Ánh xạ ẩn dụ ý niệm trong các bài báo kinh tế từ cứ liệu tiếng Anh

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PHẠM THỊ THANH THÙY*
*Đại học Kinh tế Quốc dân, ✉ thuyflc@gmail.com
1. INTRODUCTION
It has been widely recognized that metaphor 
is a dominant feature of natural language. This 
is true both of everyday language (Lakoff & 
Johnson, 1980), and technical and academic 
language - particularly with regard to theory 
construction in the social sciences (Henderson, 
1994). Interest in the use of metaphor in business 
and economics, both in the subject itself and 
as a methodological component of teaching 
Language for Specific Purposes, has also been 
increasing. Moreover, like other scientists, 
economic writers always try to persuade people 
that their evidence provides proof for their 
arguments and cases. They do not merely describe 
the mechanical economic events but go on to 
seek for explanations. Numerous of metaphoric 
ÁNH XẠ ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM
TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO KINH TẾ
TỪ CỨ LIỆU TIẾNG ANH
TÓM TẮT
Bài viết này với những phân tích về phép ẩn dụ được rút ra từ một số tờ báo kinh tế, góp phần tăng 
nhận thức của độc giả về ẩn dụ trong lĩnh vực kinh tế. Thông qua bài viết này, miền khái niệm 
trừu tượng “kinh tế” sẽ được ánh xạ lên một miền khác để hiểu được miền khái niệm này theo một 
cách mới, cụ thể hơn. Cứ liệu phân tích của bài báo được rút ra từ các mục tài chính và kinh tế 
của 15 bài báo về kinh tế nổi tiếng được cập nhật trong năm 2016, 2017. Kết quả nghiên cứu cho 
thấy, phép ẩn dụ Kinh tế là một cơ thể sống chiếm phần lớn trong các ẩn dụ được sử dụng trong 
cứ liệu. Bên cạnh đó còn có ba ẩn dụ khác phổ biến cũng được tìm thấy trong cứ liệu và được ánh 
xạ: Trạng thái của nền kinh tế là một trạng thái vật chất; Trạng thái của nền kinh tế là một trạng 
thái tinh thần; Phản ứng của nền kinh tế là một phản ứng của tự nhiên.
Từ khoá: ánh xạ, bài báo kinh tế, phép ẩn dụ, phép ẩn dụ ý niệm.
expressions can be seen in economic texts such 
as trade barriers, cash-flow (money transfers), 
human capital or human resources (employees), 
collapse (new firms), sink (bank), crash (stock-
markets), gloomy (economic forecasts), weak, 
strong or stable (currencies). We understand 
a significant of economic processes through 
a variety of metaphors, and every metaphor 
highlights some aspects of the target, but leaves 
the other aspects in the dark. The paper tends 
to identify if conceptual metaphor is used in 
economic texts with English evidence. Notion 
of conceptual metaphor of Lakoff and Johnson 
(1980), Phan (2007) and Tran (2007), will be 
used to refer to a representation that describes 
how two words or expressions from apparently 
different domains may be associated at an 
underlying cognitive level.
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The data used for analyzing is from economic 
section of 15 English articles from such 
newspaper as “the Economist”, “the Economic 
Times”, “Financial News”, “Financial Times”. 
The language corpora were taken from the same 
type of text: finance and economic. The reason 
for choosing these particular text sources was 
dictated by the need to ensure a very close 
equivalence of text type in terms of content, and 
register. Metaphors from the texts are analysed 
in the light of current theoretical discussion on 
how metaphor works in economic genre. The 
analysis also briefly examines the position of 
metaphors in the texts and considers whether 
they have a generalized functional use. 
2. METAPHOR AND METAPHOR IN 
ECONOMIC TEXTS
2.1. A brief review of metaphor and 
conceptual metaphor
Over the past two decades, linguists’ view 
of metaphor has changed into new directions. 
Metaphor was originally perceived as merely a 
device of the literary domain or tropes. According 
to Eco (1984), it was first discussed by Aristotle 
and defined as “the transferring to one object of a 
name belonging to another”. Aristotle discusses 
the usefulness or otherwise of faded and original 
metaphor, and identifies various types now 
referred to as simile, metaphor and metonymy.
Cognitive linguists also believe that 
some such mapping deeply rooted in human 
experience, and then are universal. Lakoff and 
Johnson (1980) claim that linguistic expressions 
reflect underlying cognitive links between the 
source (vehicle) domains and the target (tenor) 
domains. They also use the term “cognitive 
metaphor” or later “conceptual metaphor” to 
refer to the general phenomenon in question. 
A cognitive/ conceptual metaphor is thought 
to be present when the choice of a linguistic 
form seems to reflect the speakers’ deeply 
conceptualizing one experience in terms of 
another experience. This concept of “cognitive/ 
conceptual metaphor”, unlike the common 
literary definition, embraces a more fundamental 
core section of the lexicon for any language. It is 
also more inclusive, since it includes examples 
referred to in literary research as analogy, simile, 
polysemy, dead and conventional metaphors.
Like literary metaphor, conceptual 
metaphor is a mental construct mapping from 
a more concrete “source domain” into a “target 
domain”. A conceptual metaphor is a metaphor 
which is considered to be deeply entrenched 
in our cognition. It consists of two conceptual 
domains, in which one domain is understood in 
term of another. Metaphor has come to mean 
a cross-domain mapping between this pair of 
source and target. 
2.2. Metaphor in economics
Several authors such as McCloskey (1983), 
Mason (1990) have pointed out that economic 
texts in particular are “heavily metaphorical”. A 
lot of evidence about the use of metaphor can 
be seen in such terms as human capital, falling 
unemployment, demand expansion, credit 
flows, accelerating growth rates . Hewings 
(1990) argues that it is misleading to represent 
economics as rhetoric free. 
In the case of the economics as a whole, 
it is sometimes conceptualized as a living 
organism which may not only account for a 
number of surface forms in one language as in 
examples such as growth, decay, depression, 
infant, mature, ailing, healthyin English, 
but also a range of surface forms in different 
languages. Marshall (1920) (cited in Henderson, 
1982) has been credited with being the first 
economist to use a biological metaphor to 
describe the economy. However, while organic 
and evolutionary metaphors have frequently 
been used to describe processes of economic 
growth and development, it is mechanical ones 
that have dominated formal economic theorizing 
for most of the present century. Marshall himself 
felt that “biological conceptions” were better 
descriptors of economic phenomena, but their 
greater complexity compared to “mechanical 
analogies” meant having to fall back on the latter 
for theoretical purposes. 
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Previously Huynh Ngoc Mai Kha (2014) conducted a research on metaphors in economic 
newspapers in Vietnam. The research “focuses on understanding some metaphorical expressions in 
Vietnamese economic newspapers”, but this research has not yet delineated the specific mechanism 
of mapping in the ideological structures. 
3. MAPPING CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN ECONOMIC TEXTS
The notion of conceptual metaphoric appeared when metaphor was studied in a new trend on 
the basis of cognitive linguistics, which describes how people understand abstract concepts when 
they are visualized through human emotional experiences (Phan The Hung (2007). According to 
Tran Van Co (2007), the system of conceptual metaphors is created in a natural, unconscious and 
understandable way and does not require much effort to understand them as previously. Nguyen Duc 
Ton (2007) also agrees with the view that the core of metaphor is a thought, not language, and he 
explains further that in the process of, human beings have assimilated the notion of certain things 
whose characteristics are similar. As the result, people use the same name to call similar things (this 
is called the lexical metaphor) and gradually, in the process of creating new understanding, human 
beings continue to transform the characteristics and phenomena of these things into characteristics, 
phenomena of other things (this is called conceptual metaphor) when their thoughts identify them 
similarly. In other words, conceptual metaphors reflect human thinking about global. To understand 
more about conceptual metaphors, we can take a very common metaphor in business to illustrate 
this point: Trading is a battlefield. In this metaphor, the source domain is “battlefield”, and the 
target domain is “business”. In this mapping, “business” - the target domain, an abstract concept- is 
specified by a more specific source domain - the battlefield. From this mapping, an abstract concept 
“business” is understood clearly through a specific domain “battlefield”. The concept “business” is 
understood through the concept “battlefield” because these two concepts have a lot of similarities 
which are outlined in the following table:
Table 1: The similarities between the “battlefield” domain and the “business” domain.
Criteria to 
compare
Battlefield
(source domain)
Business
(target domain)
Object: soldiers whose main duty is fighting Businessmen whose job is doing business
Means:
Weapons: guns, ammunition, tactics, 
skills, sensitivity to the enemy
Investment strategies, business ideas, 
sensitivity to competitors, products, 
advertising .
Purposes:
Reach the final goal: win the 
opponents
Achieve more profitable, sustainable, and 
stable business 
Drawbacks: Being caught, lost, fired up ...
Failed, fail business strategy, lost money, 
go bankrupt.
Solutions:
Negotiating, fighting to the end, 
surrendering, ending the war.
Cooperating, using new business strategies, 
avoiding confrontation ...
From Table 1 above, we see some actions and states of the source domain are mapped to the 
respective aspects of the target domain.
In the economic field and in economic articles, studying about conceptual metaphors is not a new 
trend. Many researchers have done their research about conceptual metaphors in different languages 
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and contexts. Bratoz (2004) conducted a comparative study of popular conceptual metaphoric 
expressions in English and Slovenian economic articles. The study affirmed that the two languages 
have the same metaphoric expressions about “Economy is a living object” and “The falling movement 
in the market is a disaster”.
To clarify the use of conceptual metaphors in popular economic discussions, Kovacz (2000) has 
succeeded in identifying five important metaphoric expressions: (i) economy/business is a living 
human body; (ii) economy/business is a war; (iii) economy/trading is a game or a sport activity; (iv) 
economy/business is a marriage; (v) economy/business has activities relating to the cinema.
As mentioned above, the study aims at analyzing economic texts in English for their use of metaphor. 
The English corpus comprised 15 economic articles taken from the finance and economics sections 
in “the Economist”, “the Economic Times”, “Financial News”, “Financial Times” newspaper in the 
period from May 2016 to February 2017. 
According to Lakoff (1990), the metaphor mapping which is conventional and is a fixed part of 
our conceptual system is more important than the language. His view of metaphor is totally different 
from the view that metaphors are just linguistic expressions. If metaphors were considered as merely 
linguistic expressions, there would have dozens of different metaphors correspondent to different 
linguistic expressions. For example, “the central bank would suffer a paper loss” would constitute 
one metaphor. “The recovery of the central bank after the crisis is remarkable” (The Economists, 
July 2016) would be another, entirely different metaphor. “Mr. Setser says, they [the central banks] 
are also sunk costs” (The Economist, June 2016) would involve a different metaphor. However, in 
this case, there is only one metaphor in which the state of economy is conceptualized as a state of 
physical health. The mapping tells us precisely how the state of economy is being conceptualized as 
a state of physical health. From this point, it is stated that metaphor is a phenomenon which involves 
both conceptual mapping and individual linguistic expressions. Diagrams (1.1) - (3.3) summarize the 
findings from English economic texts on lexis drawn from the source domains of physical conflicts, 
psychological, disaster, physical health and the weather used to describe the target domain of 
economic movements within an international, global context.
The followings are conceptual metaphors found in the corpus.
Diagram 1.1: Conceptual metaphor: THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM (The state of 
the economy is a state of physical health).
4. CONCLUSION
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Diagram 1.2: Conceptual metaphor: THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM (The state of 
the economy is a state of mental health).
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Diagram 1.3: Conceptual metaphor: THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM (Trading is a 
physical conflict).
Diagram 2.1: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE PHYSICAL 
MOVEMENTS (Economic movements are ways of moving in the air).
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Diagram 2.2: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE PHYSICAL 
MOVEMENTS (Economic movements are ways of moving in the water).
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Diagram 2.3: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE PHYSICAL 
MOVEMENTS (Economic movements are ways of moving on the ground).
Diagram 3.1: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE NATURAL REACTION 
(Negative Economic movements are natural disasters).
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Diagram 3.2: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE NATURAL REACTION 
(Negative Economic movements are bad weather).
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Diagram 3.3: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE NATURAL REACTION 
(Behaviour of the economy is the behaviour of gas).
Table 2 below summarizes typical metaphoric expressions investigated in the data.
Table 2: Frequency of conceptual metaphors in economic corpus
Statistic Number
Number of words 13610
Number of metaphor 285
Metaphor per 100 words 47.75
Name of Conceptual 
Metaphor
Number of 
metaphor
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THE ECONOMY IS A 
LIVING ORGANISM 
107
The state of the economy is a state of physical health 56
The state of the economy is a state of mental health 34
Trading is a physical conflict 17
ECONOMIC 
MOVEMENTS ARE 
PHYSICAL MOVEMENTS 
96
Economic movements are ways of moving in the air 35
Economic movements are ways of moving in the water 44
Economic movements are ways of moving on the ground 17
ECONOMIC 
MOVEMENTS ARE 
NATURAL REACTION 
73
Negative Economic movements are natural disasters 16
Negative Economic movements are bad weather 36
Behaviour of the economy is the behaviour of gas 21
Others 9
With the help of computer program MiniTab, a clearer Descriptive Statistics picture about metaphoric 
expressions in economics can be shown in the following table.
Variable N N* Mean SE Mean StDev Minimum Q1 Median
Economics 285 0 47.753 0.477 12.359 14.880 17.250 18.940
Variable Q3 Maximum
Economics 12.445 19.050
It is clarified that metaphor is frequently used in English economic texts. The total corpus size was 
13,000 words and yielded 280 cases of metaphor. It goes without saying that as a science, economics deals 
with the identification and classification of phenomena in the real world. The metaphor THE ECONMY 
IS A LIVING ORGANISM accounts for the largest category of linguistic metaphors in English economic 
texts. There are three distinct metaphors related to this generic one: the state of the economy is a state of 
physical health; the state of the economy is a state of mental health; and trading is a physical conflict, 
the linguistic expressions found in English economic texts are various. Furthermore, from data of the 
study, some interesting indications of an interaction between culture and language at the level of linguistic 
metaphor have been noted. It is probably because of the influence of a nautical tradition resulting from 
its island history. For example, the metaphor MARKET MOVEMENTS ARE WAYS OF MOVING IN THE 
WATER is a preference in English. This metaphor may be interpreted as an expression for the maritime 
dominance on which the British Empire was built, as an Italian Elias Canetti writers writes: 
The Englishman sees himself as a captain on board a ship with a small group of people, the sea 
around and beneath him. He is almost alone, as captain he is in many way isolated even from his crew 
(Canetti, 1962)./.
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MAPPING CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN ECONOMIC TEXTS WITH ENGLISH EVIDENCE
PHAM THI THANH THUY
Abstract:The result of this study calls for the awareness for English second language writers 
and readers of the metaphorical nature of the subject, as well as the ways in which conceptual 
metaphors are typically realized in English. The paper analyzes finance and economic sections 
of 15 economic articles taken from “the Economist”, “the Economic Times”, “Financial News”, 
“Financial Times” newspaper in the period from May 2016 to February 2017. Besides, mapping is 
used to conceptualize economic phenomenon and to explain abstract economic domains through 
a more specific domain. The data shows that the metaphor The econmy is a living organism 
accounts for the largest category of linguistic metaphors. There are three distinct metaphors 
related to this generic one: The state of the economy is a state of physical health; The state of the 
economy is a state of mental health; and Economic movements are natural reaction. 
Keywords: conceptual metaphor, economic text, mapping, metaphor. 
Received: 18/5/2017; Revised: 12/6/2017; Accepted for publication: 28/6/2017