Economy is a living organism

Abstract

This paper presents results from a qualitative corpus-based study on Spanish EFL learners’ metaphorical production. The analysis of a learner corpus of business English, which included essays written by undergraduates, showed that learners do make use of metaphorical language and that the metaphorical expressions identified in their texts — economy/business is a living organism, business is war, business is a relationship, and economic success and failure are movements on a vertical axis — match those used by native speakers, as stated in the literature (Burcea, 2010; Kovács, 2006; Kövecses, 2002; White, 2003; among others). In addition, data also confirmed that even in learner’s language metaphors are connected in large networks within the same text, which contribute to enhancing text global coherence, as pointed out by Semino (2008). Finally, the potential benefits of raising learners’ metaphorical awareness and making explicit to them cross-linguistic differences in the expression of general conceptual metaphors are highlighted.

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

“…The Cognitive Approach has brought about a great deal of empirical studies on the omnipresence of metaphors in diverse abstract domains. One of the domains that has received substantial scholarly attention is economic discourse (among others, see McCloskey 1985, McCloskey 1990, McCloskey 1994Henderson 1994;Hunt and Menon 1995;Boers 1997, Boers 2000Boers and Demecheleer 1997;White 1997, White 2003López Maestre 2000;Charteris-Black 2000;Charteris-Black and Ennis 2001;Charteris-Black and Musolff 2003;Fukuda 2009;Wang et al 2013;Castaño et al 2014). While all these works have proved conclusively that metaphors are pervasive in economic discourse, the present study will contribute to the ongoing research by examining the most central metaphor that structures Arab economic discourse: the Economy Is A Living Organism.…”

“…While the relevance of this metaphor has been frequently examined in the English language (see e. g. most recently Wang et al 2013or Castaño et al 2014, this paper, to the best of my knowledge, is the first to investigate the importance of this metaphor in Arabic. When analyzing the conventionality, cognitive value and rhetoric of the various instantiations of this generic metaphor, the article will demonstrate that Arab economic news reporting provides further evidence in support of McCloskey's (1985: 79-86) often cited observation (cf.…”

Literalmente na web: evidências da ativação da metaforicidade em mídias sociais

“…Um exemplo simples de metáfora, nesses moldes, se refere às nossas experiências e ao nosso entendimento de entidades intrinsecamente abstratas, tais como sentimentos, ideias, atividades e sistemas, dentre tantas outras. Em português (brasileiro), por exemplo, é bastante comum conceptualizarmosou seja, experienciarmos e compreendermosa ECONOMIA de um país, que é uma atividade abstrata na sua essência, em termos de um ORGANISMO VIVO (CASTAÑO et al, 2014), que consiste em uma entidade concreta. Expressões como as que compõem as manchetes em (1) a (3), a seguir, parecem atestar a realidade (psicológica) dessa metáfora.…”

Developing Business English Students’ Metaphorical Competence in Foreign Language Learning Higher Education Contexts

“…Another important underlying cognitive model for the conceptualization in the field of business is the metaphor THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM (Kovecses 2002;Castaño, Laso, and Ventura 2014). In the 1890s, Alfred Marshall had already argued that "economic reasoning should start on methods analogous to the physical statics, and should gradually become more biological in tone" (cited in Henderson 1986: 149).…”