Catenaccio
[Terminology 30:1] 2024
► pp. 134–158

Metaphors for legal terms concerning vulnerable people

| University of Verona
| University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
This study takes a cognitive view of metaphor to investigate the terms designating vulnerable people used in two legal languages, namely English as used in the European Union and Mandarin Chinese. We applied a discourse dynamics approach to metaphor to explore the implicit connotations of the terms identifying different groups of vulnerable people (e.g., minors, disabled people, victims of human trafficking). The findings show that even when appearing in legal texts, many of the key terms for these groups are not objective, nor are they unbiased and detached from our subjective and bodily experience of the world. When these terms are connoted, they tend to have negative connotations, raising concerns about their social implications. This study highlights the entailments of embodiment theories for terminology and proposes that the identification of groups of vulnerable people is a social product motivated by unconscious relations of power rather than relations of assistance and reciprocity.
Keywords: vulnerable people, metaphor studies, discourse dynamics framework (DDF), legal linguistics, English and Mandarin contrastive terminology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Metaphor and its framing power
  • 2.Material and method
    • 2.1Data
    • 2.2Method
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Metaphors concerning the vulnerable in English
      • 3.1.1Vulnerable people
      • 3.1.2Minors and unaccompanied minors
      • 3.1.3Disabled people/the disabled
      • 3.1.4Single parents with minor children
      • 3.1.5Victims of human trafficking
      • 3.1.6Persons with serious illnesses
      • 3.1.7Persons/people with mental disorders
      • 3.1.8Persons who have been subjected to torture/rape/serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence, such as victims of female genital mutilation
    • 3.2Metaphors concerning the vulnerable in Mandarin
      • 3.2.1 Ruòshì qúntǐ 弱势群体 (vulnerable people)
      • 3.2.2 Wèichéngniánrén 未成年人 and wèichéngnián 未成年 +agnz (minors)
      • 3.2.3 Gūshēn wéichéngniánrén 孤身未成年人 and gūshēn értóng 孤身儿童 (unaccompanied minors)
      • 3.2.4 Cánjírén 残疾人 and cánjí 残疾+agnz (disabled people)
      • 3.2.5 Yǒu wèichéngniánrén de dānqīn 有未成年人的单亲 and yǒu wéichéngniánrén de dānshēn fùmǔ 有未成年人的单身父母 (single parents with minor children)
      • 3.2.6 Guǎimài de shòuhàizhě 拐卖的受害者; rénkǒu fànmài de shòuhàizhě 人口贩卖的受害者 (victims of human trafficking)
      • 3.2.7 Wēizhòng shāngbìng 危重伤病, wēizhòng bìngrén 危重病人 and wēizhòng huànzhě 危重患者 (persons with serious illnesses)
      • 3.2.8 Jīngshén bìngrén 精神病人 (persons with mental disorders)
      • 3.2.9 Bèi zhémo 被折磨 (persons who have been subjected to torture)
      • 3.2.10 Qiángjiān 强奸, jiānyín 奸淫 (persons who have been subject to rape)
      • 3.2.11Persons who have been subject to other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence, such as victims of female genital mutilation
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Chinese laws and regulations
  • Dictionaries and corpora
Published online: 18 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00080.man
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