Cognitive Potential of Metaphor in Professional Discourse

Abstract

The article focuses on the cognitive function of metaphor in professional discourse, which is a professional terminology system and a linguistic manifestation of a professional world view. The article demonstrates evolution of different approaches to the phenomenon of metaphor in scientific discourse and professional terminological systems. Convergence of research directions and methods, as well as integration and interpenetration of approaches to the object under study, made it possible to build the framework of the conceptual logic of mental knowledge structures objectified in systems of terminological units. A conceptual analysis of metaphorical terminological derivates enriched with semantic analysis of term definition components provided the empirical evidence that anthropocentric principle is the basic trend in the process of metaphor forming in the professional discourse of petroleum refining. The author sees metaphor as a cognitive mechanism that associates new unknown concepts with familiar phenomena from everyday human life. The dominant conceptual metaphors develop on the principle of anthropocentrism by combining the source-domain, including a system of deep ontological knowledge about a person and a target-domain representing special concepts of professional discourse. The cognitive potential of metaphorical models is described on the basis of the metaphorical derivation of the professional oil refining terminology system. In addition to their nominative function, metaphorically formed terminological units perform explanatory function by visualizing the processes of petroleum refining to provide an opportunity to understand complex structural organization of professional discourse.