METAPHORICAL MODELLING IN ENGLISH ACADEMIC TECHNICAL SHIPBUILDING DISCOURSES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the quite relevant topic of interdependence between language and cognitive structures, which is especially important for a regulated scientific and technical functional style. The analysis of the received material showed that metaphors related to the design, construction and operation of ships/ vessels can be divided into the following general, basic categories: TECHNOLOGY - SPACE, TECHNOLOGY - MOVEMENT, TECHNOLOGY - OBJECT, TECHNOLOGY - MIND, TECHNOLOGY - EMOTION, TECHNOLOGY - VISION, TECHNOLOGY - CHARACTERISTIC/PROPERTY. The universality of the cognitive metaphor SPACE lies in the fact that science is generally implemented in the form of a spatial metaphor and is understood as some environment or space for exploration, definition, discovery, some world that unfolds around the object or in which the object is located: a field, a segment , layer, place. The metaphorical model TECHNOLOGY - MOVEMENT is logically connected with the environment (space) of scientific knowledge, where such movement can occur. The metaphorical model TECHNOLOGY - OBJECT presents what turns out to be the goal or task of research. The metaphorical model TECHNOLOGY - MIND is a kind of evidence of the interaction of thinking and language as a means of reflecting reality, one of the examples can be cases of expressing the physical perception of reality through language. The metaphorical model TECHNOLOGY - EMOTION is often used to isolate economic or technical problems (disasters or economic crises). The metaphorical model TECHNOLOGY - VISION actualizes the fact that the world is perceived by human senses (visual, auditory, tactile). The metaphorical model TECHNOLOGY - CHARACTERISTIC/PROPERTY is expressed by terminological anthropometric adjectives or noun phrases. So, in the metaphors of English-language scientific texts on the subject of shipbuilding, we singled out the most frequent metaphorical models, which makes it possible to more clearly understand the characteristic features of this concept and its meaning for scientific and technical discourses, that is, from a cognitive point of view, to see a metaphor as a mental operation that allows you to understand some part of reality: first it is formed on the basis of experience, and then in the form of a conceptual model it is activated by a certain lexeme (the focus of the metaphor) and is fixed as a mandatory and stereotypical element of the scientific and technical functional style.