Conceptualizing the economy as a living organism: vivification in Arab economic discourse

Abstract

The present paper is a corpus-based inquiry into the importance of vivification for producing a systematic and persuasive Arab economic discourse. Thus, this article examines how and why the economy is metaphorically conceptualized in modern Arabic as a Living Organism that can be said to 'grow', 'revive', etc. Having analyzed the frequency with which the various instantiations of this generic metaphor appear in Arab economic discourse, the paper goes on to discuss the value judgments that they convey. The analogy between a living organism and an economy is shown to induce very specific evaluations of such conditions as 'growing' or 'being revived'. Hence, vivification is demonstrated to play a vital role in providing Arab economic discourse with textual cohesion. Although this article argues for the universal bodily grounding of the Economy Is A Living Organism metaphor, it also shows this experiential basis to be subject to cultural interpretation. The analyses carried out here suggest that projecting such physical concepts as those of 'growth' or 'revival' onto the social domain of economics entails that they are interpreted in accordance with the particular social interests of a given community.

Terremotos y epidemias: el uso de metáforas en la prensa económica española

“…La metáfora ha sido el objeto de estudio de diversos trabajos que analizaban el discurso periodístico económico (Arrese, 2015;Arrese & Vara-Miguel, 2016;Besomi, 2019;Bickes et al, 2014;Charteris-Black & Ennis, 2001;Cortes de los Rios, 2010;Herrera-Soler, 2008;Joris et al, 2019;Rojo López & Orts Llopis, 2010;Shie, 2011;White, 2003). Así pues, se ha demostrado que las metáforas más frecuentes están relacionadas con la salud y la medicina, como también ocurre en otro discursos especializados sobre economía, por ejemplo, los informes financieros (Domaradzki, 2016;O'Mara-Shimek et al, 2015;Peckham, 2013aPeckham, , 2013bWang et al, 2013).…”