Specialized Knowledge Mediation: Ontological & Metaphorical Modelling 3030951030, 9783030951030

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Ekaterina Isaeva   Editor

Specialized Knowledge Mediation Ontological & Metaphorical Modelling

Specialized Knowledge Mediation

Ekaterina Isaeva Editor

Specialized Knowledge Mediation Ontological & Metaphorical Modelling

Editor Ekaterina Isaeva Department of English for Professional Communication Perm State University Perm, Russia

ISBN 978-3-030-95103-0    ISBN 978-3-030-95104-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

In the era of the modern information society, it is important to study effective ways of transferring, receiving, processing, and storing knowledge. In such kind of society, the most important factor is specialized knowledge, which is formed in the process of professional activity, stored in the form of ontology in the mind of an individual, and represented in the form of a language of professional communication, terminology, and term systems. At the same time, the role of interdisciplinary communication and specialized knowledge sharing increases, during which the problem of misrepresentation of specialized knowledge arises, caused by the discrepancy between the ontologies of communicants. A solution to this problem can be found in the mediation of specialized knowledge during its transfer, which allows transforming the outgoing knowledge with minimal information losses and a high degree of acquisition. To deal with this challenge effectively and provide an unbiased opinion concerning the chosen approach, we integrate the efforts of the research team working on the project “Special Knowledge Mediation by means of Automated Ontological and Metaphorical Modelling” (Isaeva 2021) and researchers representing different linguistic schools and approaching a similar problem from their unique perspectives. We intended to develop the methodology for specialized knowledge mediation starting with a profound theoretical background for understanding specialized knowledge in the framework of cognitive communicative linguistics (see Chap. 1. Focusing on Cognitive and Communicative Perspective in Special Knowledge Modelling Methodology), then as a part of the ontologization process (Chap. 2. Development of the Ontologization Theory: From Greek Philosophy to Computational Linguistics). After that, we encourage the reader’s understanding of the pragmatic value of the language for specific purposes (LSP) in the knowledge sharing process (Chap. 3. LSP and Transdiscursive Knowledge Communication). From the theories of Part I providing the foundation for the methods used in specialized knowledge mediation studies, we move the reader to their detailed discussion in Part II, and practices in Part III focusing on specific discourses and narrowing from concepts to discrete language constituents.

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The scientific novelty of the research can be seen in a complex approach to mediation comprising cognitive science, linguistics, specialized sectoral expertise, and development of software for natural language processing (to find out more about the software see Chap. 4. Ontologization and Term System Modelling by means of AI Methods). We believe that this versatility will attract a readership interested in nontrivial solutions of urgent issues of the day. Acknowledging the fact that our authors and the readers might be accustomed to terminology specific to the schools they belong to, we define the main terms used in the book to talk about knowledge sharing between representatives of different epistemic groups. First of all, specialized knowledge refers to a system of concepts included into the ontology of a specific professional activity. In the framework of this book, professional activity is associated with a corresponding discourse, which is according to L.  Alekseeva and S.  Mishlanova, verbally mediated professional activity (Alekseeva and Mishlanova 2002). As we stated above, modern communication is not restricted to one discourse, nor presupposes its ideal conformity between communicants with perfectly matching ontologies. What we usually have in real life is communication between researchers and practitioners, experts and laypeople, professors and students, developers and consumers, etc. Communicants might be experts of different professional fields, i.e. be part of different discourses or belong to the same institutional discourse, i.e. the same scientific or professional area, but its different functional types, e.g. scientific, professional, or popular. In German linguistics, this variation is delineated with the terms: interdisciplinary communication, i.e. communication between experts of different disciplines, and transdisciplinary communication, i.e. communication between experts and practitioners or laypeople of the same or other disciplines (Janich and Zakharova 2014, p. 6). However, we slightly deviate from this tradition. Our first argument is to substitute the invariant part -disciplinary with -discursive due to our indirect access to disciplines through discourses. Secondly, we make slight changes in the usage of corresponding prefixes and introduce new terms, namely intradiscursive, crossdiscursive, and interdiscursive. The logic of these designations is as follows. According to Macmillan dictionary, the prefix intra- stands for being within something, crossis referred to combining or involving different things, while inter- means between. That is why by intradiscursive communication, we mean communication between people belonging to the same institutional and functional discourse, e.g. between two programmers. Cross- implies some inclusive interaction and thus, applied to knowledge communication means communication between, for example, researchers and practitioners, because this is done within one institutional discourse but across its functional types. In case of interdiscursive communication, no inclusion of different functional types of discourses is implied, and communication is done between strictly separated institutional discourses, i.e. communication between experts of different disciplines. The second and the third types of communication (crossdiscursive and interdiscursive, respectively) require knowledge mediation to insure adequate knowledge transfer and acquisition. This means communication becomes transdiscursive (trans- means across: used with some adjectives relating to

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place names to make adjectives meaning from one side of that place to the other (Macmillan dictionary)). We use the term transdiscursive communication as an overarching term to cover both crossdiscursive and interdiscursive types of communication done with the use of mediation technics for sufficient exteriorization and interiorization of knowledge (terms used by Hoffmann (1993, p.  614)), i.e. knowledge communication in its full sense (for more information see Chap. 3. LSP and Transdiscursive Knowledge Communication). The book covers linguistic research in several discourses, including Computer Security, Medicine, Chemistry, Politics, Education, Troubleshooting, and Football. Within these domains, conceptual, metaphorical, and ontological modelling have been implemented. The book chapters acquaint the readers with real-life experience of specialized knowledge mediation used to optimize professional communication in various subject areas, as well as to enhance LSP and professional teaching. Perm State University   Ekaterina Isaeva Perm, Russia

References Alekseeva, L., Mishlanova, S. (2002) Medical Discourse: Theoretical Basis and the Principles of Analysis. Perm. Perm State University, 200 p. (In Russ.) Hoffmann, L. (1993) Fachwissen und Fachkommunikation. Zur Dialektik von Systematik und Linearität in den Fachsprachen. In Fachsprachentheorie. Bd.2: Konzeptionen und theoretische Richtungen, ed. Theo Bungarten, 595-617. Tostedt: Attikon. Isaeva, E. V. Razrabotka metodologii mediatsii transdiskursivnoy peredachi znaniya: na styke kognitivnoy i komp’yuternoy lingvistiki [Developing a Methodology for Transdiscursive Knowledge Transfer: at the Intersection of Cognitive and Computational Linguistics]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Rossiyskaya i zarubezhnaya filologiya [Perm University Herald. Russian and Foreign Philology], 2021, vol. 13, issue 2, 25–35. doi 10.17072/2073-6681-2021-2-25-35 (In Russ.) Janich, N., Zakharova, E. (2014). Fiktion „gemeinsame Sprache“? Interdisziplinäre Aushandlungsprozesse auf der Inhalts-, der Verfahrens- und der Beziehungsebene. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Linguistik, 61(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfal-­2014-­0014 Macmillan dictionary. Macmillan Education Limited 2009–2021. Available at https://www. macmillandictionary.com/ (Accessed 08.09.2021)

Contents

Part I Theory of Mediation 1 Focusing on Cognitive and Communicative Perspective in Specialized Knowledge Modelling Methodology������������������������������    3 Larissa Manerko 2 Development of the Ontologization Theory: From Greek Philosophy to Computational Linguistics����������������������������������������������   41 Ekaterina Isaeva, Oksana Manzhula, and Russ Crawford 3 LSP and Transdiscursive Knowledge Communication������������������������   61 Jan Engberg Part II Implementation of Mediation 4 Critical Metaphor Analysis as a Means of (Re)construction of Knowledge Creation����������������������������������������������������������������������������   81 Svetlana Mishlanova and Tatiana Utkina 5 Semantic Framing for Specialized Knowledge Modelling ������������������  109 Ekaterina Isaeva, Oksana Manzhula, and Olga Baiburova 6 Cognitive Aspect of Morphological Modelling��������������������������������������  125 Ekaterina Isaeva and Olga Baiburova 7 Ontologization and Term System Modelling by means of AI Methods ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  139 Ekaterina Isaeva, Andrey Tararkov, and Vadim Bakhtin Part III Application of Mediation 8 Issues in Translating English and Arabic Common Names of Chemical Compounds by Student-Translators in Saudi Arabia����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  153 Reima Al-Jarf ix

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9 Mediating and Transforming Knowledge in Daily Intercultural Communication: A Case of Arthurian Myth in Politics ����������������������  173 Anastasia Sharapkova 10 Metaphors of the Troubles����������������������������������������������������������������������  209 Barbara Gabriella Renzi 11 Terminology for Cognitive Transdiscursive Mediation in American Football ������������������������������������������������������������������������������  221 Ekaterina Isaeva and Russ Crawford Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  265

Part I

Theory of Mediation

Chapter 1

Focusing on Cognitive and Communicative Perspective in Specialized Knowledge Modelling Methodology Larissa Manerko

Abstract  The chapter focuses on the cognitive and communicative study of specialized language communication. The author discusses the principles of the cognitive and communicative methodology of linguistic research, which is applicable to Cognitive-communicative Terminology science, in which specialized knowledge and its types are presented. The material starts with the main approaches to the study of language, terminology, and LSP (language for specific purposes). According to the systemic-functional theory of the British linguistic school, grammar is described as transforming experience into meaning, while the lexicon refers to registers depending on certain socio-­ cultural patterns changing contextually. The Vienna terminological school focused on terms’ properties, LSP studies, and syntactic means used in communicative settings within a particular subject area. Finally, the Russian terminology school met the needs of terminologists to pay special attention to term function, which further led to new approaches, including Cognitive-сommunicative Terminology. Cognitive and communicative methodology and modelling approaches applied in it provide the most anthropocentric framework for understanding knowledge transfer and mediation. This framework is based on cognitive and communicative functions presented to reveal a language picture of the world as a unique formation, uncovering processes of cognizing the world and ways of its construal by a human being. In this chapter, more attention to professional discourse and nominative means is paid, in which knowledge of the world, usual (common) knowledge, and scientific knowledge represent the formats of human perception in the practical and subject area the activity is focused on. Categorization and conceptualization are depicted according to types of human experience; socio-cultural knowledge; and situational knowledge, drawing on a repertoire of human professional expertise in various terminological spheres.

L. Manerko (*) Higher School of Translation and Interpreting, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_1

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Methods of cognitive methodology and modelling of specialized discourse, terms, and terminological systems are discussed in close connection with ­understanding how people acquire, store, and transmit information about the external world through language and internal representations depending on their specific professional area. The study of this particular aspect of terminological units points at the variability of cognitive models and their conceptualizing basis in understanding human thinking and exchanging ideas. Various concepts and their nature are revealed on the basis of profiling, part-whole relations, propositions, cognitive-­ onomasiological modelling, image schemas, conceptual metaphor and metonymy, frameworks of different kinds, and cognitive maps. These cognitive models help explain how human knowledge is organized in terminological units and conceptual construal in languages for specific purposes. Keywords  Specialized discourse · Terminology · LSP · Cognitive-communicative Terminology science · Categorization · Construal of the world · Knowledge structures

1.1  Introduction Nowadays, various linguistic disciplines witness the so-called “methodological boom” conditioned by the current development of scientific studies with an interest in other research perspectives. Nevertheless, state-of-the-art linguistics has been grounded in previous European, American, and Russian approaches from the second half of the twentieth century. This perspective reveals the diversity of theoretical approaches, paradigmatic shifts to “the normal science” in Kuhn’s understanding of the scope of the object study, and terminological apparatus used for achieving specific goals on the basis of certain methods and techniques. In Sect. 1.1, the introduction to the chapter, the work is structured to show the principles of linguistic and terminological knowledge to represent the development of scholar’s experience in terminology. In advancing this position, the chapter describes terms and activities in linguistics, including terminology science in Sect. 1.2. Then, different theoretical models in the linguistic and terminological sphere are built up, providing an insight into “how language works” and how people use it. Finally, these approaches are used to define terminological and functional research possibilities to develop specialized knowledge methodology in cognitive and communicative terminology science. The author would like to underscore that the analysis of the cognitive and communicative methodology and the cognitive modelling refer to a separate perspective in linguistics and terminological science. It is the most anthropocentric framework, introducing new and unique techniques revealing how knowledge is acquired, transferred, and mediated on the basis of knowledge understanding.

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Sect. 1.3 is devoted to ways of applying different methods of cognitive linguistics and the modelling of specialized discourse, terms, and terminological systems. This part of the paper starts with categorization as one of the main concepts of cognitive linguistics reflected in the study of particular aspects of terminological units. The specific features of levels in a categorial variation also reflect the conceptualizing basis and cognitive models of terminological units. It is depicted on the basis of professional discourse of a linguistic personality as part and parcel of linguistic community social networks. Conceptualization contributes to human knowledge in understanding how people acquire, store, and transmit information about the external world through language and internal conceptual representations depending on each professional area. Sometimes conceptualization in the terminological sphere is compared with the formation of new expressions. H.  Schmid clarifies the early stages of the word establishment of new expressions in language. He thinks that the “development is accompanied by a growing degree of lexicalization, i.e. the emergence of specific semantic, orthographic, phonological, or syntactic properties of the complex lexeme, which require it to be listed as an entry in its own right in the lexicon of the language” (Schmid 2008, p. 2). The same is present in the terminological sphere, in which we can find some peculiar features of this process. In Sect. 1.4, while discussing the peculiarities of terminological units functioning in specialized discourse, we focus on term formation and its content organization based on several cognitive models, such as profiling, propositions, cognitive-onomasiological modelling, trajectory/landmark alignment, image schemas, conceptual metaphor, and metonymy. Moreover, complicated processes and mechanisms become a tool to bridge the language means in specialized discourse with those cognitive models representing conceptualization in complex constructions, frameworks of different sorts, and cognitive mapping. These kinds of modelling manifest that human knowledge organizes conceptual content in myriad ways, depending on particular terminological units in specialized discourse and peculiarities of terminological systems. Since Cognitive Terminology studies have arisen mainly from previous developments both in linguistics and terminology, these aspects are discussed through different approaches explicating the primary methodological basis further applicable to terminological research.

1.2  “ How Language Works”: Primary Approaches in Professional Discourse and Terminology Studies One of the most influential models is associated with the British linguistic school, which widened the structural perspective as a starting point focusing on the paradigmatic and syntagmatic organization in language description. It highlights “categories of system and structure” as the basis of research (Halliday 2004: xii). While

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discussing the possibility of systemic functional analysis, M.A. Halliday pointed out that this approach aimed “to investigate systems in their association with one another, and at the same time to free the system from any constraints of structure, …irrespective of how it happened to be realized structurally” (Halliday 2004: xiii). The two main parts of the language system are known as lexis and grammar or lexicogrammar. Their paradigmatic order is of great importance because of a “purely abstract level of semiotic organization”. Grammar is the scaffold for the language system; it “sets up categories and relationships which have the effect of transforming experience into meaning” (Halliday 2004, pp. 54–55). The peculiarities of grammar and lexicon are revealed depending on the purpose of the communicative situation and several extra-linguistic factors. Grammar brings forth register variation, changing the form of the text and its representation both orally and in the written form; its multifunctional analysis reflects a number of factors presented “systematically according to contextual values” (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014, p. 29). The development of this functional model appears in the works of C. Matthiessen, who shows that the primary location of the register variation corresponds to “the stratum of semantics” viewed from the “global and local semiotic dimensions” (2020, p. 5). The range of registers depends on sub-cultural patterns and social practices adopted in the given community according to the changing contextual conditions. In general, by analysing text and register variation, we know more about their influence “through emergent patterns of meaning” (2020, p. 19). The other well-known approach is associated with the ideas expressed by E. Wüster and the Vienna terminological school representatives, which started not from the linguistic form but from the content aspect of the linguistic sign explicated objectively. This objectivity is defined in a one-to-one correspondence between a term, expressed by a word, and a concept studied logically and ontologically. In Wüster’s papers, we find suggestions concerning the term, yet giving more priority to presenting the principles and algorithmically-constructed methods of the synchronous system, revealing morphological characteristics and strict semantic relations. The ontological relations explicitly specify rigid logical links within the terminological subject field, including part-whole relationships, relations of succession, material-product and effect necessary for unification of crafts; trade; and other thoroughly constructed specialized concept systems, and the pragmatic role of standardization. According to K. Schubert, “the construction of planned languages is an attempt to devise a means of communication and let those, who need to communicate, agree upon this means” (2011, p. 26). In Europe, terminologists followed the path made by E. Wüster when he wrote “Allgemeine Terminologielehre” as an intermediate field between Linguistics, Logics, Ontology, Information Science, and subject sciences (Wüster 1974). The traditional treatment of terms and their qualities was observed at the terminological stage. This stage flourished through the reflection of the physical world picture manifested by the theory of relativity and Bohr’s theory, classical physics and chemistry, etc., based on a strict and accurate logical understanding of a concept, lexicographical and terminographical definiteness, and stability of word-concept relations

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mostly found within formal sciences. This stage results from technological advances, which needed standardization and saw optimization of terminology as an instrument for communication between people using different languages. This period was followed by a broader outlook reflected on a system-oriented stage (Schubert 2011, p. 25), in which the term “languages for specific purposes,” comprising not only terms but also the repertoire of other syntactic means. is used “in communicative settings within a speciality to maintain communication among the people active in the setting” (Hoffmann 1976, p. 170 cited in Schubert 2011, p. 281). Thus, it is “a formalized and codified variety of language, used for specific purposes with the function of communicating information of a specialist nature at any level in the most economical, precise and unambiguous terms possible” (Picht and Draskau 1985, p. 3). The further bridging link to the formal understanding of the conceptual system of the modern time is termionography and ontology engineering (Temmerman 2005, p. 66). Ontology “emphasizes the difference between the linguistic and conceptual dimensions of terminology while unifying them”. In ontology, definitions of concepts are described formally, which “allows operationalization of terminology for IT applications” (Roche 2012, p. 2626), especially in multilingual terminological resources, semantic webs, content management systems, etc. Similar formal and strict research procedures were also elaborated at the birth of the Russian terminological school when it faced the first stage of terminology development (1930–1960). This stage is associated with D.  Lotte, E.  Drezen, A. Reformatsky (Leitchik 2007).2 The research illuminated term understanding as a specialized language unit attaining monosemy to nominate exact notions. These qualities of a term were of primary importance for scientific studies, practical aspects of terminology, and translation descriptions. But investigations of various terminologies made it clear that the nature of a term as a specialized language unit exhibited a more complicated structure. The first mention of this we find in the article of G. Vinokur, where terms are defined as “particular words used in a special function” (Vinokur 1939), bringing the unstable entity of a term in use, which is conditioned by “the definite social organization of the reality” (Reformatskiy 1986, p. 164). Speaking about the nature of a term, L. Alekseeva points out that it turns out to be “rather a complex, multi-aspectual, non-strict, relative element of a specialized language, which does not satisfy the requirements made in respect of its formation. Terminologists have become conscious of the fact that it is not enough to know a list of requirements of term formation to cope with such a language unit” (Alekseeva 2009, p. 31). Changes were brought to terminology science in 1972, when it was labelled a distinct scientific discipline in Russia, with the turn from a purely terminological one, as it was before to the second stage (1970–1980), to an interest to semantic, 1  Schubert’s classification (2011) with its four stages reflects what happened in LSP studies, further followed by the search for specialized communication. 2  Leitchik (2007) introduced 5 main stages in his classification based on the chronological development of conceptions in Terminology science.

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morphological, and word-forming characteristics of terms and LSPs development (Leitchik 2007). Starting with this period, terminology science became open to all principally new ideas concerning the central notions and categories of purely terminological and general gnoseological problems. Furthermore, this period made it possible to consider terminology science within two aspects of term fixation and term production based on text materials. These investigations built up a theoretical and methodological basis for LSP research, but they also formed the third stage in terminological research, in which several textbooks and reading books were published by S. Grinev, R. Kobrin, V. Leitchik, T. Kiyak, G. Melnikov, V. Tatarinov, and others. In addition, during this period, some systemic terminological dictionaries were compiled and published (Leitchik 2007, p. 120). K. Schubert considered the new perspective in Europe to have become evident “when researchers [went] a step further and focus[ed] on the text as the main unit of analysis,” calling the third stage the text-linguistic stage (Schubert 2011, p.  29). This period has been characterized by the shift from the logico-ontological and purely structural perspectives associated with “relatively true knowledge” to the functional aspects in terminological research. Budin associated the appearance of new tendencies with the post-modernist science development, when “concept systems, precise terminology and exact expressions are rejected as inappropriate and deceiving principles” (Budin 2007, p. 62) with indeterminacy understood as a unit of thinking and understanding (Picht 2009, p.  73). Clarifying this idea, H.  Picht postulated two kinds of indeterminacy. One is observed in formal sciences and represented in concept systems. The other corresponds to “decreasing true knowledge”, bringing forth indefiniteness, changeability, complexity, and reflection of creativity, forming the new approaches in terminology research (see Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1  Formal and new subject areas representing indeterminacy (Picht 2009)

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Professional languages and other semiotic systems intersect with all kinds of knowledge in the cognition process. These approaches have introduced novel relevant possibilities classifying specialized texts into their types according to situational, pragmatic, and other extra-linguistic characteristics. At the same moment, V. Leitchik associated the period of the 1990s with “the years of the crisis of terminology science” in both Europe and former USSR countries as the fourth stage, the stage of “the exhaustion of opportunities of the wüsterian prescriptive approach to terms and terminological systems...” (Leitchik 2007, p. 121). In that very period, previous stages and approaches were criticised in several terminological papers. But this was not observed in the Russian terminology science because this period brought the acquaintance of terminologists with new paradigmatic decisions appearing in cognitive linguistics. We find the first mentions of the cognitive approach to terminology study in the article of V. Novodranova in 1997 and a year later in the paper by L. Alekseeva, “Term as a Category of Cognitive Terminology” (Novodranova 2014, p. 99). This new stage in terminology at the end of the 90s was proclaimed as the fifth stage associated with Cognitive Terminology studies according to V.  Leitchik (2007) and the fourth cognitive-communicative stage in K. Schubert’s paper (2011). Starting with the 80s, the most influential aspects became biased with the notion of “language personality” (‘yazykovaya litchnost’) representing a person’s thinking and communicative strategies. The “language personality” introduced by Yu. Karaulov (2007) originates from Humboldt’s conception of speech activity and his notion of “energeia”, Baudouin de Courtenay’s prolific vision of the importance of “fairly psychological and social aspects of human speech” (1963. Vol. 2, p. 17), and Vygotsky’s idea of “the inner form” in human brain, as opposed to “the outer form” of the word. It is in tune with the psychologist’s other significant and well-known statement that “thought is not expressed but performed in a word” (Vigotsky 1982–1984. Vol. 2, p. 307). All these conceptions play a crucial role in emphasizing how a human being expresses his/her thoughts in the social activity, concrete circumstances revealing various kinds of knowledge in speech. The notion of “language personality” forms the basis of “the methodological shift” to the new paradigm of linguistic knowledge grounded in “anthropocentric linguistics in close connection to a human being, his consciousness, thinking, spiritual and practical activity” (The role of the human factor 1988, p. 4). Besides that, this anthropocentric vision in linguistics is a system of views close to cognitive sciences including philosophy, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, artificial intellect modelling, medicine, etc. It is “a viable description of language structure viewed as an integral facet of cognition” (Langacker 1999, p. 20). This crucial perspective holds that “language is part of a cognitive system which comprises perception, emotions, categorization, abstraction processes, and reasoning. All these cognitive abilities interact with language and are influenced by language. Thus, the study of language, in a sense, becomes the study of the way we express and exchange ideas and thoughts” (Dirven and Vespoor 1998: XI). We observe the enrichment of terminology research with new assumptions in defining cognitive and communicative functions and processes. The object of

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cognitive and communicative perspective in terminology studies is to reveal the specific features in the language picture of the world as a unique formation based on cognizing the reality and ways of its construal by a human being with all kinds of knowledge. It includes the understanding of the world and usual (common) and scientific knowledge representing methods of human perception| in the practical and subject area the activity is focused on by language units functioning in professional discourse. Discourse is usually described as the language in use, “the dynamic process of expression and comprehension governing the performance of people within linguistic interaction” (Crystal 1985, p. 96). It is presented as “the speech dipped in life” (Aroutjunova 1998, p. 136), in circumstances of human use, where our understanding of the world is the basis for acting and interacting associated with a set of extra-­ linguistic factors in the flow of speech and purposes of communication. LSP and terms within terminological systems are studied through the prism of “a broad interest in a wide range of aspects of language and communication in settings dominated by specialized knowledge” (Engberg and Petersen 2011, p. 10). In particular, the cognitive approach seeks to uncover mental mechanisms over the socially determined ideas and objects created by the interlocutors exchanging ideas about reality. This forms the methodological basis for cognitive and functional research in modern terminological studies. The paper aims to provide a cognitive and communicative perspective on the study of specialized language communication. I will discuss the principles of cognitive and communicative linguistic research applicable to terminology science, explain various terms and specific features of cognitive-communicative methodology mirrored in Cognitive-communicative Terminology, and try to specify cases of conceptualization and categorization in knowledge structures on concrete examples. While discussing each aspect, the problems of structuring terminological units, functioning in specialized discourse according to cognitive semantics and functional research, will be presented. The specialised discourse architecture is based on the human ability to categorize everything and present knowledge structures incorporated in this process, which is discussed in the next part of the chapter.

1.3  “ How Language and Categorization Work” in Cognitive Studies of Specialized Discourse In Cognitive-communicative Terminology, categorization is one of the keystones of research. Cognitive linguists acknowledge that an actual world exists not only in discourse but outside it. It appears in the human mind in the form of conceptual categories based on psychological and cognitive mechanisms of perception, attention, memory, and thinking and specific features of language used in the discourse. Whenever we perceive something, we automatically tend to mentally organize the

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information. This usually happens based on reflection of our new experience compared to the older blocks of information in the real-world comprehension, our judgment of the piece of reality and circumstances, and its evaluation dependent on our purposes. Thus, we categorize it as referring to conceptual domains and, of course, on the basis of linguistic units. These language units as systems of signs form linguistic categories. Such categories represent that the expressions taken in isolation and language units connected with each other interrelate and define each other through certain links. These units are grouped according to our world experience and the way we understand it in various ways corresponding to a specific situation. The organized information appears through the process of naming. The description of categorization in the lexicon and discourse terminological sphere is becoming one of the most critical tasks in research explicated by the factors, which can progress us towards the whole cluster of interrelated concepts. Of course, this may be organized within a separate term with its conceptual structure compared to other semantically close and related terms, in conceptual domains and within the terminological system. But the thing is that it can’t be independent of language users because categories show how human understanding goes on. In the history of linguistics, we remember that the term categorization comes from the word category (Greek catēgorίa that means “class or category” from kategoreo “to accuse, show, demonstrate” from kata “against” and agoreurein “speak” < agora “assembly, forum, a market” (Alexandrova and Komova 2013, p. 25)). It is defined as “a division or class in a system for dividing objects into groups according to their nature or type” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 1992. Vol. 1, p. 152). The word’s meaning is based on the common idea that things are grouped, put in a word class or a category in the human brain because they have something in common. In philosophy, a category is a reverberation in the human mind of the most general features of objects and phenomena of reality. Aristotle was the first philosopher who introduced ten main categories, subdividing them into first Essence, as opposed to Second Essences represented by Genera and Species (Brote 2012, pp. 96–97). One of the first scientific attempts of great explanatory power, where discoveries and facts were clearly defined, was biology. Here we also encounter the terms Genus and Species, though the number of levels is greater than two. Carl Linnaeus thought that the entire world consisted of only three categories: plants, animals, and minerals. The universal description of these categories was made in his paper “Species Plantarum” (1753) (see Table 1.1). Linnaeus’ classification was also valuable for describing linguistic categories, and it influenced some scientists, e.g. August Schleicher, who defined sets by standard properties of objects. G. Lakoff pointed out that “moving about the world, we automatically categorize people, animals, and physical objects, both natural and artificial. This sometimes leads to the impression that we just categorize things as they are, that things come in natural kinds, and that our categories of mind naturally fit the kinds of things there are in the world” (Lakoff 1987, p. 6). This is a traditional or classical viewpoint based on the insight that to describe a category, we are to note

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Table 1.1  Linnaes’ description of the plant category Mays Category Domain Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species

Name Plantae Anthophyta Monocotyledones Commelinales Poaceae Zea Zea mays

a clear-cut and rigorously formal identity of features belonging to objects and properties. Besides that, classical categories are seen through direct relationships corresponding to logical and ontological links inside a particular study area. Thus, the description of categorization in cognitive research occurs to be different from the traditional linguistic perspective. In categorization, the essential thing, as cognitive researchers note, is biased by a particular person’s brain activation and the choice in the declarative and non-­ declarative (implicit) memory, when he or she is able to correlate things, phenomena, and processes of objective reality to some class of entities, which involves “knowing awareness” and personal experiences from the past (Eysenck, Keane 2010, p.  255). The knowledge of entities and categories presupposes that “some definite thing, phenomenon, or process of the analysed entity is identified with the concrete category as a certain set of human experience or knowledge and recognises this entity as a member of this category” (Koubriakova 2004, p. 307). This organized package of closely related knowledge features presents the categorizing process of particular features of objects and objects themselves in the narrow sense. While discussing categorization in general, we must admit that it is a more complicated human activity than just the inclusion of this or another unit into the bunch of identical features or semantically related objects. Cognitive psychologists state that it looks like a network—the representation of some piece of reality in the semantic memory proceeds through inference because human memory aims to find similar but essential, analogous, and compatible features and properties in the observed and perceived phenomena. Moreover, individuals constantly find the attributes of various things in similar and even relatively identical objects and phenomena; they trace the most vivid perceptual, sensory-motor, and functional information in the constant flow. The mentioned features allow categorization to be understood as the result of the cognitive activity of a human mind, where all sensational, perceptual and other data are analysed by all our mental abilities and mechanisms in the patterned but dynamic flow of information. The result of the categorization process is “the creation of a unique category” (Koubriakova 2004, p. 307). The objectifying form of the category in the language is a sign expressed by a name.

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In cognitive semantics, research concepts and conceptual fields can’t be described as clear-cut categories any longer. The analysis usually starts with explanatory dictionary definitions. They serve the basis for setting the status of an expression as a terminological unit. If in the definition we find that specialized units are not used, and those that are used don’t denote pieces of specialized information, it becomes pretty clear that terminological unit refers to the usual layer of worldview. In this case, the defined language unit should belong to the common language layer. If specialized language means are fixed to reveal a specific sort of knowledge in the definition, it becomes clear that this language unit has already become a term. The next point of departure in the analysis is the definition in specialized lexicographical sources. Such a research stage is an important methodological procedure, in which we begin to understand the correspondence of terminological units to the specialized knowledge areas of human activity (Manerko, Novodranova 2012). The principle of acquiring the category prototype serves as the basis for understanding categorization in cognitive linguistics (Lakoff 1987; Temmermann 2000). It is mainly identified with ‘quantifiable’ relationships like salience, centrality, and degree of membership. These relations between the elements of the category are pinpointed based on dictionary definitions and in discourse as well as social and cultural context. Salience shows that several aspects of the meaning structure are more important than others in concrete discourse. It is connected with psychological and pragmatic features appearing in the communicative situation. It penetrates “the reflection of frequency of usage in the structure” (Geeraerts 2018, p.  38). D. Geeraerts also admits that the category does not consist of identical cases with equal weight, but “the category is as it were held together by the presence of a dominant central case, less central and less frequent examples being related by similarity to the central case” (Geeraerts 1998, p.  82). This makes clear that centrality and degree of category membership are based on certain portions of the human knowledge which users usually focus on in language. So, the term knowledge structure shows that it cannot be understood as a static entity; it should be described as dependent on cognitive processing. Categorization as a cognitive process addresses the needs of, on the one hand, individual human perception, attention, and memory, and on the other, knowledge structures represented in naming as revealed in professional discourse. Naming and discourse are integral anchors of human creative activity, and cognition lies at its heart, which becomes part and parcel of mental processes to be internalized “in inner speech” (as Lev Vygotsky maintained) to be further used for communication. The reason to investigate conceptual categories in Cognitive Terminology is vital because language structures make use of the general cognitive apparatus, such as category structure involving cognitive mechanisms. These investigations bring forth “new cognitive methods and procedures for the study of a scientific text and professional discourse” (Novodranova 2014, p. 103). Terms are also revealed as a verbalized result of professional cognition and a relevant lingua-cognitive means of orientation in the professional sphere of communication, the cognitive nature of which is realized by structures of specialized knowledge in LSP organization. Here it is worth mentioning that “the linguistic component” of LSP is not only

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terminology but “the whole lexical stock of a specialized domain of knowledge, that is the language of science objectifying its conceptual content” (Novodranova 2014, p. 103). The modern specialised discourse of the technical sphere and technology abounds in various expressions referring to nominative units denoting objects and other kinds of entities. Let’s look at the following examples: We know that a plane must be moved rapidly through the air in order to remain in flight, and that it must have a large, slightly inclined surface—a wing—to furnish the supporting force (Freeman and Morgan 1981, p. 34); Simple ‘air-cored’ transformers are used in radio and TV circuits but for power transmission the two coils are wound on a closed ring of special steel which increases and concentrates the magnetic flux (Freeman and Morgan 1981, p. 45). The most frequent among the nominative units are those denoting physical objects created by human beings—artefacts. They usually become the central part of sentences being expressed by simple, derivative, and compound words as well as word combinations. In the specialized discourse of the modern technical sphere, which is cognitively, contextually, and systematically grounded, word-groups prevail. The most salient elements of nominal constructions are the key terms, like a plane, that correspond to various sorts of planes, while a transformer is also a key nominal unit in the phrase simple ‘air-cored’ transformers and others. They represent the most valuable and relevant information in the text. All these units belong to different classes of nouns denoting transport means, weapon, machinery, measuring equipment, tools and other conceptual categories (Manerko 2000). Such categories, as Geeraerts notes it, may be characterized by “a dominant core (the prototypical instantiation of the category), surrounded by peripheral instantiations that deviate in one or more features from the central cases” (Geeraerts 1998, p. 82). Even a small set of expressions met in a specialized discourse may alert us to the status of corresponding nouns as central elements of substantive complexes. In the sphere of transport means the most frequent are ship, vehicle, aircraft, while the others like boat, carrier, drone, craft belong to the zone of the nearest periphery and others, such as vessel, hovercraft, destroyer, to the zone of the far periphery. We find these three groups of nominal components of terminological constructions in the corpus of specialized technical discourse. The outer valence of these key components depends upon their frequency of usage (see the first and the second columns in Fig. 1.2). The use of ship, vehicle, and aircraft as the core elements is compared to a number of other examples (Manerko 1999). One of the main features of the category is its changeable character due to the appearance of new members entering it. The category shows increasing flexibility. At some time, the periphery of the category is becoming more and more extended, and the category in a certain situation may change. D. Geeraerts mentions that the flexibility of the category may occur after no more than 5 years of the category’s presence in the language (Geeraerts 1998, p. 83). The frequency of the nominal key component in substantive complexes changes 20 years later—in 2019 (see the third column in Table 1.2). The other important fact is that prototypical members of categories are sometimes described in terms of clusters of properties, influenced by a variety of

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Fig. 1.2  Hierarchical levels in the conceptual domain of transportation Table 1.2  The list of the key components in nominal complexes of the terminological sphere The list of the key components in nominal complexes Ship Vehicle Aircraft Boat Carrier Drone Craft tank Bomber Vessel Hovercraft Fighter Destroyer Spacecraft Submarine

The frequency of occurrence of the key components in nominal complexes in 1999 (Manerko 1999) 205 194 124 55 40 26 24 22 18 18 13 13 9 6 4

The frequency of occurrence of the key components in nominal complexes in 2019 255 155 113 38 49 86 81 58 29 24 23 53 12 19 17

psychological criteria. With time, some peripheral members may move closer to the category’s core. Others shift from the core to the nearest periphery, becoming peripheral or marginal members of categories or even become members of other categories (Manerko 2000). The last case happens when speakers use the same language unit in adjacent and closely related subject areas. When we study categories and the units representing them, we describe them as associated with a certain period, e.g. at the present moment of its development or perhaps some time ago. Still, in the second case, we outline some particular interval in the system of

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language communication and try to “slice” it away from other periods in language evolution. The conceptual content of a lexical category tends to uncover a wide range of instances. This is happening with names denoting means of transportation. Though linguistic units included in this domain are quite different in their formation, they are organized into one linguistic category. This category, like any other subject area, appears as a result of the synthesis in categorisation. Any conceptual category is characterized by the hierarchical structure of its members. It may be presented on several levels. The concept TRANSPORT reflects the entire category of objects pointing at the function—to carry people or goods from one place to another. This conceptual entity is included in the broader concept of ARTEFACT, represented by the highest level of categorization. ARTEFACT is the most abstract phenomenon in this taxonomic system, and it appears due to the process of abstraction in the human mind. It belongs only to objects (things) in reality. It is necessary to mention an essential detail that an artefact is a physical object created by people in their activity. The etymology of this word presupposes that it is “anything made or modified by human art”, which means that it is made not naturally but artificially. Simultaneously, it is easy to trace the hierarchical path through this sphere of knowledge because TRANSPORT bears a relationship of schematicity to such notions as AIRCRAFT, VESSEL, and VEHICLE, corresponding to various ways of moving in the air, water, and on the land surface. Thus, TRANSPORT becomes an integrated concept for a number of different means of transportation; it is simply characterised with lesser detail on the thematic level. Simple, derivative, and compound words and phrases belong to the superordinate, basic, and subcategorial levels. All these units describe a system of transportation (see Fig. 1.2). There are many indications that basic level terms are more salient than others (Dirven and Vespoor 1998, p. 38), but it is essential that on the basic level, we usually find a unit, which, among several other possibilities, is used most readily to refer to a given phenomenon. In our examples, these units represent the most prototypical physical objects for artefacts and means of transport. These are the most prominent members of the category because they are what usually come to mind when we think of this particular category. The basic level unit is usually considered to be the most important term in the category. In the lexeme representing this level, there are certain properties that show the way people interact with objects. According to G. Lakoff, the basic level terms depend on “the way they (people) perceive them, image them, organize information about them, and behave toward them with their bodies” (Lakoff 1987, p.  51). In addition, linguistic units belonging to the basic and superordinate levels become “basic centres of discourse, their cognitive and informational nature is of the utmost relevance for communication” (Manerko 2004, p. 148). They group the prototypical core of the category, frequently expressed by simple, derivative, and compound word structures. They represent a specific sort of knowledge and human experience, which may be regarded as a large conceptual domain with its own system of organization and specific dynamic structure revealing its characteristics only in unity

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with some other concepts. On the subcategorial level, we mostly find compound words and nominal multi-component phrases. The greater part of separate terminological units is included in specific categories. These categories mostly have a prototypical structure: some of the most prominent members form the core, and many others are incorporated in the nearest periphery or further zone of the periphery of the category. The description of the formation and organization of categories depends on the person, who analyses the stock of words for his communicative purpose and deals with definitions and terminological contexts. Such observation also depends on how the investigator comprehends and interprets the terms used in communicative events, his knowledge, and experience of different language means in various situations. For example, suppose we start investigating texts produced by a particular scientist and try to illustrate his vision of the world. In that case, the whole category may change its shape because it may be constructed on different presuppositions about the concrete piece of reality or situation. If we look at the same TRANSPORT category from the point of view of an officer and military sphere of mediation or any other pragmatic viewpoint, the understanding of the category and its levels may change. The same may happen to the alterations occurring with the word representatives of the basic and thematic level. One would rather say that the terminological unit opening the category on the thematic level bears more functional features than other terms corresponding to the analysed category. In one of my papers, I have already discussed the category shape of elementary particles in nuclear physics (Manerko 2019). It depends on human knowledge represented in the construal of the world, which may change according to the cognitive and pragmatic functions of the speaker (scientific writer). This kind of categorisation describes the cognitive state of the actor or actors in a particular communicative situation, the sense of the linguistic sign in a specialized discourse, and its correspondence to the piece of reality in some context. Categorization may be regarded as a socially and psychologically oriented activity, and three kinds of models may represent it in the world understanding depending on human experience: 1. The first level reflects the holding of the everyday conceptual picture of the world, which reveals human knowledge in general. It exists in the mind of a lay person in a relatively simple way lacking any complexity and understood as gestalt structures without any specifications; 2. The second level comes through the general acquaintance of people with scientific experience in some specific sphere of human activity. It happens at various stages of an individual’s acquaintance with the scope of literature on the subject area that occurs at any level of education (school, college, university, even while reading science popular books and articles), where a person has to deal with new information—the inner world becomes far richer than it was before; 3. The third level depicts the scientist’s way of thinking (worldview), his or her socio-cultural surround, educational background, and of course, personal values and interests, because it reflects the same category existing in the mind of a particular expert in some concrete subject area, as it was when this kind of the world

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construal was described in the paper devoted to a professional domain in nuclear physics, the author’s research reflected in his scientific papers and while talking to the members of the Nobel committee about the matter of special interest (Manerko 2019). Featuring at least two or three levels representing worldviews involved in human cognition, we may admit that the categorization process is “inherently unstable and context-dependent; it is a product, namely, of how a speaker, in harmony with his present concerns and the direction of his present thoughts, chooses to construe a certain state of affairs” (Taylor 1995, p. 6). It is a complex phenomenon showing both logical and psychological, social, and individual aspects of human perception and understanding of outer reality. From the representation of the link between language and categorization, we turn to the aspects of conceptualization in the professional sphere. These two aspects of categorization and conceptualization involve human cognitive abilities.

1.4  “ How Language and Conceptualization Work”: The Specific Features of Knowledge Structures in a Specialized Discourse This part of the paper tackles the relationship between linguistic and conceptual elements represented in terminological units studied on the material of a specialized discourse. Here we focus on knowledge structures and cognitive operations in an individual’s mind depending on the context. These operations and structures are penetrated through special methodological techniques and operations that are able to reveal a specialized picture of the world, sometimes combined with the common worldview. While discussing the issue of language and conceptualization, E. Pederson and J. Nuyts highlighted the idea that linguistic and other semiotic sources of information revealed conceptualization, but that the “‘access’ to conceptual structures is indirect… There remains the fundamental challenge of distinguishing between features due to cognitive systems directly responsible for the behaviour itself and features due to the underlying general conceptual systems” (1999, p. 2). The analytical point of departure in presenting conceptualization is associated with an interest in mental mechanisms—what we know and verbally register by our senses and feelings. These processes are somewhat challenging to describe. E. Koubriakova underlines that the distance between the language and the conceptual system correlates in the mental space. They cannot be too far from each other, though they are interconnected. She finds that “only the language, objectifying the work of cognition and characterized by thinking (mental, interiorized) acts, turns out to be the main means of access to them” (2012, p. 55). There may be different kinds of cognitive models among the knowledge structures in reference to the background human experience. G. Lakoff thinks that “we

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organize our knowledge by means of structures called idealized cognitive models, or ICM” (Lakoff 1987, p. 68). To account for these models, he distinguished four structuring principles—naming proposition-like structures included into frame semantics described by Charles Fillmore, image schematic structures in Langacker’s cognitive grammar, and metaphoric and metonymic mappings (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). They all involve psychological, cultural, and social conditions that include connectors or mappings as part of idealized cognitive models, implying some information retrieval procedures. These models implicate “possible variation from community to community, from context to context, and from individual to individual” (Fauconnier 1999, p. 10). Boldyrev (2000) also distinguishes the forms of language and conceptual organization of information based on principles of concept representation. He subdivides them into simple and complex ones. We can find a sensory image and image schematic structure, conceptual metaphor, and metonymy among the simple conceptual structures. The conceptually composite structures incorporate the link between the elements and include more intricate relations associated with a variety of cognitive operations like propositions, frames, gestalt structures, and scenarios. In the sphere of a specialized discourse, it is not easy to find the case of the sensory image, but it is observed in fiction and poetry, where the speech production is aimed at the emotional and aesthetic functions revealed quite vividly in such interaction (See Manerko 2012). Further analysis represents a reasonable view of terminological units with their semantic and conceptual content intertwined, providing their ways of expression in text and discourse with the focus on cognitive mechanisms taking place in the process of naming and corresponding to the forms of conceptualization in context.

1.4.1  Profiling in Understanding Cognitive Mechanisms A way of characterizing the meaning correlation in expressions represented by nominative units found in the text is profiling (Langacker 1999, p.  27). It is a descriptive construct able to demonstrate the meaning of one lexical item compared to another one with a more generalizing status. R. Langacker calls the analyzed item a “profile”, highlighting that “the expression designates a particular substructure within that conceptual base” (Langacker 1999, p. 27). It is evident as he states that “profiling represents a kind of focusing of attention, obviously a basic and well-­ established cognitive ability” (Langacker 1999, p. 28). This is not particularly one sensual image, but two images represented by the conceptual mapping. He illustrates this case with the term hypotenuse that “evokes as the basis its characterization the conception of a right triangle, but clearly its meaning cannot be equated with that conception per se” (Langacker 1999, p. 27). The hypotenuse is a profile compared to the broader conceptual base of a right triangle, which is the base for comparing two terms (Fig. 1.3, section a).

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Fig. 1.3  Examples of profiling – (a) hypotenuse, (b) aircraft and (c) wing

While analysing the profiling cases in the professional discourse, I would like to specify two main kinds of profiling. Still, it is worth mentioning the fact that we usually compare two joint concepts. The first case belongs to the broader perspective pattern of the same category domain. Let me introduce this kind of profiling with the examples comparing two human images based on definitions from explanatory dictionaries, cf.: an aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases, the downward thrust from jet engines. Common examples of an aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships (including blimps), gliders, paramotors and hot air balloons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Aircraft); aircraft—a vehicle (as an airplane or helicopter) that can travel through the air and that is supported either by its own lightness or by the action of the air against its surfaces (https://www.merriam-­webster.com/dictionary/aircraft); aircraft—a flying machine of any type, with or without an engine (Longman 1992, Vol. 1, p. 22). It is worth mentioning that the analysis of specialized encyclopaedic dictionaries is a way of retrieval of the main concepts and their features in the conceptual content which forms the basis of the language unit meaning. Only some “part of this definition content becomes relevant in the concrete type of a specialized discourse, modifying a terminological meaning” (Motro 2010, p. 18). The first and the second presented definitions of an aircraft corresponding to “a vehicle that is able to fly…” and “can travel through the air…” are practically similar in content with the same generalizing element vehicle. The third definition refers to “a flying machine of any type…”, which does not belong to the terminological sphere, but expresses the synonymic meaning equivalent to the previous definitions. On the one hand, the word aircraft is compared to a broader and hyperonymic term—vehicle or machine as its synonym that belongs to the superordinate level of categorization (see Fig. 1.3, section b). On the other hand, the examination of definitions in the words vehicle and machine show that they denote practically the same things: a vehicle is “a machine, usually with wheels and an engine, used for transporting people or goods on land, especially on roads” (https://dictionary.cambridge. org/ru/словарь/английский/vehicle) and a machine is “an apparatus using mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task” (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ru/словарь/

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английский/machine); “a car, bus, or truck which has an engine and is used to carry people from place to place”(https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ vehicle). Both lexemes belong to land transportation, but the most important thing in our case is that they indicate a means of transportation of the flying kind. This attribute specifies the sphere of navigation of this transport means and the function of this travelling vehicle, particularly in the air. Though the words aircraft and vehicle as a broader phenomenon are characterized by “a certain body of conceptual content”—in each of them, we find similarities and differences indicating categorization properties in understanding the aviation transport system as a terminological domain. The profiling schema represents the relations of inclusion of the lexeme with a narrow meaning (aircraft) to the more abstract one (vehicle). These relations are revealed by the predicate INCLUDE uniting both terms. Jackendoff thinks that “abstract concepts are built by extending perceptual concepts” (1996, p. 60). The use of the terminological unit aircraft in a specialized discourse concerns choosing a necessary item preferable in the particular context from some images. In this case, we observe focusing of attention on flying capacities and functions, which are underlined in several contexts: Aircraft may be unable to land or take-off for several days or occasionally weeks; In turn, the airlines would not purchase the aircraft unless they too are assured of making a profit by operating the aircraft (Collins Dictionary). This chapter represents several new examples. It has been found out that both an aircraft and a vehicle are part and parcel of the TRANSPORT concept denoting a system or means of conveying people or goods from one place to another. The confirmation of the thematic level of categorization of this term is found both in the title of the article “Analyzing the Threats of the Failure of Visual Awareness during a Visual Approach for Transport Category Aircraft” and in the extract to it represented by a nominal phrase: “Transport category aircraft are “multi-engine airplanes with more than 19 seats or a maximum takeoff weight greater than 19,000 lbs” (Misra 2020). The second case of profiling appears with part-whole relations. It is necessary to return to the mentioned example: We know that a plane must be moved rapidly through the air in order to remain in flight, and that it must have a large, slightly inclined surface—a wing—to furnish the supporting force (Freeman and Morgan 1981, p. 34). In this sentence, we find that a plane becomes a conceptual base in the categorization process, while the wing as a constituent part of the flying apparatus is a profile. Such attention is one of the basic cognitive abilities discussed in the psychology of perception and visual search. In particular, in a visual event, we can observe a scene perceived by the human brain. John Searle indicates that “we get three components in the visual scene: the perceiver, the object perceived and the qualitative visual experience” (Searle 2007, p. 100). Among the object categories, one of the main properties is the shape of the object because “to be able to distinguish all kinds of objects we linguistically categorize on the basis of appearance” (Jackendoff 1996, p. 100). Besides that, Jackendoff thinks

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that such objects as an airplane should be characterized by symmetric generating axes and two orienting axes, which “determine the front-to-back and side-to-side directions” (Jackendoff 1996, p. 102). The wing in planes is an essential part, cf.: A variable geometry wing aircraft is able to change its physical configuration during flight (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Wing_configuration). The horizontal generating axis is significantly longer than the vertical one. We can find this element specified in a number of terminological units, cf.: fixed-wing aircraft, swing-wing bomber or rotary-wing aircraft. In other transport means, like in submarines, the hull is profiled in a number of nominative constructions, cf.: The stealth single-hull small waterline area hydrofoil unmanned ship has excellent seakeeping, speedability and resistance properties, and can achieve the three navigational statuses of body navigation, winging operation and submerge navigation (https://patents.google.com/patent/CN105905251A/ en). It usually happens that nominal complexes are associated with the absence of symmetry in the image. This feature indicates at the anthropological model the inherent internal orientation of an object based on the topological principle (Talmy 1983). Different means of transportation are composed of parts touching the surface of land or water at its bottom, e.g., half-track carrier, air-lubricated hull submarine, air-cushion aircraft carrier. Clarifying the details of the shape in the modifying components of word groups, they mainly indicate the kind and specificity of an artefact. The traditional sphere of a person’s natural exploration is the surface, a horizontal position existing in egocentric orientation. The object shape is clearly seen through this specially named sufficient part, representing a conscious perception of them. These features, even in a specialized terminological sphere, correspond to the “windowing of attention” (Talmy 1996) that is required “to correctly integrate the features into objects” (Hoffman 1999, p. 57). The collection of such features is necessary for the absolute representation of the object in terminological units. These features of artefacts, represented in complex nominal groups, characterize various properties, such as volume, form, size, parts, and other parameters. A case in point is as follows: “As worldwide demand rises for electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines, along with next generation technologies and weapon systems, demand for these metals has taken off; Researchers aboard the ship dropped box-­ shaped coring devices 12,000 ft to the seafloor to sample the nodules as well as bring up sediments and mud from the seafloor” (https://www.wired.com/story/ the-­race-­to-­send-­robots-­to-­mine-­the-­ocean-­floor/). Objects of this absolute system often have their own shape; these are holistic things with specific contours and other inherent features. The contours of objects are so valid that this system is sometimes called the contour system (Chown et al. 1995). The absolute system of vision is inspired by the idea of the proposition-based creation of nominative constructions with the indication of the main component to the domain of something expressed by the conceptual entity of THING. The predicate corresponds to the second component of the proposition formula. The PART-­ WHOLE relations are specified by the link BE COMPOSED OF; the others include BE OF KIND, CHARACTERISED BY, CAUSE-EFFECT and CAUSE-­ CONSEQUENCES relations as well as PROPERTY indication. Moving ahead, it

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would be convenient to show one of the examples from our corpus, e.g., in the nominative construction catamaran small waterline area ship, the relationship between the THING (ship) and the predicate link BE of KIND (catamaran) is observed.

1.4.2  The Cognitive-onomasiological Modelling This modelling is based on the onomasiological approach in linguistics, which started the research from the world and its designations. This approach was expressed many decades ago in the papers of the Prague linguistic circle and was further developed by the representatives of the Russian linguistic school, but it is closely tied with the cognitive linguistic theory nowadays. Onomasiology, as stated by Geeraerts, “is about choosing categories. …about different categories for designating a given thing, something in the world and then different forms of semantic construal” (2018, pp.  46–47). The scientist calls the choices that would be more obvious than others biased with “conceptual onomasiological salience” (Geeraerts 2018, pp. 46–47). The onomasiological aspect discusses different structures of naming, i.e. nomination, which is usually subdivided into primary and secondary types. Traditionally, the theory of onomasiology pays attention to the way derivative units are composed—whether it is a derivation, conversion, compounding, back-formation, etc. The onomasiological structures usually correspond to examples with some suffixes or prefixes like worker, Londoner, type-writer, etc., which contain the predicate relation. All the components referred to in the onomasiological structure of language units contain the categorial indication of the main components: somebody who works, somebody who lives in some place (London), something (a machine) that does something (prints letters and figures on a sheet of paper when a person pushes its keys), etc. The linking between the meanings reveals the motivation of the derivative unit and is associated with lexico-grammatical meaning corresponding to the class objects. It was stated by E. Koubriakova that this “modelling link of meanings in the morphological structure of the derivative word we call the word-formation meaning” (Koubriakova 1981, p. 7). It looks like a formula, which denotes “the type of relation between two categorial meanings, as the analogue of relations between objects, processes and properties and corresponding concepts” (Koubriakova 2004, p. 322). She underlined that “every use of the word, including the derivative word, is caused by the necessity to objectify, reveal, realize its meanings as that part of data about the world or its information about it, which was acquired by a person in his cognitive and social activity and which correlates in the language with this wording sign” (Koubriakova 1981, p. 6). This analysis regarded as the early version of the cognitive understanding of word-formation was called the “cognitive-­ onomasiological modelling” (Koubriakova 2004). In the same way, more complex nominal constructions could be analysed according to special phrase-formation meanings and patterns (Manerko 2000).

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Influenced by Fillmore’s propositions and frame semantics that are necessary “in describing the semantic contribution of individual lexical items and grammatical construction and in explaining the process of constructing the interpretation of a text out of the interpretation of its pieces” (1985, p. 232), cognitive linguistics acquired a new approach in understanding cognitive structures based on the propositional format. Let us show how it works in a nominal construction. The first stage of the analysis presupposes the subdivision of the structure into two parts, where the onomasiological basis is the ship related to the modifying attributive complex catamaran small waterline area becoming the onomasiological sign. The main element of the onomasiological basis corresponds to the conceptual entity of THING through the predicate relation BE of KIND aimed at the categorial entity of the onomasiological sign. As we can observe in Fig.  1.4, the onomasiological sign is explicated further with the help of the other property—the size of the catamaran—becoming the onomasiological basis, while the other part specifies the onomasiological sign of the subordinate part of the whole noun phrase. H. and E. Clarks think that the line of attention of a human being starts with the form and size, and after that, it refers to the function and activity of the object (Clark and Clark 1977, p. 468). All the examples of various onomasiological-cognitive modelling are explained in (Manerko 2000). In the given example, we observe an analysis that explains how human memory works in creating a nominative complex—a peculiar feature of English academic discourse, where the number of these constructions is relatively high. The confirmation of such mental processes is found in the text of the article, where the construction points at the kind and, further, the size of the device: SWATH catamarans present surface vessels with reduced water line surface. Basic operational principle is that by the reduction of water plane area, where the most quantity

Fig. 1.4  Example of cognitive-onomasiological modelling of the English word-combination

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of wave energy is concentrated, vessel generates a large amount of stability even in the case of rough sea conditions and high vessel’s speed movement. With this principle, SWATH catamarans place the most amount of displacement under the water line, where the impact of wave energy is minor (Serđo et al. 2010).

1.4.3  The Trajectory/Landmark Alignment This kind of construct is called the trajectory/landmark alignment (Langacker 1999), and it is the relative system of orientation, or the “where” system (Jackendoff 1996, p. 106). This system determines the spatial relationships of objects. It shows the dependence of one object upon another and ways of navigation and orientation in space. The artefact is described as a thing moving in space or, if it is relatively static, as having its place or starting on its way from the space location, e.g. The Pentagon credited the GLCM (ground-based cruise missile) with a range of 2000–2500 km. Like other U.S. cruise missiles of this period, accuracy after more than 2000  km of flight was approximately 30  m (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ BGM-­109G_Ground_Launched_Cruise_Missile), Aircraft carriers may be classified according to the type of aircraft they carry and their operational assignments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier). It requires the presence of space in the location in which the thing is perceived. The description of objects in this system does not depend on the norms, form, size, or other functional characteristics of artefacts, since in this case, the thing is usually perceived as a standard one, already stored in the person’s long-term memory. Therefore, these parameters are not relevant here. The proposition specified in nominal phrases is usually associated with some place and the predicate link  – ‘OCCUR IN’: [(high equatorial orbit) (communications satellite)] – {THING (satellite USED IN communications) – OCCUR in – PLACE (high equatorial orbit)}. Among the characteristics taken into account in this system are topological ones. They help to describe the height and depth of natural objects as well as their direction, trajectory, and distance from the observer’s position. Such characteristics are significant in this orientation system, but they are specified as a result of a human being’s understanding of relative distances and measurements. The language of technology takes into account the relative measures used by people in understanding the world, e.g., short (extended, long, ultra-long) range missile. The relationship between the object (figure) and its place (ground) always exists in the framework of a certain event (Talmy 1996; Jackendoff 1996). The ground is relatively more prominent and stable than the object in question. The description of the ground location in English terminological units specifies four degrees of a relative distance between the speaker and the thing. They are as follows:

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general locatives (field ground catapult, land mobile launcher), different kinds of particular places and artificial locatives (desk-top calculator, carrier-based helicopter), and centred with the person’s body as the starting point of visual cognition and the motion process (shoulder-launched flame-thrower). But in general, this system is usually independent of the observer.

1.4.4  Image Schemas The attention to the embodiment in cognitive linguistics brought a new empirical research program that “began to provide converging evidence for the central role of our brains and bodies in everything we experience, think, and do” (Johnson 2017, p. 22). The basic idea was that according to “the nature of our bodies (how and what we perceive, how we move, what we value) and the general dimensions of our surroundings (stable structures in our environment), we will experience regular recurring patterns… that afford us possibilities for meaningful interaction with our surroundings, both physical and social” (Johnson 2017, p. 22). The physical experience of a human being is based on all kinds of perception. The idea of imaging is connected with “the topological structure of the perceptual whole, …structures that link sensorimotor experiences to conceptualization and language” (Johnson 2017, p. 86). Besides that, M. Johnson thinks that image schematizing is formed on the basis of sensorimotor experience and pre-conceptual structures corresponding to mental experience that “falls between abstract propositional structures, on the one side, and particular concrete images, on the other” (Johnson 1990, p. 29). As we can observe, the spatial logic is built on the bodily experience; this is “a schematic structure, which organizes human experience” (Johnson 1990, p. 25). It is a repeated dynamic pattern of our perception and motor programs that gives linkage and structure to our understanding of some piece of the surrounding world. Moreover, abstract concepts are regarded as extensions of physical concepts. These dynamic patterns were called image schemas and have begun to be used in linguistic and terminological research. Names belonging to the everyday vocabulary change their meaning to designate new appearing concepts, mostly with narrowed and specialized meanings, sometimes intertwined with cases of the extension of meaning, conceptual metaphor, or metonymy. Schemas are non-propositional, holistically representing parts of human experience as gestalt structures. They may represent the conceptual content in terminological units and may be relevant for the presentation of event structures. A. Cienki, based on the works of M. Johnson, gave a list of image schemas used in everyday communication. The adequate semantic description includes the schemas of containment, up/down, left/right, front/back, centre—periphery, iteration, balance, loss of balance, source—path—goal, forced motion, locomotion, and others (Cienki 1997, p. 356). The most prominent in the terminological sphere are the CONTAINER and SOURCE  – PATH  – GOAL schemas. It usually happens with simple words that

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Fig. 1.5  The development of conceptual content in the word and then the term domain

they acquire a terminological meaning, which mostly undergoes the narrowing or specialization of meaning. In this case, we typically start from the definition of the word. The original meaning of the word domain is defined as “an area of territory owned or controlled by a particular ruler or government” with an example the French domains of the Plantagenets. In Fig. 1.5, section a, it is schematized through the relationship between the territory and land owned or controlled by someone. Later this meaning becomes the source of motivation for the next acquired meaning (see Fig. 1.5, section b) pertaining to “an area of interest or an area over which a person has control”, e.g., She treated the business as her private domain (Cambridge International Dictionary 1995, p. 410). This may be concerned not only with a particular person but with an organization or government. The meaning of the word is extended, and, in the course of time, it is felt as if it has some volume and boundaries; it is conceptualized as a three-dimensional container mapped out in space. In the dictionary of computer technology, the term domain is specified because of the sphere of application, e.g. 1) “a set of data values from which a relational attribute may draw its values; 2) any problem of interest” (Orel 2007, p. 127). It also refers to the image schema of CONTAINMENT, but the relations are quite different here (Fig. 1.5, section c). The development of computer engineering brought changes in the understanding of the term content that we observe in the following definition, where the meaning is extended corresponding to approximately the same knowledge area but denoting a different thing through the variation of human activity: A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain, or it represents an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, a server computer hosting a web site, or the web site itself or any other service communicated via the Internet. In 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered (https://

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e n . w i k i p e d i a . o rg / w i k i / D o m a i n _ n a m e # : ~ : t ex t = I n % 2 0 g e n e r a l % 2 C % 20a%20domain%20name,service%20communicated%20via%20the%20Internet); A domain now contains “a group of computers that can be accessed and administered with a common set of rules”. For example, a company may require all local computers to be networked within the same domain so that each computer can be seen from other computers within the domain or located from a central server (https://techterms.com/definition/domain#:~:text=A%20domain%20contains%20 a%20group,located%20from%20a%20central%20server). The image schema 5d represents the CONTAINER but in the sphere of Internet and computer programming. The CONTAINER schema in nominal complexes is of a somewhat different kind in comparison to the given example. Here, the objects are characterized by their “bodies” and shapes, sometimes expressed metaphorically, especially in attributive components: changeable body shape projectile, crossed loop antenna, or full metal jacket bullet. In these phrases, containers have constant forms which remain unchanged for a certain period while moving. The inner space of such things may be perceived as a point inside the larger container (Talmy 1983). Objects may contain different smaller things like technical and non-technical artefacts: heavy equipment transporter, groups of people: light armoured squad carrier, substances: ball powder propellant, liquids: liquid oxygen tanker, gas: tear gas cartridge, information: intelligence data processor. The second most popular among different dynamic patterns is the SOURCE-­ PATH-­GOAL schema based on figure/ground organization. It is identified by the trajectory that moves from the starting point of location in some direction, and a goal is the intended destination of the trajectory. What is important is the final location of the destination, but in some cases, the starting point is profiled (1999, p. 33). The semantic change of the terminological unit refers to the narrowing of meaning in the sphere of telecommunications bringing forth specialization. A previous article (Manerko 2016) has already described the changes occurring in the terminological meaning of address, influenced by the lexeme of the common language layer and usual picture of the world, when we observe changes in the process of conceptualization, intertwined with the shift of the category domain in the computer sphere of terminology. Such words as path and communication common to general language change their meaning in the specialized discourse of telecommunication (Orel 2007). In nominal complexes, the conceptualization profiles the movement of some object from one place to another that is also a trajectory-landmark relation: subsurface-­to-surface missile, air-to-air fighter.

1.4.5  M  etaphor and Main Approaches of its Investigation in Professional Discourse At the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, the metaphor of the rhetorical device began to be studied through the use of lexical means in texts. It was acknowledged that metaphor and metonymy were not only naming new objects and phenomena

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when such phenomena of the semantic polysemy were interpreted from a different angle. The change of meaning was believed to be a derivational process in text research. For example, L. Murzin compared deep and surface structures on the basis of proposition content in the sentence (Alekseeva and Mishlanova 2016, p. 19). This net structure included a predicative structure and its further interiorization, i.e., the contamination of two structures—the previous and the new one—and the appearance of the form with the new meaning in the text as a result of this contamination (Alekseeva and Mishlanova 2019, p. 12). Terminology, becoming an integral part of the language of science, presented a metaphor as a way of modelling scientific knowledge in texts. The mechanism of new knowledge creation in terms is the dynamic aspect closely related to the enrichment of terminological systems by new elements in functioning. Even in scientific texts of strict sciences, we find examples of new interpretations mainly created with the help of metaphors (Alekseeva 1998). Thus, the intention to study metaphor due to the impact of text linguistics became a new turn in terminological studies. These studies focus on diversification in methodology influenced by cognitive linguistics, where metaphor is acknowledged as an instrument for providing thinking and the embodiment of neural mechanisms in perception, movement in the physical world, and abstract reasoning. The metaphor represents conscious or subconscious images in perception playing an essential role in defining the cognitive function through its role in conception or newly created concept. As it is noted by G Lakoff and M. Johnson, “through metaphor, we articulate our understanding of reality” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p. 5). These scholars note that “conscious thought is a tip of an enormous iceberg”, while “cognitive unconscious is vast and intricately structured” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, p. 13). Metaphors enable people to compare their concrete and abstract experience. Conceptual metaphor is learned by co-­ activation through cross-domain mappings from a source domain to a target domain. The source domain is described as the sensorimotor and usually concrete domain representing the subjective experience; while studying it, we can activate various knowledge structures in the human mind. G. Steen sees a distinction between conscious metaphorical thought and “deliberate metaphor use… in production or reception… making cross-domain comparisons” in texts (Steen 2014, p.  180). In the use of metaphor, the shift of one’s perspective from a target-domain referent to a source-domain perspective of the referent is observed. This is a very accurate transition of attention from one object to another, when “an instruction for addressees to adopt an ‘alien’ perspective on a target referent so as to formulate specific thoughts about that target from the standpoint of the alien perspective” (Steen 2014, p. 180). In cognitive terminology science, the central category is the category of a professional language personality, an expert, and his expertise includes the following features: 1. the activity in some specialized professional sphere is characterized by the consequently developing complex kinds of human activities;

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2. social polyfunctionality marked by the ability to actualize several social roles and demanding different degrees of world development; 3. the consequent continuum of shifts from the naïve to the scientific picture of the world, corresponding to the multidimensional character of cognition of the language speaker (Mishlanova 2002, 11). This understanding of the professional linguistic personality allows the creation of principles of the Super Net metaphor model based on the following: 1 . metaphor is regarded as complex and integrative ‘beyond linguistic’ entity; 2. it is associated with the process of the language unit development within a discourse; 3. “the notion of the discourse allows overcoming the opposition of conceptual vs language metaphor since it refers to the whole continuum of sign activities; 4. the integrative discourse definition as a verbally mediated activity in a specialized sphere makes it possible to view metaphor as a universal sign development process, covering the whole continuum of sign activities” (Alekseeva and Mishlanova 2019, p. 14). The integrative model presupposes the development of a language sign in a discourse and is based on eight stages of semiotic cycle development, defined as the unity of systemic, textual, and personal stages in the semiotic activity of an individual (Mishlanova 2002, p. 127). The metalinguistic polysemy activity based on the metaphor use includes the cognitive and communicative phases. In Fig.  1.6, cognitive and communicative stages are represented to reveal the motivation and interrelated processes: The metalinguistic representations are found not only in modern texts, but in academic discourse written some centuries ago as a method of scientific observation and reflection, e.g. in Robert Hook’s “Micrographia or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses” there is this exciting passage describing his 18th experiment: I took a good clear piece of Cork, and with a Pen-­ knife sharpen’d as keen as a Razor, I cut a piece of it off, and thereby left the surface

Fig. 1.6  The metalinguistic activity of polysemantic processing in a specialized discourse

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of it exceeding smooth, then examining it very diligently with a Microscope, me thought I could perceive it to appear a little porous [Hook 1665]. It tells us about one of his great inventions. In the seventeenth century, the scholars created specialized scientific language, and it “was a part of a wider Renaissance project of elaborating the English language so that it could be used in a wide range of communicative domains” (Graddol 1997, p. 174). In this description, Hook firstly used verbs of action and observation, followed by the archaic form me thought. Analysing the thin solid substance of Cork, he paid attention to the empty cavity contain’d between them. It is interesting that he called it a scheme, cf.: scheme, for the Interstitia, or walls (as I may so call them) or partitions of those pores were neer as thin in proportion to their pores, as those thin films of Wax in a Honey-comb (which enclose and constitute the sexangular cells) are to theirs. He identified the peculiarities of the substance and its form and comprehended it in searching for the necessary wording for the observed phenomenon: empty cavity, scheme. Then he saw the walls and he stopped; in the brackets he gave his viewpoint with the phrase as I may so call them. He continued his description without any comparative structures, but we can observe quite clearly the cognitive processes in his mind when he tried to find the necessary language item. He went through pores, thin films of Wax in a honey-comb as a selective process, and then the image corresponded to the most exact designation in this situation—through conceptual mapping, the intentional phrase was found—sexangular cells. These little boxes called cells made the scholar famous because the word cell as a “small room for a monk or nun” or “a hermit’s dwelling” had been used in English since 1300 (from Latin cella “small room, store room, hut,” related to Latin celare “to hide, conceal”) (Etymononline Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=cell). Hook underlined the observed shape by the phrase sexangular cells and chose that exact word among others that came to the forefront of his mind. The search for the lexeme appears in cognizing when the mind goes through new observations. W. Chafe wrote in one of his works that our mind behaves as if everything is new in experiences, but that it happens in quite a different manner - the process of scientific observations presupposes models, which our consciousness had already tackled (Chafe 1990, p. 81). Besides that, inner mental processes enable people to use what they know about their direct physical and social experiences to understand more abstract mental activities: “The synchronic links that exist between the various senses of an item coincide with diachronic mechanisms of semantic extension such as metaphor and metonymy” (Geeraerts 1995, p. 7). As in this cell discovery Hook compared two image forms. The first, rather concrete, is associated with a space container—a small room (“a hermit’s dwelling”); according to G. Lakoff and M. Johnson (1980), this is a source domain. The scientist based his observation and reflection on this old knowledge. The new kind of knowledge is focused on the target domain, which helps to acquire the new knowledge and reveal it by the word—the cell as the smallest part of the cork, but “the smallest basic unit of plant or animal” (Cambridge Dictionary online). The target domain is more abstract. It is the projection of the source domain when in discourse, i.e. two conceptual domains meet in the image structured by the scholar’s mind in

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the contextual meaning and acquiring the cognitive link. The conceptual metaphor offers insight into how new scientific ideas emerge. In nominal phrases, the methodological decision on how to study the complex based on conceptualization may be quite different. One of the ways is found in cognitive-onomasiological modelling when the onomasiological formula reveals the relation between the components, especially if one of them is a metaphorical one. For example, in the noun compound crocodile squeezer defined as “a squeezer consisting of a lever device with powerful jaws between which metal is placed for shingling” (https://www.merriam-­webster.com/dictionary/crocodile%20squeezer), the predicate link specified by LOOK LIKE, RESEMBLE is involved in the onomasiological formula. But it is necessary to note that the lever device is a part of the squeezer characterized by the shape of jaws, so in the compound unit, PART-­ WHOLE relations are exemplified on the function of the device. In beavertail (antenna) used in meteorology, the expression denotes “a type of radar antenna that forms a beam having a greater beam width in azimuth than in elevation, or vice versa. In physical dimensions, its long axis lies in the plane of smaller beam width. A beam that is wide in azimuth angle and narrow in elevation angle is employed on height-finding radars. Search radars usually have beams narrow in azimuth but broad in elevation angle. In general, the narrower the beam, the greater the angular resolution” (Glossary of meteorology http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Beavertail_ antenna). The corresponding noun antenna is outside the onomasiological formula pointing at specific characteristics of the modifying component beavertail exhibiting the specific function of the artefact. In the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, the biological virus and computer virus are compared, wherein the computer virus is “rather a conventional metaphor” elaborating stable and systematic relations between two conceptual domains” (Tkach 2011, p. 132). The author states that the “mapping is so basic and systematic that it makes it possible to find a variety of counterpart elements in two domains” (Tkach 2011, p. 133). In the source domain of a “biological virus”, we find that the virus preserves characteristic features (unwanted, pathogenic), functions in living organisms, operates (invades, infects, replicates) within the cells of living organisms, invades other living beings through communication, causes disease (physical impairment), and requires treatment (elimination). In the target domain of the “computer virus”, it is unauthorized and malicious, functions in computer and/or computer networks, operates by inserting itself into a computer, infects it, replicates within a network of computers, and propagates itself to other computers via networks or disks. Besides that, the computer virus interferes with the operation of the computer, causing harm to files/programmes, and requires treatment (removal) (Tkach 2011, p. 133). In the paper by J. Fauconnier and M. Turner (2002, p. 100), the notion of computer virus is illustrated by the relationship of blending, starting with an outer-space analogy between a biological virus and an unwanted destructive computer program. The authors note that the vital relation of CATEGORY can be compressed into a Category relation in the blend, where the computer program is indicated as a virus.

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Table 1.3  The system of oppositions of metaphorical models in professional and popular scientific discourse (Isaeva 2013, p. 17) Professional discourse Medical treatment and prevention of the disease Investigation Defence (war) Taking control over natural phenomena and animals

Popular scientific discourse Illness Crime Attack (war) Out of control of natural phenomena and animals

They point that the compression of conceptual content in the blended space into a single conceptual category is one of the overarching goals of the blending process. In the discourse of computer security, three-dimensional models—including linguistic, conceptual, and pragmatic aspects encompassing various sorts of human social activities in professional and popular scientific discourse—are depicted with the help of a complex of methods (Isaeva 2013). They postulate cases in which the concept virus in the discourse of computer security can be modelled according to argument roles in cognitive metaphorical models. These roles are similar in models but depend on the degree of activity represented in the text type. The semantic role of an OBJECT of action and its AGENT initiator are distinguished in a professional discourse. In a popular scientific discourse, the other scenario is performed, where the computer virus is the AGENT influencing the computer work, serving the OBJECT or PLACE of intervention effect. The opposition of metaphorical models of the virus concept in two types of the computer security discourse is presented in Table 1.3. The professional academic discourse, as we may observe, is greatly influenced by broad cultural knowledge stored in the human mind (cf. Komova 2005) that structures some piece of reality as “a multifaceted ability” (Langacker 1991, p. 5), developing some new terminological sphere in a systematized way. This discourse is based on culturally specific metaphors with the historical basis as a source domain, which encompasses “a highly complicated scientific content” incorporated into the global mode of reasoning (Sharapkova and Manerko 2019, p. 24). Analysing two metaphorical expressions, Rosetta stone and Trojan horse in the medical and the biological scientific discourse, it is possible to state that the first contains conceptualized information of a philological and semiotic character, while the second one acts as a deliberate metaphor becoming “a tool for clarifying and communicating a complex novel idea or theory to scientific community” (Sharapkova and Manerko 2019, p.  41). It profiles the image of WAR and TRANSPORT going through BARRIERS. The variability of concepts and constant semantic changes in the terminological sphere are analysed on the material of a specialized discourse. Conceptualisation in terminological units is depicted by a number of cognitive models that follow certain principles:

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1. profiling is a construct that unites two images through inclusion or part-whole relations; 2. cognitive-onomasiological modelling represents categories existing in the human mind; they are organized propositionally based on the onomasiological formula through the predicate links between categorial entities of the onomasiological basis and onomasiological sign; 3. trajector/landmark alignment specifies spatial vision of objects in reality. It is not propositional; 4. image schematization is also non-propositional associated with the embodiment; 5. conceptual metaphor and metonymy reveal the mental mechanisms characterizing cognitive and pragmatic features; they represent cross-domain mapping based on societal and cultural comprehension of the world; 6. all these models reveal human interpretative mechanisms, one of which is prototypicality, as a structural mechanism of categorization of linguistic and conceptual phenomena. These cognitive and interpretative mechanisms are included in larger organizational units of understanding—frames and conceptual maps—that are able to reveal thoughts in the mind and imply sociocultural and pragmatic tendencies of knowledge description in specialized discourse with the communicative context of mediation between experts and non-experts. These large conceptual structures can show how terminological systems and LSP work in a specialized discourse and the human mind.

1.5  Conclusion This chapter has discussed various things associated with the analysis of the terminological sphere and the specialized discourse. The analytical point of departure was the scope of description dominant in previous approaches in European linguistic and terminological studies. The British linguistic school gave insight into the ideational and interactional meaning characterized through the procedures of systemic-­functional theory with the focus of registers. The Vienna and Russian studies in the terminological sphere were quite close at the beginning, with attention to the term and its strict notional features and systematic approach, but attention to the term function and the psychological and social aspects changed the pace of Russian terminology development coming to the understanding of linguistic personality and his/her role in the socio-cultural community communication. The shift to these aspects introduced the anthropocentric framework, with the focus on the vision of the world through cognitive and communicative functions, especially in the professional sphere investigated through the prism of Cognitive-­ communicative Terminology science, where the primary methodological interest is in term creation in the dynamic evolution of the language system, knowledge, and experience in the specialized discourse activity.

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Comprehension of the variability of human activities producing the perception of the other reality is provided by knowledge types concerning the world, the difference between the usual and specific worldview, and the understanding of extra-­ linguistic factors in communicative settings. All this shows the actual complexity of human knowledge, which can be accessed not directly, but through comparison between linguistic, categorical, conceptual, socio-pragmatic, and discursive features in actual circumstances of knowledge mediation. The correspondence between language and categorization showed that everything is centred upon prototypicality, including basic and other levels in domain presentation. The specific features of levels in categorial variation reflect the conceptualizing basis of terminological units and their semantic and conceptual characteristics. New and unique cognitive methods attempt to reveal knowledge acquired, transferred, and mediated based on terminological units functioning in a specialized discourse and terminological systems. These methods are quite different depending on the professional area and human knowledge expertise to which individuals belong. Conceptualization contributes to human understanding of term-production and functioning, focusing on specific content and its organization. The material presented the creation of terms in a specialized discourse may be described on the basis of several cognitive models, including profiling, cognitive-onomasiological modelling, trajectory/landmark alignment, image schemas, conceptual metaphor, and metonymy; they are included in larger interpretative mechanisms like frameworks of different kinds and cognitive maps. This is a wide spectrum of combinatorial characteristics of cognitive models representing simple and higher cognitive processes, abstraction, schematization, etc. These kinds of modelling point at the methodological variability in Cognitive-communication Terminology research. This research mostly starts from the world understanding. It provides the retrospection of mental mechanisms according to cognitive and communicative principles of research, shaping the object of analysis and proposing novel decisions in understanding the terminological sphere in professional communication. Acknowledgements  We express our gratitude to Susan de Guardiola, New Haven, Connecticut, USA & Moscow, Russia for the proofreading of the chapter.

References Alekseeva L (1998) Term and metaphor. Perm: Perm Publishing House, 1998. In Russian. [Алексеева Л.М. Термин и слово. Пермь: Изд-во Пермского ун-та] Alekseeva L (2009) What is a term? Categorization and conceptualization in languages for special purposes and professional discourse studies. Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Print, Moscow, Ryazan, pp 31–39 Alekseeva L, Mishlanova S (2016) Perm School of metaphor. In: Vestnik of Perm University. Russian and foreign Philology. Vol. 3(35), pp  122–133. In Russian. [Алексеева Л.М., Мишланова С.Л. Пермская школа метафоры // ВестникПермскогоуниверситета. Российская и зарубежная филология. Вып. 3(35); pp 122–133]

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Manerko LA (1999) Object in space by means of complex structural nominative unit. Nomination and discourse: collection of papers. Ryazan: Ryazan State Pedagogical University Press. pp 95–101 [МанеркоЛ.А. Предмет в пространстве через сложно-структурную единицу номинации // Номинация и дискурс: межвузовскийсб. научных трудов. Рязань: Изд-во РГПУ, 1999. С. 95–101] Manerko LA (2000) Language of Modern Technology: Core and Periphery. Ryazan: Ryazan University Press. In Russian. [Манерко, Л.А. Язык современной техники: Ядро и периферия: монография. Рязань: Изд-во РГПУ, 2000] Manerko L (2004) Spatial cognition and complex nominal phrases. In: Russian terminology science (1992–2002). Shelov SD, Leitchik VM together with Picht H, Galinsky C.  Vienna, Termnet Publisher; pp 144–161 Manerko L (2012) Types of knowledge embodied in fictional and academic discourse. In: Vestnik of Moscow State Linguistic University. Issue 6 (639) in Linguistics: “Discourse as social activity: priorities and perspectives” in 2 parts. Part 2, pp. 56–70 [Манерко Л.А. Типы знания, воплощенные в художественном и академическом дискурсе. Вестник МГЛУ, 2012. Языкознание. Вып. 6(639) “Дискурс как социальная деятельность: приоритеты и перспективы”: в 2 ч. Ч. 2, 56–70] Manerko L, Novodranova V (2012) The development of cognitive methods in LSP studies. In: The 4th UK Cognitive linguistic conference: 10–12 July 2012: Book of abstarcts. London: King’s College. ID 1529 Manerko L (2016) Towards Understanding of Conceptualisation in Cognitive Terminology. Lege Artis 1(2) 129–170. https://doi.org/10.1515/lart-2016-0012 Manerko L (2019) From academic discourse to the construal of scientific cognition and knowledge structures. In: David Banks and Emilia di Martino (ed) Specialized discourses and their readerships. Springer, Singapore, pp 69–88 Matthiessen CMIM (2020) Trinocular views of register. Approaching register trinocularly. Language Context Text 2(1):3–21. https://doi.org/10.1075/langct.00019.mat. ISSN 2589-7233|e-issn2589-7241. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company Mishlanova S (2002) Metaphor in medical discourse. Perm State University Press, Perm Misra S (2020) Analyzing the threats of the failure of visual awareness during a visual approach for transport category aircraft. International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace 7(2). https://doi.org/10.15394/ijaaa.2020.1474 Motro YB (2010) Cognitive-pragmatic factors of realization of special lexical meanings in discourse: thesis of PhD in Philology. Moscow: AegisPrint. In Russian. [Мотро Ю.Б. Когнитивно-­ прагматические факторы реализации специальных лексических значений в дискурсе: автореф. дис. канд. филол. наук. М.: Изд-во “Aegis Print”, 2010] Novodranova V (2014) Cognitive terminology is 10 years old. In: Manerko L, Baumann K-D, Kalverkämper H (eds) Terminology science in russia today: from the past to the future. Bd. 116 (Forum für Fachsprachen Forchung). Frank and Timme, Leipzig – Berlin, pp 99–108 Orel TI (2007) The method of terminology description on the basis of image schemas (on the material of English terminological system of telecommunication In: Cognitive linguistics: new problems of cognition. Moscow, Ryazan: Institute of linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Ryazan State University named after S.A. Essenin. pp 141–148. (Орёл Т.И. Методика описания терминосистем посредством образных схем (на материале английской терминосистемы телекоммуникации. Когнитивная лингвистика: новые проблемы познания, 2007) Pederson E, Nuyts J (1999) Overview: On the relationship between language and conceptualization. In: Language and conceptualization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–12 Picht H (2009) Indeterminacy, Fachkommunikation und die Wissenschaften. In: Categorization and conceptualization in languages for special purposes and professional discourse studies. Moscow, Ryazan: Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Print. pp 72–79 Picht H, Draskau J (1985) Terminology: An introduction. University of Surrey, Guildford

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Reformatskiy AA (1986) Thoughts on terminology. In: Contemporary problems of Russian terminology V.P. Danilenko (ed.) Moscow: Science, pp 163–198 [Реформатский А.А. Мысли о терминологии // Современные проблемы русской терминологии / Отв. редактор В.П. Даниленко. М.: Наука, 1986. С. 163–198] Roche C (2012) Ontoterminology: How to unify terminology and ontology into a single paradigm In LREC 2012, Eighth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, May 2012, Istanbul, Turkey, pp 2626–2630 Schmid H-J (2008) New words in the mind: concept-formation and entrenchment of neologisms. Anglia 126(1):1–36. https://doi.org/10.1515/angl.2008.002 Schubert K (2011) Specialized communication studies: an expanding discipline. In: Current trends in LSP research: aims and methods. Peter Lang, Bern, Berlin, pp 19–58 Searle J (2007) Putting consciousness back in the brain. In: Benett M, Dennett D, Hacler P, Searle J (eds) Neuroscience and philosophy. Brain, mind, and language. Columbia Univ. Press, New York, pp 97–124 Serđo K, David B, Vlado F (2010) Comparative analysis of conventional and swath passenger catamaran In The 13th International Conference on Transport Science. Portorož, Slovenia May https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/405051.Kos_S._Brcic_Francic.pdf Sharapkova A, Manerko L (2019) Culture-derived concepts in scientific discourse: transferring knowledge through metaphor. In: Fachsprache. Journal of Professional and Scientific Communication Special Issue; pp 22–46 Steen G (2014) Deliberate metaphor affords conscious metaphorical cognition. Cogn Semiotics. 5(1–2):179–197. https://doi.org/10.1515/cogsem.2013.5.12.179 Talmy L (1983) How language structures space. In: Pick HL Jr, Acredolo LP (eds) Spatial orientation: theory, research, and application. Plenum Press, New York, pp 225–282 Talmy L (1996) The windowing of attention in language. In: Shibatani M, Thompson S (eds) Grammatical constructions: their form and meaning. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, pp 264–296 Taylor John R (1995) Linguistic categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory: 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University press Temmerman R (2005) What will be considered a term? From static terminology description to dynamic terminology processing In New trends in specialized discourse: the 15th European symposium on Languages for Special Purposes. Univ. of Bergamo (Italy) 29 August  – 2 September 2005: Book of Abstracts; p 66 Temmermann R (2000) Towards new ways of terminology description: the socio-cognitive approach. John Benjamins Publ. Company, Amsterdam, Philadephia The role of the human factor in language: language and worldview (1988) Serebrinnikov B, ed. Moscow: Science Publishing House. In Russian. [Роль человеческого фактора в языке: язык и картина мира / Отв. ред. Б.А. Серебренников. М.: Наука, 1988] Tkach S (2011) Metaphor as a means of meaning construction The 18th European Symposium on Language for Special Purposes (LSP) Special language and innovation in multilingual world: proceedings. Perm State University, pp. 123–136 Vigotsky LS (1982–1984) Collection of works: in 6 vols. Vol. 2. [Выготский Л.С. (1982–1984). Собрание сочинений: в 6 томах. Том 2. М.: Педагогика] Vinokur GO (1939) On Some Phenomena of Word-formation in Russian Technical Terminology. Papers of Moscow Institute for Philosophy of Literature and History.  – Vol. 5. Moscow. In Russian. [Винокур, Г.О. О некоторых явлениях словообразования в русской технической терминологии // Труды Моск. ин-та истории, философии и литературы: сб. статей по языковедению. М., 1939. Т. 5. С. 3–54] Wüster E (1974) Die allgemeineTerminologielehre – ein Grenzgebietzwischen Sprachwissenschaft, Logik, Ontologie, Informatik und Sachwissenschaften. Linguistics Nr 119:61–106

Chapter 2

Development of the Ontologization Theory: From Greek Philosophy to Computational Linguistics Ekaterina Isaeva

, Oksana Manzhula

, and Russ Crawford

Abstract  Ontology is a convenient way of knowledge management and generates considerable interest in linguistic data management. In computational linguistics, the remarkable feature of ontologization is its automated, corpus-based character. Yet, fundamental characteristics should be preserved when attempting to develop a well-elaborated linguistic ontology. This paper seeks to address the theory of ontologization through the prism of a number of sciences, namely Philosophy, Neural sciences, Cognitive and Computational Linguistics. We undertook this study to reveal the foundations of knowledge management by means of ontology. For this purpose, philosophical thoughts about ontology have been examined and generalized. The focus has been made on the main components relevant for ontologization in other sciences. To justify this consistency, we describe several ways of ontological modelling, such as semantic framing, taxonomy, thesaurus, and multidomain graph construction. By analyzing the theory of ontologization through the prism of different s­ ciences, we have determined the application-based requirements for automated ontology development. Keywords  Ontology · Ontologization · Philosophy · Cognitive linguistics · Thesaurus · Corpus · Taxonomy · Semantic framing · Linguistic ontology

E. Isaeva · O. Manzhula Perm State University, Perm, Russia R. Crawford (*) Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_2

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2.1  Introduction Within the terminology of Computational linguistics, ontology occupies a reasonable place as a reliable tool for knowledge management and data visualization in a computer-friendly form. However, this is a reconceived meaning of an originally philosophical term, where it is understood as the study of being. Moreover, with the development of neural and cognitive sciences, ontology obtains new features. Yet, the logic, main principles, and objectives of neural, cognitive, and linguistic ontologies stem from the philosophical one. For this reason, we assume that to develop a sound linguistic ontology, it is necessary to be aware of the stages and the fundamental advances in the ontologization theory. The paper is structured as follows. In the first part, entitled “Philosophical stage of ontology development”, we survey the history of philosophical thought concerning ontology. In the second part, “Cognitive-linguistic stage of ontology development”, we address the notion of ontology from the point of view of neural scientists and cognitologists and illustrate various approaches to knowledge management. Finally, the third part, “Computational-linguistic stage of ontology development”, is devoted to the basics of computer-mediated ontological modelling with their subsequent illustration.

2.2  Philosophical Stage of Ontology Development The word ontology refers to a section of philosophy focused on fundamental principles of being, its most general essences and categories. According to A.  Dobrokhotov (Dobrokhotov 2018), the term “ontology” first appeared in “Lexicon philosophicum” by R. Goclenius (Goclenius 1613) and was fixed in the philosophical system of Ch. Wolff (Wolff 1984; Pichler 1910). Initially, ontology singled out from the study of nature as the study of being in early Greek philosophy, although it did not have a special terminological designation and, as J. Šmajs notes, “was speculative, and consoling”, its distinctive features included “stability, passivity and reversibility within the understanding of existence” (Šmajs 2019, p.  410). To prove this, Parmenides (about 540–515  bc) and other Eleatics’ claim that the only actual knowledge is the thought of being as a homogeneous, eternal and immutable unity, can be provided. They emphasized that the thought of being cannot be false and equated to thought and existence. Their attempts to conceive and substantiate the timeless, extraterrestrial, complex, and comprehensible nature of being are considered the first logical reasoning in the history of Western philosophy, which provided some evidence for the connection between being and real-world objects comprehensible with sensory perception. According to Plato, Socrates (470–399 bc) introduced personality as an integral part of being and put forward the idea of the existence of objective knowledge,

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which coincides with subjective virtue. Plato (428/427 or 424/423–348/347 bc) also contributed to the theory of personalized ontologization of reality. He defined being as a set of ideas, i.e., intelligible forms or essences reflected in the diversity of the material world. Plato saw the distinction between truth, belief, and knowledge. The latter was conditioned as follows: “(1) the proposition must be believed; (2) the proposition must be true; and (3) the proposition must be supported by good reasons… knowledge is justified, true belief” (Vaughn 2020). This makes it possible to associate Plato’s ontology with the study of cognition as an intellectual ascent to the true realms of existence. Important for our current understanding of ontology are the following ontological components introduced by Aristotle (384–322 bc): being as reality, divine mind, being as the unity of opposites and a certain limit of “comprehension” of matter by form. He also pioneered in categorization, which is nowadays used as the foundation for knowledge structuring. His ontology included ten categories, namely Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Where, When, Position, Having, Action, and Passion (Cohen 2004). Medieval thinkers (Hellenistic philosophers, Stoics, Phylon of Alexandria, Gnostics, Middle and New Platonists) and early Christian thinkers (Marius Victorin, Augustine, Boethius, Dionysius the Areopagite, etc.) extended Aristotle’s ontology and provided detailed categorical elaboration and differentiation of levels of being (substantive and incidental, actual and potential, necessary, possible and accidental, etc.). In the philosophy of the thirteenth century, the ontology was interpreted through the prism of theology. Thus, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) found the distinction between essence and existence and drew special attention to the moment of creative nature of being, concentrated in God. At the same time, another theologist, Johannes Duns Scotus, rejected the strict distinction between essence and existence, believing that the absolute fullness of essence was existence. However, like Th. Aquinas, he believed, that God rose above the world of essences, which was more appropriate to think about through the categories of Infinity and Will. This attitude of Duns Scott marked the beginning of ontological voluntarism (Dobrokhotov 2018). The New Age philosophy focused on the problems of cognition. In Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz’s philosophy, ontology described the relationship between substances and the correspondence of levels of being. The problem of the substance (i.e., the primary and self-sufficient being) and the problems associated with it (God and substance, multiplicity and interaction of substances, deducibility of a substance from its single states, laws of substance development) became the central topics of their ontologies. Kant’s “Critical philosophy” provided a new understanding of objectivity, which resulted from categorized components of the sensory experience of the cognizing subjects. Thus, being comprised two types of reality, namely, material phenomena and ideal categories, brought together by the virtue of self-consciousness. Thinking and consciousness were also in the focus of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel’s ontologies, built on the basis of gnoseology. Distinctive features of their

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ontologies were a historical and logical development of thinking to the stage of being. This line of reasoning was further maintained in Husserl’s phenomenology, which outlined the transition from pure consciousness to the structure of being through the analysis of intentional structures of consciousness. The idea of the development of “regional ontologies” added greatly to our modern cognitive- and computer-linguistic understanding of ontology. These are connected with such phenomena of modern cognitive linguistics as mental models (Dijk and Kintsch 1983). Regional ontologies provided for constructing a method of eidetic description, anchored to a particular type of memory, based on visual impressions, which helped retain and reproduce the image of a previously perceived object or phenomenon in detail. Thus, Husserl’s phenomenology considers two layers of reality: ontological pre-tasking and everyday experience. While, the triple nature of reality, namely human, real, and spiritual, was the subject of N. Hartman’s consideration. This heterogeneity of reality was reconciled with neo-positivists claiming that all the antinomies and problems of ontology could be solved within the science framework or eliminated through logical language analysis. Contemporary understanding of ontology includes the idea of its evolving character. According to J. Šmajs, “evolutionary ontology stresses the processuality and irreversibility in the concept of natural existence. Terrestrial existence—in line with contemporary science—is understood as a creative evolution that produces structures and orderliness (information). The orderliness of the Earth, a product of natural evolution, may therefore both come into existence and disappear” (Šmajs 2019, p.  411). This substantiates our idea of flexible and lifelong developing ontology dependent on multiple factors, such as background knowledge, everyday activity, media, environment, and other (Isaeva 2019). To sum up, the aforesaid philosophical ideas, which make up the foundation of our complex understanding of the phenomenon of ontology, we highlight its main components (Table 2.1):

Table 2.1  The elements of philosophical ontology Real world Static Elements of being Real objects Substance Nature as being Homogeneous, eternal and unchanging unity

Changing Accidents Potentials Probabilities Creativeness Development History Process

Individual cognition Perception Thinking Thought as Sensory being perception Sensory fluidity Categories Individual Eidetic image being Cognition Experience Intention

Links Logics Relations Dependences

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The table shows that the philosophical concept of ontology is complex and multidimensional. Ontology integrates the real and mentally derived world in its static and dynamic representations through intra- and inter-dimensional links. This leads us to the discussion of another ontological modality, namely the cognitive one.

2.3  Cognitive-linguistic Stage of Ontology Development In cognitive sciences, ontology develops due to cognition, i.e. “any form of information processing, mental operation, or intellectual activity such as thinking, reasoning, remembering, imagining, or learning” (Wessinger and Clapham 2009), knowing, judging, and problem-solving. “These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception, and planning” (Cherry and Block 2019). Cognitive linguistics attempts to model ontology which is supposed to be the foundation for personal cognition. We differentiate collective and individual ontologies. Collective ontologies preserve the properties typical of groups of people, such as professional, national, and socio-cultural group ontologies. Individual ontology comprises the parts of ontologies of the groups the individual belongs to and includes several additional aspects, for instance, experience, psychological make­up, education, and others. Proceeding from these features, we define “an individual ontology as a system of concepts … related to one another to form a knowledge field, which is part of human conceptual system inherent in human perception“(Isaeva 2019, p. 69). Relations between ontological components can be hierarchical, logical, associative, etc. Resulting from cognitive-linguistic modelling, ontology represents the conceptualized existence of an individual or a group. Their mental representations are linked together to recreate a particular real or imaginary life event, physical, biological, or chemical process. These representations store the elements associated with the event, such as time, place, participants, objects, etc. To study human thinking, cognitive linguists apply ontological modelling, which is premised on the belief that words are verbal representations of concepts. Background conditions are also significant. Scientists say that “Background conditions are thought to explain how objects can have value in virtue of certain features and how reasons for responses can consist in certain facts” (Garcia and Werkmäster 2020). Consequently, human thinking becomes available for analysis via natural language and speech. There are various approaches to linguistic ontological modelling, but the minimal unit for analysis is a word in all of them. Words can be organized in taxonomies, wordnets, clusters or fields, frames, or thesauri. Let us consider the linguistic ontology organized in a taxonomic form representing IT experts’ conceptualization of a computer virus. The authors believe that it is natural for humans to gain experience by comparing it with something already acquired, physical, discernible, and predictable. Thus, the taxonomy of the human experience is built as a hierarchical structure. It comprises partitively related fields (categories), which can be split in to as many categories according to the principle of being part of as required by the research objectives (Fig. 2.1).

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virus

Nature Inanimate nature

Animate nature

Man Biological being

Social being

Fig. 2.1  Excerpt from the Virus taxonomy (domain/ subdomain level)

Using this taxonomy, the authors categorized collocations of a computer term virus based on the basic meaning of a collocate (Isaeva and Mishlanova 2014). The taxonomic model of the concept VIRUS is subdivided into two domains, i.e. Nature and Man. Each domain splits into two subdomains, i.e. Inanimate nature, Animate nature, Biological being, and Social being. Subdomains are made up of taxons: Landscape/Natural phenomenon, Plant/Microorganism, Anatomy/Physiology/ Psychology, Professional activity/War & politics/Mechanism/Routine/Culture (Fig. 2.2). Although the most obvious metaphor for the computer virus is the biological virus, part of the Microorganism taxon, the Nature domain is poorly represented in the computer security discourse metaphors. This must be due to the intangibility of the Microorganism domain, which does not add to our understanding of some phenomena, while metaphor relies on our experience and background knowledge. On the contrary, the domain of the Man is more representative, and new concepts prove to be easier conceived through our body or social activity (Fig. 2.3a and b). This method of taxonomic categorization, developed by Perm Metaphor School (Alekseeva and Mishlanova 2019), proved viable for metaphorical modelling. Moreover, it provided a straightforward procedure for accurate simulation of the source domain for the cognitive mapping of the Computer Virus concept. Another way of ontological representation is the thesaurus. The thesaurus can be considered a formalized collective ontology. It represents a set of word meanings, logical, semantic and associative links the word might have with other thesaurus elements. A case in point is WordNet, an extensive database organized in the form of a thesaurus developed at Princeton University. The project on WordNet was initiated by George A. Miller at the Department of Psychology in the 1980s, by now has reached the volume of 155,327 words and “is currently housed in the Department of Computer Science” (WordNet 2020). WordNet contains “nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs … grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept. Synsets are interlinked by means of conceptual-semantic and lexical relations” (WordNet 2020).

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47 plant kingdom in general

water reservoirs

berries and fruits Plant

field

vegetables

road deepening

Inaimate nature

upland soil & minerals part of ground

Aimate nature

Landscape

forest plants bacterium Microorganism viruses mammals birds fish

physical phenomenon seasons and parts of the day

Amphibia Animal

insects vermigrade

Natural phenomena

weather atmosphere planets

arachnids Invertebrata marine animal

Fig. 2.2  Nature Domain (taxon level)

Unlike other databases in which the basic dictionary unit is a single word, the entry in WordNet is a synonymous series or synset. A synset combines the terms of a network with a similar meaning, forming a node of a semantic network. The fact that each synset is supplemented with definitions and examples in context. The word or word combination can be part of several semantic groups and belong to different parts of speech. In each synset, you can find several synonyms and relationship taggers. Compound words are part of multiple synsets. They can also belong to different syntactic and lexical classes. Synset in WordNet are linked to each other by different semantic relationships, namely: “Hyperonym (breakfast → meal) (breakfast → food); hyponym (meal → lunch) (eating → lunch); has-member (faculty → professor) (department → professor); member-of (pilot → crew) (pilot → crew); meronym: has-part (table → leg) (table → leg); antonym (leader → follower) (leader → follower)” (WordNet 2020).

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Fig. 2.3 (a) Man Domain (taxon level): Biological Being. (b) Man Domain (taxon level): Social Being

WordNet ontology describes different types of relationships: lexical, antonymous, contextual, and hyponymous. For example, with the help of hyponymy, it is possible to organize synsets in the form of semantic networks. The WordNet search provides the following options: example sentences, glosses, frequency count, database location, lexical base info, lexical file number, sense keys, and sense number. If, for example, we attempt to search the word virus and choose the “show all” option, we receive the following result: (4){01331343} [05] S: (n) virus#1 (virus%1:05:00::) ((virology) ultramicroscopic infectious Agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts; many are pathogenic; a piece of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a thin coat of protein)

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{14031349} [26] S: (n) virus#2 (virus%1:26:00::) (a harmful or corrupting agency) “bigotry is a virus that must not be allowed to spread”; “the virus of jealousy is latent in everyone.” {06597992} [10] S: (n) virus#3 (virus%1:10:00::), computer virus#1 (computer_virus%1:10:00::) (a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer) “a true virus cannot spread to another computer without human assistance”. Where “S:” stands for “Show Synset (semantic) relations”; (n) determines the part of speech, here it means the word is a noun. The display options for sense comprise (frequency) {offset} [lexical file number] (gloss) “an example sentence”. Display options for the word include word#sense number (sense key) (WordNet 2020). Some of these options are crucial for statistical analysis or automated data parsing. Thus, in the example above, we see that (4) is the virus frequency, i.e., “the number of times it has been tagged in the semantic concordance texts” (WordNet 2020). The eight-digit, zero-filled decimal integers, here, {01331343}, {14031349}, and {06597992} are “the database byte offsets of the synsets” containing the given virus senses “useful to applications that retrieve synsets or other information related to a specific sense in WordNet, rather than all the senses of a word or collocation” (WordNet 2020). , , and denote lexical filenames and are interpreted as containing nouns categorized as animals, states, or communication fields. [05], [26], and [10] designate lexical file numbers. Clicking to S: open such options as seeing hyponyms, the domain category, the domain term category, hypernyms, and derivationally related forms. Virus#1, virus#2, virus#3 are word virus sense numbers. (virus%1:05:00::), (virus%1:26:00::), and (virus%1:10:00::) are the encodings of the word senses useful for parsing. Then, in parentheses, the glosses or the definitions for a particular word sense are given. Here we read the following definitions of the word virus: “ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts”; “many are pathogenic; a piece of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a thin coat of protein”; “a harmful or corrupting agency”; and a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer“ (WordNet 2020). Finally, example sentences to different word senses are attached in the form of quotations, e.g. “bigotry is a virus that must not be allowed to spread”, “the virus of jealousy is latent in everyone“, and “a true virus cannot spread to another computer without human assistance” (WordNet 2020). For ordinary users not involved in coding or parsing, the default set of options comprises Synset (semantic) relations, Word (lexical) relations, and the example sentence display, which are much more user-friendly. When clicking “S” (Synset), you access more options, namely hyponyms, hyperonyms, sister terms, domain categories, and derivationally related terms. These are useful for linguistic research and do not overload the page, viewed as a dictionary entry. Further extensions of each option are available via hyperlinks (Fig. 2.4):

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Fig. 2.4  The “virus” WordNet entry

Synset terms in WordNet are linked to each other by various semantic relations, including but not limited to the following: Hyperonym (virus → malevolent program → program); hyponym (virus → trojan) (virus → worm); part meronym (program → routine) part holonym (routine → program) domain category (program → computer science) derivationally related form (program n → program v) antonym (software → hardware) has instance (applied scientist → Claude E. Shannon (United States electrical engineer who pioneered mathematical communication theory,1916-2001))

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WordNet ontology describes different types of relationships: lexical, antonymous, contextual, hyponymous. For example, with the help of hyponymy, it is possible to organize synetes in the form of semantic networks. Framing is also widely used for linguistic ontologization. Frame semantics or frame-and-scene analysis is the general name for various types of formalized descriptions of human activity in a situation. Frame semantics has been proposed as a linguistic concept by Ch. Fillmore (1975, 1977) and continues the grammar studies. In frame semantics, the meanings of words, phrases, sentences, text, etc., are correlated with scenes within the framework of the general theory of semantics (Wegner 1985). Frame semantics is used in the grammatical description, in artificial intelligence, and computer lexicography. Frame semantics in the early 1980s was presented as a program of research in the field of empirical semantics, providing a way to characterize the principles of creating new words and sentences, adding new meanings of words, as well as “assembling” the values of text elements in the whole (Fillmore 1982). Frame semantics emphasizes continuity in the transition from language to experience. The basic provisions of frame semantics are given in (Goldstein and Roberts 1980). They are as follows: Intelligence is the manifestation of the work of a small number of mechanisms of general (logical) output with large amounts of very specific and specialized knowledge. This process is accompanied by the use of “frame library”, knowledge packages that provide descriptions of typical objects and events. Such descriptions contain both an abstract scheme - a skeleton to describe a single arbitrary case - and a set of “default actions” (defaults) for typical class members. Actions by default allow the information system to fill up absent details, generate expectations, and notice deviations from routine states of affairs. So new knowledge is added to a database (Hayes 1980) at the account of the current condition of the knowledge system. The formal frame apparatus includes the metalanguage of the system, on which, in the course of logical reasoning, judgments on the state of the system are developed. Frame concepts allow modelling the understanding (Charniak 1982). The latter is equivalent to a set of the following actions: activation of a frame, promotion of a candidate frame and competition of frames. We start to interpret the text and activate a specific contour scheme in which many positions (“slots”) are not yet occupied. Later episodes of the text fill in these gaps, introduce new scenes combined in various connections - historical, causal, logical, etc. Thus, the interpreter gradually creates an inner world, which is more and more concrete as the text progresses, depending on the expectations confirmed or rejected. This intratext world depends on aspects of scenes that are usually (or never) explicitly described in the text (Fillmore 1975). Prototypical scenes constitute the baggage of human knowledge of the world. By assimilating meaning, first labels are glued to whole scenes, then to parts of familiar scenes, and then they are operated with a) a repertoire of labels for schematic or abstract scenes and b) labels for entities or actions perceived independently of the scenes in which they first met (Fillmore 1975).

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The key semantic roles, which make up a semantic frame by Ch. Fillmore, are Agent, Counteragent, Object, Target, Source, Instrument, Trajectory and others (Fillmore 1971). For instance, Ch. Filmore’s semantic framing has been used in metaphorical modelling of the concept COMPUTER VIRUS in (Isaeva and Crawford 2019). The study has been performed on two corpora, representing professional vs popular computer security discourses, manually selected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. In the study, a range of semantic roles has been assigned to the frame elements of the concept VIRUS, including Agent, Counteragent, Object, Addressee, Patient, Result, and Instrument. However, the distribution of semantic roles differs depending on the context, the discourse type (e.g., scientific, professional, and popular), communicants’ mental models, and other factors. For instance, in professional computer security discourse, the most common semantic frame of the virus consists of the Agent (computer security expert or antivirus software), the Counteragent (virus) or the Object (virus), the Patient (computer), the Source (part of a computer), the Instrument (antivirus software). While in the popular computer security discourse, the semantic frame of the virus is structured differently, particularly, the Agent is typically the virus, the Target and the Patient are the computer. The semantic framing turned out to be helpful in the “aim to determine some of the less obvious features in these genres and provide evidence as to how they relate to each other” (Melissourgou and Frantzi 2018). This method brings to universal knowledge and is useful for retrieving and substantiating sentiments.

2.4  Computational-linguistic Stage of Ontology Development The creation of computer-mediated linguistic ontologies is motivated by linguists’ request to streamline their routine by automating repetitive, boring, and time-­ consuming categorization work, thus, releasing time for more creative, fundamentally constructive, and theoretically meaningful work. Moreover, such an ontology provides a formalized “system of explicit conceptualization of the subject domain” (Dobrov and Lukashevich 2007). A computer-mediated linguistic ontology can be determined as a knowledge base of a specialized type, feasible for “reading”, understanding, and physical sharing by the users (Gavrilova and Khoroshevskii 2001). Such an ontology stores a consistent set of terms and relations in a formal language to make possible information retrieval and manipulation (Janssen et al. 2017). It defines a set of representational primitives, such as classes, attributes, and relationships, to model a domain of knowledge. The definitions included in an ontology provide information about meaning and constraints on the ontology and its components’ application (Gruber 2009, p. 49). Applied to natural language processing (NLP), ontology is a system of terms designating notions or entities connected by various relations within a particular subject area. In this context, there are several ways to establish ontological relations.

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One of them refers to NLP with given classes, i.e., the domain, which might refer to some science or a subject field, is already normalized to a system of categories, to which new terms identified in the process of NLP are attached. Another approach appeals to existing linguistic resources such as specialized dictionaries, glossaries, and thesauri to cluster the entries, define the domain classes, and retrieve knowledge. M.L.A. Campos and H.E. Gomes analyze existing theories of knowledge representation and point out a set of relations applicable to several domains. These relations comprise “part of,” “has a part,” “realized in,” “realizes,” “occurs,” “contain process,” “inheres in,” “bearer of,” “participates in,” “has participant,” “is the role of,” “has quality,” has a role,” “derives from,” “derives into,” “location of,” “contained in,” “contains,” “located in,” “boundary of,” “member of “ and “has a member” (Campos and Gomes 2017). Robust linguistic ontologies are usually generated by means of a semiautomatic method of linguistic ontologization. It works as follows. First, a corpus of texts limited by a particular topic or domain is created. Then words, terms, and expressions relevant to this topic or domain are extracted from the texts. This is done manually or in an automated manner. At the next stage, experts work with the terms, contexts of their implementation in the corpus, and specialized dictionaries of the domain under analysis. Then, drawing on the lexicographic data, the experts add as many semantically relevant words or expressions to the initially extracted ones as possible. These expressions become ontological terms. This is followed by a conceptual analysis of each ontological term to determine its relationship with the other ontological elements. The conceptual analysis is also done on the lexicographic data and aims to revile implicit relations and additional term variants omitted at the previous step. This step is essential, for a wide range of ontological elements are identified through the analysis of definitions of relevant terms in terminological dictionaries and thesauri, variants of terms used in contexts, and by comparison of definitions and contexts. Therefore, in a concise way, the process of a semiautomatic creation of a linguistic ontology may be described in four steps: “formation of a terminological base of the domain by an array of text information; analysis of the information obtained by an expert to “filter “ the terms and indicate the definition of these terms; establishment of relations between a set of terms of the domain by an expert”1 (Abramov 2010). To illustrate such a semiautomatic ontologization, we advert to the development of TSGraph, which “builds ontology of several knowledge domains and highlights their overlapping in terms of semantic relations of ontological areas” (Isaeva et al. 2019). The software package includes two related products, namely TSBuilder for automated terms identification and TSGraph for ontological visualization of the terms’ database. Roughly, the former represents a tool for text mining via supervised machine learning, while the latter provides visualization of semantic relations of terms with other ontological components within and outside their domains. The graph visualizes three terminological domains, namely Chemistry, Biology, and Computer security, with an explication of domains’ overlappings and links between semantically related terms (Fig. 2.5).  Translation is ours.

1

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Fig. 2.5  Three-domain ontology in TSGraph

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Fig. 2.6  Interdomain term relations

As is seen in Fig. 2.5, the Computer Security and the Biology domains are more closely related, i.e., they have more interdomain semantic links, and their overlapping is evident in the graph, while Chemistry terms are sparsely related to the terms of other domains. Let us now target our examination of the relations of a term to other domains (Fig. 2.6). Figure 2.6 illustrates an excerpt of the graph with a pop-up window showing semantic relations of the term web bug. The term belongs to the “Computer Security“domain and is linked to other terms from the same domain, particularly MINI-44 virus, stealth virus, simile.d virus, finnpoly virus, w95/zmist virus, virus w95/boza, which determine the names of malicious computer programs. The term web bug is also semantically related to the terms from the Biology domain, namely sex-linked, genetic code, codominant, and magnetoencephalography. At the same time, this web bug has some links with chemical terms, such as nuclear magnetic resonance, chromatography, aromatic ring, and alkaline. These semantic relations are determined automatically by TSGraph with the help of the Datamuse API, which is “a word-finding query engine for developers” (Datamuse API 2020), fed by the data from the WordNet, Google Books Ngrams, OneLook, RhymeZone, Rimar.io, and WikSearch. Nevertheless, for a comprehensive understanding of the TSGraph data, further cognitive-linguistic interpretation, comprising definitional, derivational, and discursive analyses, is required. The above is an example of ontology, which has been developed on the corpus built with the help of supervised machine learning. However, at the current state of computational linguistic development, it is possible to achieve accurate results through unsupervised methods. A case in point is the ontology developed with Word2vec, a set of models based on artificial neural networks intended for obtaining vectorial representations of words in natural language. This ontology is used to analyze the semantics of natural languages based on distributive semantics, machine

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learning and vectorial word representation. Word2vec Ontology has open-source code. It is popular because it is easy to use and fast enough. Semiautomatic construction of product ontology is realized here “with assistance from machine learning to sort out fine-grained description words of product features. Feature-level product review sentiment analysis involves two key steps in our study: feature extraction and sentiment classification” (Wei et al. 2020). An example of an artificial intelligence method applied to natural language processing for the development of ontology is Flood AI Knowledge Engine software. It organizes the discovery of media, news, and information on the subject. “FloodOntology developed by Agresta et al. (2014) has concepts to gather information about water parameters in watersheds and sewers for forecasting flood, whereas the top-level flood ontology by Katuk et al. (2009) was developed to classify the flood management activities into categories in accordance to the responsibilities of the agencies and so on” (Sinha and Dutta 2020). Another automated linguistic ontology, entitled Dbgoldbr, is based on the RDF technology, “a data model in which knowledge is expressed in graphs and organized with labels” (DANS: Data Archiving and Network Services 2020). This system provides a semantic classification of data that have already been published. This system is used to convert published data into publicly linked data. Scientist writes that “Its main goal is to transform open data into linked open data and to facilitate the identification and localization of these data sources” (Victorino et al. 2018).

2.5  Results Broadly speaking, we found that the linguistic research of human cognition and the process of thinking is grounded on the fundamental premises of the philosophical theory of ontologization. We determined the key aspects which remain unchanged in ontologies seen from different scientific angles, namely interrelations between the real world, both static and changing, and cognition, including perception and thinking. Formalization of philosophical thinking for linguistic research has been due to frame semantics, which appeals to thinking through the grammatical description. The method allows for a reliable cognitive comparison of thematically relevant but genre-specific corpora. The results proved to be representative for understanding the role of background knowledge, roughly, ontology, for cognition. On the other hand, to develop a sustainable linguistic ontology, computer-aided tools are critical, for they provide comprehensive analytical data to substantiate linguistic assumptions, while the means of artificial intelligence make it possible for a linguist to approach neural mechanisms of human thinking. Moreover, applying neural networks, semantic vectors, and parsing is practical for obtaining large corpora for supervised and unsupervised machine learning and ontology development. Thus, the comprehensive theory of ontologization encompasses the philosophical, neural, cognitive, linguistic, and computational understanding of ontology.

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2.6  Conclusion The results obtained during our work on the overview of ontologization methods justify our initial assumption that the theory of ontologization has undergone several stages, initiated in Greek philosophy, having been elaborated and further defined in the process of the development of philosophical thinking, then mapped to other fields, such as language studies, neural research, and finally to the field of artificial intelligence and natural language processing. However, despite the dynamic character of the ontologization theory existence, ontology has preserved its distinctive features laid out in the foundation of philosophical studies, namely reference to both real-world objects and individual world perception and cognition, a wide range of relationships between ontological elements, and multidisciplinary character of ontology as a whole. Based on the aforesaid, it seems reasonable to state that for the development of a sustainable, well-elaborated computer-mediated linguistic ontology, the following requirements should be met: complex, cross-field corpus-based approach to data pre-processing, account for the principles laid in the theory of knowledge, application-dependent data retrieval and content management, and cognitive-linguistic interpretability. Acknowledgments  The reported study was funded by RFBR according to the research project № 18-012-00825 А.

References Abramov AV (2010) Creation of the linguistic ontology of the educational subject area. Scientists’ notes. Electronic Scientific Journal of Kursk State University, 2(14):52–61 Alekseeva L, Mishlanova S (2019) Metaphor from the derivational perspective. Fachsprache 41(S1):4–22. https://doi.org/10.24989/fs.v41iS1.1780 Campos MLA, Gomes HE (2017) Ontology: several theories on the representation of knowledge domains. Knowl Organ 44(3):178–186 Charniak E (1982) Context recognition in language comprehension. In: Strategies for natural language processing. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp 435–454 Cherry K, Block DB (2019, 11 21). The Basics of Cognition and Mental Processes https://www. verywellmind.com/what-­is-­cognition-­2794982 Cohen M (2004) Predication and Ontology: The Categories. Available at: https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cats320.htm DANS: Data Archiving and Network Services (2020). Available at: https://dans.knaw.nl/en/about/ services/easy/information-­about-­depositing-­data/before-­depositing/file-­formats/rdf Datamuse API (2020). Available at: https://www.datamuse.com/api/ Dijk TV, Kintsch W (1983) Strategies of discourse comprehension. Academic, New  York. Book Calfee Dobrov BV, Lukashevich NV (2007) Linguistic ontology on natural sciences and technologies for applications in information search. 149(2): 49–72 Fillmore CJ (1971) Types of lexical information. In: Steinberg D, Jacobovits L (eds) Semantics. CUP, Cambridge, pp 370–392 Fillmore CJ (1975) An alternative to checklist theories of meaning. BLS 1:123–131

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Chapter 3

LSP and Transdiscursive Knowledge Communication Jan Engberg

Abstract  In this chapter, I draw up some contours of what mediation of specialized knowledge looks like from the point of view of text-based studies of Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP). The basis is the Knowledge Communication Approach. Central in the chapter is the two-sided nature of knowledge to be expressed in LSP texts, i.e., knowledge as being inherently individual and social at the same time. The ensuing characteristic of knowledge asymmetry between what different individuals involved in LSP communication and especially in mediation of expert knowledge know is generally central in the book and functions as interface between this chapter and the book. The two-sidedness of knowledge has repercussions for the requirements of research into LSP as text-based studies of the communication of specialized knowledge. It is important not to lose track of the role of the individual knower, and hence we need basic theories that may help us see specialized communication not only at the level of the different disciplines, but also at the level of interacting individuals, with a special interest in mediation of knowledge. The chapter consists of a discussion of the role of the knowledge of individuals and its communication when developing (social) disciplinary knowledge and when mediating such knowledge in individual settings. Central basics is Tomasello’s idea of shared intentionality as the basic motor behind generating interpersonal understanding. Following the development of these basic tenets, focus is upon demonstrating by way of concrete examples how they influence the way we investigate and conceptualize communication and mediation of specialized knowledge, drawing upon some of our previous work in this field. Keywords  Specialized knowledge · LSP communication · Transdiscursive knowledge communication · Mediation · Knowledge domain · Knowledge asymmetry · Communicative setting · Language · LSP

J. Engberg (*) Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_3

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3.1  I ntroduction: The Concept of LSP and the Aim of this Chapter The study of Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) has originally developed from the study of functional styles (Hoffmann 1985) and from the study of sociolects and linguistic variation (Möhn 1968; Adamzik 2018). The idea has been to describe language use especially in professional and academic settings (Pennarola 2019, p. 8). LSP is seen as the linguistic means used in such settings in order to carry out the special tasks belonging to the settings. Examples of this is the language of judges used when performing duties in court or the language of engineers used when developing products or managing manufacturing processes. Hence, the traditional approach has been oriented towards investigating sublanguages and specialized vocabulary, especially in the form of terms organized in relation to the conceptual systems underlying professional and academic communication. From the focus upon vocabulary and linguistic means, however, the study of language in specialized domains has developed over time. One of the central lines of development has been to shift the focus towards communication in specialized domains, leading to a shift from seeing the language as the central object of study to investigating the role of language in the communicative tasks that characterize specialized domains from the point of view of pragmatics (Roelcke 2020). One such communicative task is the presentation of domain knowledge to ­outsiders to the domain (transdiscursive knowledge communication, Isaeva 2019, pp.  66–67 and this publication, pp. v–vii). In the current knowledge-oriented societies, being able to access and apply knowledge from a variety of domains is a valuable goal for citizens in different societal roles (Pennarola 2019, p.  10). For the domains themselves, making their insights available is also an important goal in order to prevent fake news and misrepresentation of the world and in order to demonstrate their own identity and contribution to the world’s knowledge needs. In this chapter, focus will be upon transdiscursive knowledge communication as an instance of specialized communication. First, the general characteristics of specialized communication as the overall framework will be presented. In a second step, we will elaborate upon how knowledge as the object of transdiscursive knowledge communication in human encounters may be conceptualized together with the specifics of human cognitive abilities. Finally, the Knowledge Communication Approach and especially the concept of knowledge asymmetries will function as a framework for focusing upon central aspects of the task of conveying knowledge outside a specialized domain.

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3.2  Specialized Communication In one of the first works signalling the shift of focus from the language variety of LSP to the pragmatics of specialized communication as object of study, also in his own work, Hoffmann (1993, p. 614) defines specialized communication in the following way: Specialized communication is the exteriorization and the interiorization of knowledge systems and cognitive processes, motivated and stimulated internally or externally, and oriented towards specialized events or series of events. The exteriorization and interiorization leads to changes of knowledge systems in the individual expert and within whole communities of experts (my translation). Important here is that Hoffmann sees LSP communication as the central phenomenon to investigate, the object of study. This type of communication is characterized by the fact that it is embedded in contexts of specialization, here phrased as ‘series of specialized events’. Specialization in this sense has to do mainly with the aspect of education and professional expertise. In other words, we talk about contexts where experts from a specific discipline are central participants. Kalverkämper (1998, p.  8) lists the following central aspects for pragmatically characterising a specialized domain: A specialized domain is (1) what is institutionalized as such, (2) from the point of view of social and factual needs is motivated as a unified complex and (3) functions efficiently as an identified field of work, and (4) is accepted through social convention (by whatever groups). (my translation). We thus talk about communication carried out in institutionalized settings connected to professional duties in a wide sense, i.e., settings in which the participants fill specific roles. As is clear from the features listed, a specialized domain is not easily definable along objective lines of content. Instead, it is more promising to differentiate between disciplines along the lines of different epistemologies, describing world phenomena that may be in the focus of more disciplines (Pennarola 2019, p. 9; Adamzik 2018). This reflects the ongoing fight between different disciplines over the right to define aspects of the world, which Knorr-Cetina (1999) has investigated under the heading of Epistemic Cultures. According to the quote, specialized domains or disciplines can best be seen as social constructions that are upheld from the outside and the inside through communication and ensuing acceptance of the existence and content of the domain or discipline. This constructivist character of specialized domains links up perfectly to the two aspects which form the centre of Hoffmann’s definition: First, specialized communication as the exchange of knowledge between the experts of a domain (exteriorisation and interiorisation of knowledge systems), and secondly the role of this exchange in the development of the knowledge of the individual expert as well as of the collective knowledge of the discipline. The basic idea is twofold. On the one hand, individuals learn what is the accepted knowledge of the domain from speaking to other experts. On the other hand, this accepted knowledge may (and will) change over time, based on communicative exchanges in which individuals with

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new insights convince others about the power of these insights. Hence, exchange of knowledge between experts is the bread and butter of creating and upholding a domain. However, apart from the discipline-internal communication tasks of creating and upholding the domain and developing its insights, the task of making the insights and the consequences of them available outside of the discipline (to other experts, to politicians, or to the general public) is a central part of the duties of an expert community and thus of specialized communication. In this connection, we will in the following sections study aspects of specialized knowledge, i.e., the,object’ of this task, as well as basic aspects of the human cognitive ability, which play a role for what to be aware of when addressing people without the same expertise as the sender, i.e., when doing transdiscursive knowledge communication.

3.3  C  onceptualising Experts’ Knowledge in the Context of Human Actors At the core of a communicatively constituted specialized domain lies the knowledge and expertise characterizing the domain. We could here talk about the ‘content’ of a domain. Based on Kalverkämper (1998, pp.  14–15), the knowledge of a domain may be divided into three major parts: • The specialized (procedural) knowledge about acts, procedures and costums characteristic for a domain. • The specialized declarative or conceptual knowledge spanning the concepts belonging to a domain, organized in conceptual systems. The organization of the conceptual systems reflects the characteristics of the way the domain sees the world and where its focus lies. • The domain-specific linguistic competence which consists in knowledge about the conventional ways of denoting the elements of the procedural and declarative knowledge (terminology) and about other types of conventions for use of language, like genre conventions for performing typical communicative tasks within a domain. Hence, having this competence means that holders know how to exteriorate the conceptual domain knowledge and perform communicative tasks and acts in ways accepted and expected within the domain. Having or acquiring this linguistic competence is thus a sign of belonging to the domain. At the same time, performing communication through this competence helps upholding the domain. Successful transdiscursive knowledge communication consists in enabling addressees to establish a relevant link between conventionalized linguistic means (in our context: terms) and especially the declarative knowledge of the domain, i.e., its ontological systems. As the process has to take place between human actors, the next step in our journey towards a description of the basic concepts of

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transdiscursive knowledge communication will be to have a look at the aspects of human cognition involved here and their impact upon the process. We have seen above that a specialized domain is constituted by a group of people that, based on their shared knowledge constituting a specific expertise, see themselves as belonging to the same domain, and that are generally accepted as such by others. In other words, expertise and its constituting knowledge are characteristics of domains as cultures. Culture understood as the development of specific accepted ways of interaction and of specific accepted symbols seen as indicators of a specific group is a deeply human characteristic. Michael Tomasello has applied large parts of his work as a researcher to searching for the specific cognitive skills and characteristics that distinguishes the species of modern humans from the higher primates like chimpanzees and orang-utans, with which we are related from the point of view of evolution. His basic hypothesis, based upon a considerable amount of experimental work, says that the development of shared intentionality can be seen as the central motor behind developing the kind of highly complex collaboration and communication that characterizes modern humans and distinguishes them from the higher primates. Central in this is the ability to achieve interpersonal understanding at a considerably depth (Tomasello 2008, 2014). This is also a central aspect of transdiscursive knowledge communication. In the following, I want to present how the characteristics of such shared intentionality may influence the characteristics of specialized-domain knowledge and of its dissemination through LSP. Tomasello’s work is not limited to this perspective, but is also oriented towards explaining what could have triggered the development from the ability for individual intentionality in social contexts characteristic of great apes to the ability for collaboration based upon deep mutual understanding characteristic of modern humans. However, as this is not relevant for the purposes of this chapter, I will not go into this part of his work. It suffices to say that probably changes in ecological circumstances of different kinds that early and modern humans had to adapt to might have played a decisive role in furthering relevant characteristics leading to qualitative leaps in the cognitive development. The ability to share intentionality of modern humans means that we are able to adopt the perspective of others, adjust to it and thus consciously have joint attention on things and concepts in our situational context and follow the same goals in a coordinated way. Conscious joint attention and shared intentionality (=knowing that we look at and think about the same object and that we want to do the same thing, Tomasello 2014, p. 39) is a prerequisite for being able to coordinate actions and collaborate in achieving goals. Shared intentionality exist in two different versions, seen as belonging to different steps in the evolution towards modern humans: joint intentionality and collective intentionality. Tomasello (2014, p.  33) characterizes joint intentionality in the following way: Early humans’ new form of collaborative activity was unique among primates because it was structured by joint goals and joint attention into a kind of joint intentionality of the moment, a ‘we’ intentionality with a particular other, within which each participant had an individual role and an individual perspective. (emphasis in original).

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Being aware of what others think and adjusting collaboratively to this, i.e., creating a common ground between individuals that they are aware of, was the first step towards the cognitive skills characterising modern humans and important in securing a competitive edge in the evolution of different species. Among other things, it enabled early humans to elaborate simple signs of pointing and pantomime that they used based on common cognitive ground in order to collaborate and reach their joint goals (Tomasello 2014, pp. 49–50). However, joint intentionality is only enough to make collaboration between individuals work. The reason is that in joint intentionality individuals are aware only of the present other(s) and have a representation of the mental states only of the individuals we cooperate with directly (Tomasello 2014, p.  79), cf. “‘we’ intentionality with a particular other” in the quote above. However, joint intentionality does not lead to a concept of groups larger than the individuals that are present and thus leads to no representation of a larger collective. Culture, on the other hand, presupposes the knowledge that a larger group exists to which ‘we’ belong. For this we need collective intentionality, which according to Tomasello (2014, p. 123) is the basis for the thinking of modern humans: Human thinking at this point is no longer a solely individual process, or even a secondpersonal social process; rather, it is an internalized dialogue between ‘what I do think’ and ‘what anyone ought to think’.… Human thinking has now become collective, objective, reflective, and normative.

Collective intentionality is characterized by three basic aspects: … modern human individuals came to imagine the world in order to manipulate it in thought via ‘objective’ representations (anyone’s perspective), reflective inferences connected by reasons (compelling to anyone), and normative self-governance so as to coordinate with the group’s (anyone’s) normative expectations. (Tomasello 2014, p.  81; my emphasis)

If we start out with the last aspect, that modern humans coordinate their behaviour towards what is expected in the group we see ourselves as belonging to, it is one of the drivers behind the process of construction and re-construction of specialized domains. In order to belong to the group of experts constituting a specialized domain, individuals adopt ways of thinking, speaking, behaving and dressing to the extent necessary to be accepted. Because the species of modern humans is dominated by collective intentionality, we are highly sensitive to in-group/out-group differences. The in-group consists of interdependent individuals that I belong to, whereas the members of out-groups are seen not just as strangers, but as individuals following different ways of thinking and behaving (Tomasello 2014, p.  84). As belonging to the in-group means adopting the ways of behaviour of the group in a broad sense, we probably here also have the basic driver behind conventionalisation of linguistic means characteristic of LSP as the linguistic means typically used in communication within a specialized domain (Tomasello 2014, p. 93). Recalling the purpose of this chapter, viz., to investigate the basics of disseminating specialized-domain knowledge and LSP, we here see a characteristic with importance for how to carry out the communicative task: Due to modern humans’ high level of awareness of in-group/out-group differences, we can be fairly sure that

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if we as mediators signal that we come from a domain different from that of the addressees, they will be aware of this fact and take it into account when processing the communicative effort. This may be done in different ways, but at least one way is to apply the characteristic terminology of the specialized domain. However, there is a potential danger in this to be taken into consideration, as according to Tomasello (2014, p. 84) humans guided by collective intentionality tend to see out-groups as not only different, but as different in a despicable way. We will revert to this when talking about knowledge asymmetries from the point of view of the Knowledge Communication Approach to be presented below. Of the two remaining characteristics presented above, we now turn to the idea of ‘objective’ representations. Here, the group-mindedness stemming from collective intentionality plays a central role. That representations (of the world in the individual’s mind) are termed ‘objective’ means here that they are perceived by the individual as being held not only by the individual, but also by anyone else in the in-group (Tomasello 2014, p. 87). In this formulation, ‘objectivity’ is the result of being able to think of things from ever wider perspectives and also recursively, as one embeds one’s perspective within another, more encompassing perspective. In the current view, more encompassing means simply from the perspective of an ever wider, more transpersonally constituted generic individual or social group—the view from anyone. (Tomasello 2014, p. 122). Let us look at this through the example of education. In the course of my education as a linguist, I have learnt that the term ‘proposition’ in this context means ‘A statement often contained in a sentence which can be assessed as being true or false’. As I have learnt this in an institutional educational context, I have also learnt to expect that all linguists share this representation—at least if I feel secure about the source and the context in which I learnt the term. For I have learnt it precisely as a defined term, which gives it the gist of a norm, ‘the way we talk about this’. This objectivity or normativity is important for how collective intentionality can help us accumulate knowledge within a specialized domain. Because modern humans are able to grasp the idea of normative representations, we can learn in very deep ways from the experiences and insights of others. For we can conceptualize that which we are told as being shared knowledge and thus as being authoritative. In the case of terms we are not only presented with specific ‘objective’ representations of the world, but are also presented with a word or a phrase that is conventionally used when talking about this representation. This means that the conventionalization of the language used for talking about the representation helps making us aware of the representation as something inherited (Tomasello 2014, p. 95). Again, we see here an explanation for why specialized domains tend to develop conventionalized language. Not only does it make the domain distinguishable, it also enables members of the domain to pass on specific conceptualization or perspectives of the world typical of the domain. In situations of transdiscursive knowledge communication, the challenge is to convey the inherited conceptualization to out-group addressees despite the fact that they know neither the ontological system nor the conventionalized language used for talking about the concepts and the representations.

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The presentation of the first two aspects characterising the cognition of modern humans as guided by collective intentionality tends to show us the barriers we are confronted with when trying to mediate knowledge from specialized domains to outsiders. The cognitive characteristics of modern humans means that they tend to see out-groups as strange and often despicable. Furthermore, the way a specialized domain represents the world and talks about it is exactly part of the characteristic ways that demonstrate that they belong to an out-group to people, who are not members of the domain. So how can we still believe that it is possible to make knowledge cross discursive borders? The third aspect, reflective inferences guided by reason, gives us some hope here: The key point for human thinking is that explicating conceptual content in conventional linguistic format … makes this content ripe for self-reflection. (Tomasello 2014, p. 104).

Due to collective intentionality, modern human cognition can rely upon a conventionalized language and upon ‘objective’ representations of how the world is structured and what counts as specifically powerful arguments. As modern humans, we are used to understanding utterances in communication based upon inferences that we draw from reflections over the reasons that may lie behind what someone tells us, at least when we encounter humans that do clearly not belong to our specific group. Again, a barrier to cross here in connection with transdiscursive knowledge communication is that the structure of valid reasons is to some extent part of the ‘objective’ representations of the culture, in our case of the specialized domain. However, as reflective, reasoned inferencing is a basic mechanism in the cognition of modern humans, it is a mechanism that transdiscursive knowledge communicators may take advantage of when they mediate specialized-domain knowledge to out-group addressees.

3.4  D  issemination of Experts’ Knowledge in the Knowledge Communication Approach Scrutinizing the basics of the task of mediating knowledge of specialized domains to addressees outside the domain, we have so far isolated some central characteristics. First, linguistic knowledge and declarative domain-specific knowledge are woven together by social convention to form a specialized language, an LSP. Secondly, human cognition can be hypothesized to aim at establishing collective intentionality leading to a highly cooperative basic characteristic of human cognition. From these two characteristics, we can deduct that the central goal to be achieved is for addressees from outside the domain to be able to establish a link between linguistic means and declarative knowledge, despite the fact that they are not part of the domain as experts and thus do not share their knowledge of conventionalisations. Furthermore, we can see that in this challenge we as knowledge mediators may rely upon addressees being potentially able to get to share our intentions and knowledge through building collective representations based on reflective

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or reasoned inferences. Finally, the characteristic of normative self-governance leads to a clear perception in humans of being members of one or more collective ‘we’s and of others as being members of other collectives, of out-groups (Tomasello 2014, p. 84). This means that once we have recognized a communicative effort as belonging to a different group than ours, we may intend to understand them based upon the assumption that they follow other conventions than the ones I already know. An approach that intends to incorporate the aspects presented so far in a consistent framework is the Knowledge Communication Approach to the study of communication of special domain knowledge developed at Aarhus University (Kastberg 2018; 2019; Porup Thomasen 2015). The study of Knowledge Communication aims at investigating the intentional and decisionbased communication of specialised knowledge in professional settings (among experts as well as between experts and nonexperts) with a focus upon the interplay between knowledge and expertise of individuals, on the one hand, and knowledge as a social phenomenon, on the other, as well as the coping with knowledge asymmetries, i.e., the communicative consequences of differences between individual knowledge in depth as well as breadth. (Engberg 2016, p. 37; my emphasis).

We recognize here the idea that expert communication is carried out relying on the object of knowledge. Furthermore, this knowledge is held by individuals, but is at the same time a social phenomenon. We saw above that this stems from the importance of collective intentionality for modern human cognition, as this enables ‘objective’, i.e., consciously collectively held representations. In other words, we know (or presume) that what we know is not just our own insight, but that anyone else knows the same. Finally, although our cognition is collectively and collaboratively oriented it is bound to the individual and the stock of knowledge built up by the individual. The cooperating human thinking is carried out by individuals with differing experiences (Polanyi 1958). This means that the task of communicating knowledge has to cope with asymmetries in the knowledge base of the participants in the process. This is the case in all instances of human communication, but the differences naturally gain importance when we talk about communicating specialized-domain knowledge to addressees from outside the domain. We will here focus upon this perspective, as it is central to the act of mediating specialized-domain knowledge. What does it mean to say that a knowledge asymmetry exists between people involved in mutual communication? Kastberg (2011, p. 145) presents the following defining aspects: Knowledge asymmetry is a relation which is produced in communication. The discursive construction of knowledge asymmetry is observable via perturbations. Knowledge asymmetry becomes communicatively salient where a single-plane distinction is observed between the knowledges of ‚alter‘and ‚ego‘. The distinction is one which allows one or more positions to appreciate the knowledge of ‘alter’ and ‘ego’ as being non-identical under the same sortal. (my emphasis).

In other words, what people communicating with each other know is not exactly the same in relevant dimensions (non-identical under the same sortal). Although  we talk about an asymmetry, the difference does not have to be one of quantity. Two

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people may hold the same amount of representations, but they are not identical. This could be the case if we look at virologists and economists looking at the impact of the corona virus upon the Danish society in April 2020. They both know a lot about the concept of societal consequences of a virus, but the virologists have a more detailed knowledge about how the virus influences society by way of its influence upon the health of the population through infections. The economists, on the other hand, have a more detailed knowledge on how a virus influences the economical behaviour of citizens and in this way influences the economic growth and situation of the society. In the terms of Tomasello above, such knowledge asymmetries will often rely upon the fact that the people communicating belong to different groups with a different set of ‘objective’ representations connected to the concept being talked about. For mutual communicative understanding, this is not a problem as such—as long as the asymmetry is recognized by the people communicating. In this context, the Knowledge Communication Approach underlines that knowledge asymmetries with relevance for transdiscursive knowledge communication are created in communication. Naturally, this does not mean that no differences exist between the knowledge base of different people, if they do not talk to each other. Instead, it means that asymmetries are only communicatively relevant, if they are introduced in communication. The interest of the approach lies in instances of communication and the way knowledge asymmetries are treated in this context. As analysers of communication, we can see knowledge asymmetries in reactions of the communicators (‘observable via perturbations’). Along the same lines, Jacobsen (2012, p. 169) stresses the importance of awareness for knowledge asymmetries to be a prerequisite for communicative relevance: More often than not, knowledge asymmetries appear as granitic bastions of permanent difference. However, I argue that they exist, and become real, the moment we recognize them. We recognize them partly because our history compel us to. … And we recognize them because there are obviously differences in what you and I know. (my emphasis)

Importantly for the argumentation in this chapter, interest in the Knowledge Communication Approach is mainly in how communicators make asymmetries recognizable when entering into attempts of transdiscursive knowledge communication. To put it short: the underlying communicative reasons for intending to disseminate knowledge across discursive borders will normally be presumed knowledge asymmetries between the people involved. How these presumed asymmetries are then spelled out communicatively, in other words: how they are communicatively produced, that is the interesting aspect from the point of view of the Knowledge Communication Approach. Making knowledge asymmetries recognizable is one way of making addressees aware of the fact that they do not belong to the same in-­ group as the communicator. It can thus also function as an indicator that the addressees cannot rely upon their ‘objective’ representations, but have to resort to a more open-minded cognitive mode, where reflective reasoned inferencing plays a more important role than the ‘objective’ representations of the addressees’ own in-groups.

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When we talk about mediating experts’ specialized knowledge across knowledge asymmetries, we may distinguish between at least three major types of communicative settings: • Expert-researchers communicating with expert-practitioners from the same specialized domain (e.g. professors of economy and management communicating with actual managers in companies). • Experts from one domain communicating with experts from another domain (e.g. virologists communicating with economists about the corona virus). • Experts communicating with laypeople (e.g. doctors communicating with patients about a disease). In the following, I will briefly present characteristics of these situations from the point of view of the Knowledge Communication Approach and Tomasello’s work. However, my intention is not to present a thorough analysis of the situation types. Concerning the first type of communicative setting, expert researchers communicating with expert-practitioners, the interesting thing is that both types of communicators often share the same educational background, but not the same field of application of the knowledge acquired in the education. Picton and Dury (2017) suggest seeing this as a type of diastratic variation, though not in the traditional sociolinguistic approach of variation in language according to the position of the language users on a scale of social prestige and social class: We also consider that within a given field of expertise (in our case, nuclear medicine and university pedagogy), there are different scenarios in which specialists communicate with one another and, most importantly, there are different types of specialists who use their own specific terms. (Picton and Dury 2017, p. 61; my emphasis)

In their corpus-based work, Picton and Dury document differences between the LSP of nuclear medicine physicians and researchers in higher education, respectively, publishing in academic journals, on the one hand, and nuclear medicine technologists communicating in online fora as well as academic educational advisors communicating with higher education practitioners through websites, on the other. Such differences in the conventionalized language means typically used by a group of experts points towards differences in the central inherited representations of the group (Tomasello 2014, p. 95). Another example of a study of this type of asymmetric knowledge communication is the analysis in Maier and Engberg (2019) of how the asymmetry between researchers and practitioners are bridged in the Harvard Business Review. We here establish analytically that focus is upon presenting the core research-based knowledge to be conveyed, together with some peripheral background knowledge normally not found in prototypical academic journals. Along the same lines, we find less and especially less precise references to other academic literature than normal in academic journals. Again, it demonstrates different norms of the two groups, probably reflecting differences in what is represented as ‘objectively’ important in the two sub groups (Maier and Engberg 2019, pp. 148–149).

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In the second type of communicative setting, participants are experts from different domains, but interested in the same parts of the world. An example of research in this context is the study of an interdisciplinary project involving researchers from political science and physics presented by Janich and Zakharova (2011). The basis of the research consists of interviews with participants in the project about the communicative processes, leading to a number of insights with relevance in our context. Linguistic-communicative problems occur largely because of differences in the knowledge of the two groups concerning research context, methods, organization, etc. Such problems occur at a very early stage, showing that they are due to basic knowledge asymmetries. Moreover, the problems cannot be neglected, but must be taken on explicitly through meta-communication about the differences in order to proceed with the project. In the terms introduced here, it is clear that the differences in ‘objective’ representations interferes in the process of understanding each other. Probably, it also plays a role, that both groups are experts and that opening up to understanding the ‘objective’ representations of the other group may feel challenging or even dangerous, as it could impact the status of the group in the project. Another line of research in this type of transdiscursive knowledge communication is the work by Martin Eppler on the communication between subject-matter experts and managing decision makers in company settings. As an example, Eppler (2008) investigates the different view on problems between experts and decision makers, again a consequence of differences in the ‘objective’ representations of the two groups. As a solution, he has developed collaborative visualization tools that enable members of the two groups to produce touchable representations and thus help them see differences and ways of overcoming the knowledge asymmetries. The solution is, in other words, to take advantage of the ability for collective intentionality to create a common ground. The final type of setting is the prototypical one, viz. the communication between experts and laypeople in settings like for instance doctor-patient interaction. According to Bromme and Jucks (2018, pp. 222–223), some aspects are central for this type of transdiscursive knowledge communication: • Background knowledge of the interlocutors is different. • Interaction is typically motivated by the needs of the laypeople seeking support from the expert. • Knowledge is exchanged between the interlocutors (experts must understand the problem and then deliver knowledge in the form of an advice). • Hence, common ground must be established. These characteristics are not radically different from those we have seen in the other two settings. However, the special relation between the interlocutors typically consists not only of a knowledge asymmetry, but also of a difference in position in the social hierarchy. This implies three challenges that are central for the contribution of an expert to the transdiscursive knowledge communication (Bromme and Jucks 2018, p. 234):

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• That they are in charge of anticipating laypeople’s perspective on the ‘objective’ representations of the specialized knowledge and of adapting to it. • That they are in charge of anticipating laypeople’s emotional needs in connection with the interaction and of adapting to it. • That they are in charge of establishing mutual trust. The first aspect has been investigated for instance by Azuelos-Atias (2018), demonstrating that one of the intricacies for laypeople in understanding legal texts are the implicit intertextual and interdiscursive links in such texts. By this, she means implicit links to other legal texts or knowledge from other fields (like psychology) that must not be expressed in legal texts like for instance court decisions, because the experts possess this background knowledge. However, the last two aspects are even more important for understanding knowledge communication across asymmetries between experts and laypeople. For instance for the field of legal communication, Preite (2013) introduces a specific and characteristic function of institutional legal communication like informative leaflets from ministries about legal rules. This function consists in securing a positive, i.e., a trustful relation between the institution and the citizens. Concerning the emotional needs and perspectives of laypeople, one example of relevant work is the study by Fage-Butler (2013) on adopting a polyocular approach in securing the patient’s perspective in patient information leaflets. Another example is the work by Møller and Brøgger (2019) on perceived problems by resident medical doctor students in doctor-patient work. Based on a study of narrations by a total of 138 residents they establish the residents’ perceptions of, among other things, differences in the view as to what is the object of the conversation and concerning the role of the doctor as a helper rather than an opponent, especially connected to the emotional needs of the patients.

3.5  S  trategies for Crossing Knowledge Asymmetries in Transdiscursive Knowledge Communication In transdiscursive knowledge communication settings as the ones described above, the first challenge is to make the addressees aware of the differences in ‘objective’ representations, inherited conceptualisations and linguistic conventions between the in-group of the communicator and the addressees, as we have seen in the previous section. This means establishing communicatively the knowledge asymmetry existing in the communicative setting. Next step is to decide how to enable the out-group addressees to infer the intended representations and thus gain access to the specialized-­domain knowledge. As the remainder of the book is about implementation and application of knowledge dissemination, I will limit myself to short presentations of three central strategies suggested from recent research. • Taking advantage of the metaphorical mechanisms in language: Research has shown that even the semantic structure of terms can be represented in conceptual

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instruments of cognitive semantics like conceptual frames and metaphors (Faber 2012; Temmerman 2000, 2007). Isaeva (2019) demonstrates how to use such insights to analyse in detail the metaphorical dimensions of specialized terms to be mediated. Based on the results of the analysis she decides which parts of the metaphorical structure of an expert concept to emphasise in transdiscursive knowledge communication, dependent upon the projected knowledge of targeted addressees. • Creating a positive image of the communicator: As an example, Engberg and Luttermann (2014) and Luttermann and Engberg (2018) document that the German Ministry of Justice, when describing the German system of criminal justice in material targeting young victims of violence, systematically focuses upon the function of the system to help victims of crimes to get justice and protection. On the other hand, the ministry downplays the function of the system that it protects citizens from being punished, if it is not clearly proven that they have committed a specific crime (in dubio pro reo). In this way, the communicator secures a positive position towards the victim addressees and thus makes it more likely that these addressees will take on the extra effort to build up the relevant new knowledge. • Choosing a relevant level of explanatory ambition: Communicators have to decide to what depth they want addressees in transdiscursive knowledge communication to adopt the specialized knowledge. In other words, what level of explanatory ambition does the communicator have in a specific situation (Engberg 2020b)? Is it enough that the addressees acquire a superficial knowledge through the communication, or does the communicator intend to draw the addressees towards the domain, so to speak to invite them to acquire the actual expert knowledge of the group? In this context, at least four levels may be distinguished, here with information on the concept of ‘coding’ from computer science as an example: • Stating the type of the concept (coding is a writing process). • Stating the functional context to which the concept belongs (coding is part of the work of a computer programmer to make computers work). • Stating the causal role of the concept (coding is when the computer programmer writes computer programs and thus instructs the computer what to do). • Stating the causal system to which the concept belongs (coding is based upon a programming language with rules linking words and numbers to specific actions and linking actions together. The programming language is ‘known’ by the computer). The further down we get in the examples, the higher the degree of causal complexity of the explanations (Engberg and Heller 2020, p. 220; Engberg 2020b, pp. 65–66), thus allowing the addressees to be introduced still deeper into the knowledge structure of the specialized domain to which the expert belongs.

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3.6  Concluding Remarks By way of conclusion, in this chapter I have presented some of the socio-cognitive basics of transdiscursive knowledge communication with a specific focus upon the ability of modern humans to create collective intentionality. This ability is an important basis for the emergence of disciplinary or epistemic cultures as reservoirs of inherited knowledge, which consists not only in declarative and procedural expert knowledge, but also in knowledge about how to communicate the knowledge in accepted ways. The characteristics of LSP and of specialized domains as disciplines and epistemic cultures, which we have to consider when entering into transdiscursive knowledge communication, originate from here. One central aspect in this context, which I have discussed in the context of the Knowledge Communication Approach, is the concept of knowledge asymmetries. Departing from different types of asymmetries, we have isolated three types of communicative settings and finally suggested three strategies with relevance for communicating knowledge across knowledge asymmetries. The concept of transdiscursive knowledge communication central in this chapter may best be seen as the overarching term for a number of underlying tasks. These may at least analytically be differentiated, thus enhancing our insights into the procedures of which the activity consists and how these may interact. One example of such a differentiation is the distinction between knowledge mediation and popularization. Knowledge mediation may be seen as the act of communicating knowledge transdiscursively in order to enable the addressees to use the knowledge in their own daily life (Turnbull 2018, p. 218). Popularization, on the other hand, is more about embedding the specialized knowledge and its domain in the ‘objective’ representations of the addressees (Engberg et al. 2018a; b). Concerning legal communication, this task may be characterized as follows: “The expert aims to present legal knowledge in a way that creates a link with the popular culture of the receiver.” (Engberg 2020a, p. 182). Finally, emphasis in this chapter has so far been on what strategies the shapers of communicative efforts may apply in transdiscursive knowledge communication. However, as stated in the introduction, not only is it important for disciplines to disseminate the knowledge they have generated to the wider public. For citizens in modern knowledge societies it is an asset to be able to access a broad range of knowledge in order to solve problems and make relevant decisions in their lives. This presupposes what OECD (2018, p. 4) terms epistemic knowledge on the part of the addressees of instances of transdiscursive knowledge communication: Disciplinary knowledge will continue to be important, as the raw material from which new knowledge is developed, together with the capacity to think across the boundaries of disciplines and “connect the dots”. Epistemic knowledge, or knowledge about the disciplines, such as knowing how to think like a mathematician, historian or scientist, will also be significant, enabling students to extend their disciplinary knowledge. (my emphasis).

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The basic insights presented here may be useful, when building such knowledge on the part of the citizens of knowledge societies also in their role as addressees of expert knowledge from specialized domains they do not belong to themselves.

References Bromme R, Jucks R (2018) Discourse and expertise: the challenge of mutual understanding between experts and laypeople. In: Schober MF, Rapp DN, Britt MA (eds) The routledge handbook of discourse processes. Routledge, New York/Abingdon, pp 222–244 Engberg J (2016) Conceptualising corporate criminal liability: legal linguistics and the combination of descriptive lenses. In: Tessuto G, Bhatia VK, Garzone G, Salvi R, Williams C (eds) Constructing legal discourses and social practices: issues and perspectives. Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle Upon Tyne, pp 28–56 Engberg J, Heller D (2020) Rechtliches Wissen auf einer institutionellen Webseite. Eine Fallstudie zu sprach- und wissensorientierten Techniken der Popularisierung von Wissen im Netz. In: Beckers K, Wassermann M (eds) Wissenskommunikation im Web. Sprachwissenschaftliche Perspektiven und Analysen. Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.M. et al., pp 37–63 Engberg J, Luttermann K, Cacchiani S, Preite C (2018a) Popularization and knowledge mediation in the law/Popularisierung und Wissensvermittlung im Recht. In: Kramsch C, Luttermann C, Luttermann K (eds) Rechtslinguistik  - Studien zu Text und Kommunikation. LIT Verlag, Münster Kastberg P (2019) Knowledge communication. Contours of a research agenda, Forum für Fachsprachenforschung, 157. Frank & Timme, Berlin Polanyi M (1958) Personal knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Tomasello M (2008) Origins of human communication. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Adamzik K (2018) Fachsprachen. Die Konstruktion von Welten. Narr, Tübingen Azuelos-Atias S (2018) Making legal language clear to legal laypersons. In: Kurzon D, Kryk-­ Kastovsky B (eds) Legal Pragmatics. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 101–116 Engberg J (2020a) Institutional dissemination of legal knowledge – an instance of knowledge communication. In: Gotti M, Maci S, Sala M (eds) Scholarly pathways: knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange in academia. Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.M., pp 175–205 Engberg J (2020b) Multimodal institutional knowledge dissemination and popularization in an EU context – explanatory ambition in focus. In: Tessuto G, Bhatia VK, Breeze R, Brownlees N, Solly M (eds) The context and media of legal discourse. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, pp 50–76 Engberg J, Cacchiani S, Luttermann K, Preite C (2018b) Studying popularisation in legal communication: Introduction and overview. In: Engberg J, Cacchiani S, Luttermann K, Preite C (eds) Popularization and knowledge mediation in the legal field. LIT Verlag, Münster, pp IX–XXV Engberg J, Luttermann K (2014) Informationen auf Jugend-Webseiten als Input für Wissenskonstruktion über Recht. Z für Angew Linguistik 60(1):67–91. https://doi.org/10.1515/ zfal-­2014-­0003 Eppler MJ (2008) Jenseits der Folienpräsentation: Wissenskommunikation zwischen Entscheidern und Spezialisten. ICA Working Paper, Lugano Faber P (ed) (2012) A cognitive linguistics view of terminology and specialized language. de Gruyter, Berlin et al Fage-Butler A (2013) Including patients’ perspectives in patient information leaflets: a polyocular approach. Fachsprache 35(3–4):140–154. https://doi.org/10.24989/fs.v35i3-­4.1326 Hoffmann L (1985) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache: eine Einführung. 2 ed.Forum für Fachsprachenforschung. Narr, Tübingen, p 1

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Hoffmann L (1993) Fachwissen und Fachkommunikation. Zur Dialektik von Systematik und Linearität in den Fachsprachen. In: Bungarten T (ed) Fachsprachentheorie. Bd.2: Konzeptionen und theoretische Richtungen. Attikon, Tostedt, pp 595–617 Isaeva E (2019) Metaphor in terminology: finding tools for efficient professional communication. Fachsprache 41(S1):65–86. https://doi.org/10.24989/fs.v41iS1.1766 Jacobsen UC (2012) “Knowledge Asymmetries. A situated inquiry in three sites of professional communication.” PhD, Dept. of Business Communication, Aarhus University Janich N, Zakharova E (2011) Wissensasymmetrien, Interaktionsrollen und die Frage der ‘gemeinsamen’ Sprache in der interdisziplinären Projektkommunikation. Fachsprache 34(3–4):187–204 Kalverkämper H (1998) Fach und Fachwissen. In: Hoffmann L, Kalverkämper H, Wiegand HE (eds) Fachsprachen. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Fachsprachenforschung und Terminologiewissenschaft. de Gruyter, Berlin u.a., pp 1–24 Kastberg P (2011) Knowledge asymmetries: beyond to have and have not. Fachsprache - Int J Spec Commun 34(3–4):137–151 Kastberg P (2018) Languages for special purposes as instruments for communicating knowledge. In: Humbley J, Budin G, Laurén C (eds) Languages for special purposes: an international handbook. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 26–44 Knorr-Cetina K (1999) Epistemic cultures: how the sciences make knowledge. Mass, Cambridge Luttermann K, Engberg J (2018) Vermittlung rechtlichen Wissens an Kinder und Jugendliche im Internet und in Broschüren. In: Engberg J, Cacchiani S, Luttermann K, Preite C (eds) Popularization and knowledge mediation in the legal field. LIT Verlag, Münster, pp 85–115 Maier CD, Engberg J (2019) The multimodal bridge between academics and practitioners in the Harvard Business Review’s digital context: A multi-leveled qualitative analysis of knowledge construction. In: Perez-Llantada C, Luzon M-J (eds) Science communication on the Internet. Old genres meet new genres. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 131–151 Möhn D (1968) Fach- und Gemeinsprache. Zur Emanzipation und Isolation der Sprache. In: Mitzka W (ed) Wortgeographie und Gesellschaft. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 315–348 Møller JE, Brøgger MN (2019) How do residents perceive and narrate stories about communication challenges in patient encounters? A narrative study. BMJ Open 9(6). https://doi.org/10.1136/ bmjopen-­2019-­029022 OECD (2018) The Future of Education and Skills. Education 2030. OECD, Paris Pennarola C (2019) From knowledge to empowerment: the epistemologies of ESP. Int J Lang Stud 13(4):7–14 Picton A, Dury P (2017) Diastratic variation in language for specific purposes. In: Drouin P, Francœur A, Humbley J, Picton A (eds) Multiple perspectives on terminological variation. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 57–80 Porup Thomasen, Ulf (2015) Exploring the Communicative Dimensions of Knowledge-­ Intensive Innovation: An Ethnographic Insight into the Innovation Culture Initiative of Novo Nordisk. Department of Business Communication, Aarhus University. https://pure.au.dk/ ws/files/86923107/Exploring_the_Communicative_Dimensions_of_Knowledge_Intensive_ Innovation.pdf Preite C (2013) Comunicare il diritto: strategie di divulgazione del discorso giuridico. In: Bosisio C, Cavagnoli S (eds) Comunicare le discipline attraverso le lingue: prospettive traduttiva, didattica, socioculturale. Guerra Edizioni, Perugia, pp 245–262 Roelcke T (2020) Fachsprachen. 4, neu bearbeitete und wesentlich erweiterte Auflage, Grundlagen der Germanistik, vol 37. Schmidt, Berlin Temmerman R (2000) Towards new ways of terminology description. The sociocognitive approach. John Benjamins, Amsterdam Temmerman R (2007) Approaches to terminology. Now that the dust has settled…. Synaps 20:27–36 Tomasello M (2014) A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Turnbull J (2018) Communicating and recontextualizing legal advice online in english. In: Engberg J, Cacchiani S, Luttermann K, Preite C (eds) Popularization and knowledge mediation in the legal field. LIT Verlag, Münster, pp 201–222

Part II

Implementation of Mediation

Chapter 4

Critical Metaphor Analysis as a Means of (Re)construction of Knowledge Creation Svetlana Mishlanova

and Tatiana Utkina

Abstract  The chapter aims to investigate the creation of specialised knowledge in different disciplinary contexts, focusing on the interplay between the knowledge of individuals and knowledge as a social phenomenon. Central in the current study is the role of tacit knowledge and its creation when developing disciplinary knowledge. The basics are Polanyi’s (1958, Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. London, Routledge; 1966, The tacit dimension. London, Routledge) idea of personal and tacit knowledge, Nonaka’s (1994, Organization Science 5:14–37) model of knowledge creation cycle, Gollner’s (2006, The anatomy of knowledge. Establishing a useful definition of knowledge and laying out the ways it makes sense to speak of Knowledge management as a practice. Ottawa, Canada) conception of the knowledge dynamic and Aristotelian typology of knowledge (Aristotle 1983, Nikomakhova etika [Nicomachean Ethics]. Sochineniya: v 4-kh t. [Works in 4 vols. Vol. 4]. Moscow, Mysl Publ.; pp. 53–293). In this chapter, we contribute to the discussion by bringing a cognitive linguistic approach to investigating tacit knowledge in different disciplinary contexts, that is, conceptions and attitudes of university students majoring in Software Engineering, Business Informatics, Economics, Management and Law. The main research findings corroborate the earlier findings obtained in the studies that have examined tacit knowledge within the framework of organisational knowledge creation and cognitive metaphor studies. The results reported here confirm the hypothesis that critical metaphor analysis might allow for (re)construction of knowledge creation in different disciplinary contexts.

S. Mishlanova Perm State University, Perm, Russia T. Utkina (*) HSE University, Perm, Russia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_4

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Critical metaphor analysis allows us to approach learners’ conceptualisation by analysing metaphors by source domain in the narratives written by Russian EFL learners and non-metaphorical language from the corpus of educational programmes through the procedures of identification, interpretation and explanation. The overall analysis enables us to ascertain the extent to which metaphors are accountable for constructing relations of social domination (ideology) and reveal the convergence and divergence of knowledge creation in the groups of students of different major disciplines. The chapter is structured as follows: first, it overviews knowledge creation studies; second, it gives the account of employing critical metaphor analysis to approach learners’ conceptualisation. This is followed by analysing metaphors by source domain in the narratives written by Russian EFL learners and non-metaphorical language from the corpus of educational programs through the procedures of identification, interpretation and explanation; finally, the data analysis is complemented by the discussion of the Knowledge creation model constructed in the current study. Keywords  Knowledge · Critical metaphor analysis · Knowledge creation · Disciplinary context · EFL learner · Tacit knowledge · Non-metaphorical language · Metaphorical language · Metaphor

4.1  Introduction Knowledge is widely recognised as the most influential factor in the sustainable development of modern society. A substantial amount of research on knowledge production, transfer and consumption has allowed for creating knowledge classification, defining parameters of knowledge modelling, modelling knowledge economies etc. So far, many studies in the perspective of traditional epistemology and the theory of knowledge creation, including education, professional communication and terminology (LSP), have focused on explicit, codified and standardised knowledge. Attempts have been made to investigate tacit knowledge in the perspective of cognitive metaphor studies, psycholinguistics, the theory of categorisation, let alone philosophy, hermeneutics, and phenomenology as methods of objectification and interpretation of philosophical thought. Existing applied research has acknowledged the critical role played by tacit knowledge. It is now well established from a variety of studies that tacit knowledge is a source of improved organisational performance (e.g. Frankel 2005; Laloux 2014; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995), a regulator of understanding among stakeholders in the educational process (that is, the conceptions, needs, attitudes of teachers and students) (e.g. van der Veer and Valsiner 1994, Aubusson et al. 2006), a basis for any kind of knowledge mediation, including professional, cross-cultural and

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interpersonal communication (e.g. Hofstede 2001). In addition, tacit knowledge has received increased attention in the competence-based learning methodologies, which regard it as a leading approach to developing competences (CEFR 2001). A variety of methods are used to explore tacit knowledge. More recent research in psycholinguistics, psychology and social cognitive sciences calls attention to the fact that evidence-based methods are required to be complemented with subjective databases, which are collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, self-reports, stimulated recalls, discourse analysis, diaries and narratives (e.g. White and Bruning 2005; Kalaja 2003; Barcelos 2000; Hosenfeld 2003). In terms of the knowledge life cycle, these datasets come from knowledge externalisation and represent personal knowledge. Since this knowledge may be codified and easily expressed, it can be subjected to scrutiny. The research focus of personal or tacit knowledge is the knowledge that is articulated by verbal, non-verbal and multimodal means, as well as the unity of source and tacit knowledge, including a broader extralinguistic context. One such focus is discourse as a multi-level sociocognitive structure. Thus, when it is necessary to investigate tacit knowledge related to social dominance in discourse, critical discourse analysis is applied (Jorgensen and Phillips 2002; O’Halloran 2003; Titscher et al. 2000). Another research focus of tacit knowledge is the metaphor as an essential method of “creating a network of concepts which can help to generate knowledge about the future by using existing knowledge” (Nonaka 1994, p. 21). As tacit knowledge is hard to communicate, the sophisticated use of metaphors can be helpful. Moreover, when it is impossible to explore tacit knowledge directly, “metaphorical linguistic expressions can provide a possible window to a person’s conceptualisations” (Armstrong 2008, p. 212). Thus, one possible approach to (re)construct knowledge creation is to apply critical metaphor analysis, which combines the potential of both Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Charteris-Black 2004; Musolff 2008; Hart 2008). Central in our research is the role of tacit knowledge and its creation when developing disciplinary knowledge. We intend to study knowledge creation from the point of view of Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) studies and aim to investigate the creation of specialised knowledge in different disciplinary contexts, focusing on the interplay between knowledge of individuals and knowledge as a social phenomenon. The basics are Polanyi’s (1958, 1966) idea of personal and tacit knowledge, Nonaka’s (1994) model of knowledge creation cycle, Gollner’s (2006) conception of the knowledge dynamic and Aristotelian typology of knowledge (Aristotle 1983). By developing these central tenets, we focus upon demonstrating how different types of knowledge are involved in the process of the creation of specialised knowledge. The present study set out to test the hypothesis that critical metaphor analysis might allow for (re)construction of knowledge creation in different disciplinary contexts. In this context, firstly, the chapter overviews knowledge creation studies. Secondly, it gives the account of employing critical metaphor analysis to approach learners’ conceptualisation of academic writing. This is followed by analysing

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metaphors by source domain in the narratives written by Russian EFL learners and non-metaphorical language from the corpus of educational programmes through the procedures of identification, interpretation and explanation. Finally, the data analysis is complemented by the discussion of the knowledge creation model constructed in the current study.

4.2  Basic Concepts of Knowledge Creation Knowledge creation has largely been explored as the relationship between tacit and articulated knowledge (Polanyi 1958, 1966) and the knowledge creation cycle (Nonaka 1994). The following basic tenets of Polanyi’s (1958) conception are crucial to the (re) construction of knowledge creation. The first one is the acknowledgement of tacit components of articulate knowledge. As Michael Polanyi put it, “… owing to the ultimately tacit character of all our knowledge, we remain ever unable to say all that we know, so also, in view of the tacit character of meaning, we can never quite know what is implied in what we say” (1958, p. 99). In other words, explicit knowledge is rooted in tacit knowledge in the phylogenetic and ontogenetic terms. Another premise is the cooperation of tacit knowledge with explicit one and personal knowledge with the formal one. The transformation of personal knowledge into social knowledge is predetermined by a person’s desire for coming “into closer touch with reality” and for “understanding, perception or sensuality more closely to what is true and right” (Polanyi 1958, p. 111). As Polanyi consistently pointed out in his work, tacit knowledge is a kind of knowledge that is holistic and gestalt, and is acquired unintentionally and through imitation, and related to personal experience, personal attitudes, values, emotions, and beliefs. Following Polanyi’s definition of tacit knowledge, Gollner (2006) proposed the definition of knowledge in which the concept of ‘tacit knowledge’ is deconstructed into two separate areas. One of these is ‘pre-articulate’ knowledge, which is not articulated because it is not the object of knowing or because of its fundamental nature. The feeling, proclivities or antipathies, intuitive guesses, recalled memories, insights would fall into this category. The second tacit knowledge area claims to be ‘accepted’ and is referred to previously articulated and acquired knowledge “through contact with cultural artefacts, socialisation or instruction” (Gollner 2006, p. 12). That is where a wider extralinguistic context may emerge. Individual and collective creative activities, which exist outside its product, that is, knowledge, may stimulate knowledge creation. Gollner (2006) admits that knowledge can be accepted well after it has, in fact, ceased to be knowledge. As his model of the knowledge dynamic suggests, articulated knowledge can become accepted knowledge through a process of acquisition (learning) and acceptance (internalisation). Experiences have to be subject to knowledge acceptance procedure even if “they do not ‘fit’ with the articulated knowledge that stands behind it [accepted knowledge]” (Gollner 2006, p.  13).

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Following the premises of his proposed knowledge structure, it is important not to lose track of the interplay between individual and social knowledge when “knowledge provides the framework within which information is formed and communicated, with these ‘speech acts’ being critical to realising an intended goal wherever the collaboration of a group of people is essential” (Gollner 2006, p. 9). The continuous interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge has been subjected to scrutiny within the framework of organisational knowledge creation (Nonaka 1994). A “spiral” model of knowledge creation, proposed by Nonaka, is based on the consideration of epistemological and ontological dimensions of knowledge creation. The epistemological dimension is referred to as a continual dialogue between explicit and tacit knowledge, whereas the ontological dimension is associated with the extent of social interaction between individuals that share and develop knowledge. Based on the interplay between the epistemological dimension and the ontological dimension, knowledge may be created through “four different ‘modes‘of knowledge conversion: (1) from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge, (2) from explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge, (3) from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, and (4) from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge” (Nonaka 1994, p. 18). The first mode of knowledge conversion or the mode of socialisation enables individuals to convert tacit knowledge through interaction between individuals, where individuals may acquire tacit knowledge without language through shared experience. The second mode of knowledge conversion or the mode of combination involves sorting, adding, recategorising, and recontextualising explicit knowledge held by individuals through the use of social processes, which can lead to new knowledge. The third mode of knowledge conversion or the mode of externalisation involves the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. This mode is related to action. The fourth mode of conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge is referred to as internalisation. This mode is related to the traditional notion of learning. It is possible to distinguish several levels of social interaction at which the knowledge created by an individual is transformed and legitimised. There are four levels: (1) individual level that involves personal knowledge is a fundamental level when knowledge is created by individuals; (2) group or collective level that involves group knowledge is an informal community of social interaction which provides an immediate forum for providing for knowledge; (3) organisational level that involves organisational knowledge is related to new knowledge associated with more advantageous organisational processes or technologies; (4) an interorganizational level, that involves building knowledge outside the organisation (Nonaka 1994, p. 17). When it comes to the relationship between personal and social knowledge, Nonaka emphasised the role of individuals in organisational knowledge creation, whose knowledge is amplified and crystallised as a part of the knowledge network of organisation. Nonaka disclosed the relationship between the knowledge of individuals and knowledge as a social phenomenon through two processes of conceptualisation as a result of personal tacit knowledge and crystallisation as a social process (Nonaka 1994, pp.  24–25). In terms of the theory of organisational

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knowledge creation, while hierarchical formal organisation mainly carries out the task of combination and internalisation, self-organising teams, whose members come from different functional departments and establish and interact their perspectives, perform the task of socialisation and externalisation. As proposed by some researchers in the framework of cognitive psychology (e.g., Anderson 1983), three types of knowledge, such as declarative, procedural and instrumental, have a distinctive role in knowledge creation. Declarative knowledge is expressed in the form of propositions and is related to explicit knowledge, whereas procedural knowledge is methodological knowledge and is related to tacit knowledge (cf Polanyi’s (1958) conception of knowledge). Anderson assumed that declarative knowledge has to be transformed into procedural knowledge for cognitive skills to develop. Instrumental or subsidiary knowledge is referred to knowing the particulars only in practice and not explicitly as objects (Polanyi 1958, p. 91). The definitions proposed by Polanyi (1958), Nonaka (1994) and Gollner (2006) would appear to lead us towards a delineation of what creation of knowledge looks like from the disciplinary perspective. Admittedly, knowledge creation may be influenced by discipline-specific discourse. In this respect, it is important to examine tacit knowledge related to disciplinary (social) dominance in discourse. One of the approaches is to study language as the articulate manifestation of knowledge. The language can operate based on two principles: the first controls the process of linguistic representation, and the second is the operation of symbols to assist the thought process. According to Polanyi (1958), the interplay between these two principles defines the sequence of sciences from the descriptive sciences (natural sciences), to the exact sciences (engineering), to the deductive sciences (pure mathematics). This sequence implies a sequence of increasing formalisation and symbolic manipulation, combined with decreasing contact with experience (Polanyi 1958, p. 90). In the light of the Aristotelian typology of knowledge, sciences fall under the categories of episteme, techne, phronesis (Aristotle 1983). Episteme is referred to the knowledge domain, represented in theories, and providing the answer to the why-question. In contrast to episteme, techne is a type of knowledge that provides the answer to the how-question. It is relevant to the experience of art and refers to skills, technology and abilities to create something new. Phronesis is practical knowledge that is concerned with acting in particular situations and acquired through learning by doing. The phronetic knowledge implies a dialogue of the researcher with their object, hence questioning impartiality, objectivity and truth (Flyvbjerg 2001).

4.3  U  sing Critical Metaphor Analysis as a Methodological Approach to Knowledge Creation As mentioned above, tacit knowledge has presented a special interest at the level of interacting individuals, at the level of a business organisation, or the level of different disciplines. The nature of tacit knowledge that accounts for an increase in

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articulated knowledge lays some foundations for research into teachers and students’ conceptions, needs, attitudes of teachers and students in the educational contexts. It has become evident that learners’ epistemologies, assumptions, and perceptions about their learning contexts can be helpful resources for researchers who aim at investigating what impact those social factors have on knowledge creation. For example, Wenden (1999) established a link between metacognitive knowledge and learner beliefs. According to the researcher, metacognitive knowledge is “a system of related ideas, some accepted without question and others validated by their experience” (Wenden 1999, p. 436). While metacognitive knowledge is part of a learner’s acquired knowledge base, including what learners know about learning, beliefs are viewed as “individual, subjective understandings, idiosyncratic truths, which are often value-related and characterised by a commitment not present in knowledge” (Wenden 1999, p. 436). A number of approaches have been used to explore and interpret learners’ knowledge about learning, ranging from descriptive statistics obtained by using questionnaires (Cotterall 1999; Horwitz 1985) to semi-structured interviews and/or self-reports (e.g., Wenden 1987, 1999; White and Bruning 2005). However, these approaches have been criticised for an imperfect research design, insufficient data collection, researchers’ subjectivity and other drawbacks of the research. To make the interpretation of learners’ mental representations complete and provide sufficient evidence, researchers employ the methods of classroom observations (Allen 1996), discourse analysis (Kalaja 2003), stimulated recalls (Barcelos 2000), diaries and narratives (Allen 1996; Hosenfeld 2003). Among them, the use of narratives has been acknowledged as an investigational method, which enables researchers to approach detailed descriptions of learners’ conceptualisations, which may not be achieved through questionnaires (Guerin et al. 2014; Langum and Sullivan 2017; Trahar 2014). The major benefits of narratives are that through writing, learners become most aware of their feelings and understanding of a particular phenomenon (e.g., Ritchie 2006) and that narratives are characterised by a low-pressure strategy for writing without worrying about accuracy and focusing on the idea-generating phases of writing (e.g., Coffin et al. 2003; Langum and Sullivan 2017). Furthermore, in the perspective of the theory of knowledge creation, narratives have been acknowledged as the main platform for interaction between holders of tacit knowledge when they reflect on their actions (Nonaka 1994) and as the mediator of knowledge in the organisational world (Kerosuo et al. 2005). Obviously, the methods mentioned above provide the researchers with more evidence-based inferences. However, they cause other limitations, including the problem of learners’ describing their mental events and feelings about their learning activities and the problem of researchers’ interpreting learners’ mental representations of beliefs and conceptions. To overcome these limitations, educational theory and practice have proposed to employ metaphor analysis on the premises that learners’ metaphors can bring implicit beliefs and tacit knowledge to awareness and uncover their conceptualisations, including attitudes, understandings, beliefs, and personal theories (Cameron and Low 1999; Mahlios et al. 2010; de Guerrero and

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Villamil 2002; Armstrong 2008; Wan and Low 2015). Furthermore, from a knowledge creation perspective, it is acknowledged that metaphor is one effective method of converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by using existing knowledge and assimilating abstract concepts (Nonaka 1994).  Thus, there is a need for a research methodology that would consider the dynamic and social nature of beliefs about learning, that is, learners’ knowledge of specific learning activities in certain disciplinary contexts. A possible investigational tool may be combining the data from different sources of information, which may be obtained through narratives and metaphor analysis. Thus, one possible approach to (re)construct knowledge creation is to apply critical metaphor analysis (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Charteris-Black 2004; Musolff 2008; Hart 2008; Lee 2015), which combines the potential of both Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis.

4.4  Research Context In the current study, we extend the methods used in organisational knowledge creation research to the creation of specialised knowledge in different disciplinary contexts. Similar to knowledge creation in the business organisation, we assume that personal knowledge in the educational context would be brought into a social context through constructing the field for interaction in the form of an autonomous, self-organising “team” made of several members coming from a variety of disciplinary settings. These requirements would be achieved by offering minor disciplines, for example, a minor discipline of academic writing in English, to students from different subject-specific backgrounds. Students select this discipline to enter this field of interaction based on their intentions to develop their knowledge and skills of academic writing in English. This way, students of a minor synthesise the tacit knowledge of both subject-specific domains and academic writing domains, make it explicit, and incorporate it into new knowledge. In this respect, they become “the true “knowledge engineers“ of the knowledge-creating organisations” (Nonaka 1958, p. 32). Other attributes of students such as cultural background, age, gender, second language competence might be determined with regard to the degree of homogeneity. Despite the fact that the span of team activities was confined to the boundary of the university, the students would make extensive use of knowledge in the educational environment, that is, with the students and teachers of the departments of their respective major disciplines. Thus, knowledge creation may be influenced by a complex pattern of factors within the environment set inside the university. In other words, the responsibility of teachers of academic writing courses as a minor discipline is to articulate the grand concepts expressed in highly universal and abstract terms for subject-specific knowledge domains. However, this is not to say that there is no difference in knowledge creation activities among students of different disciplines.

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4.5  Research Methodology The data collected for this study came from multiple data sources, including narratives that were written by English as a foreign language (EFL) students of Software Engineering, Business Informatics, Economics, Management, and Law, and the corpus of educational programmes  (Educational Programme in Software Engineering (n.d.);  Educational Programme in Business Informatics (n.d.);  Educational Programme in Economics (n.d.);  Educational Programme in Management (n.d.); Educational Programme in Law (n.d.)). Concerning written narratives, the main objective was to collect data on students’ metaphorical linguistic expressions by identifying the ones related to academic writing. The dataset included 50 Russian learners of English as a foreign language in the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Perm, Russia): 10 students majoring in Software Engineering (SE), 10 students majoring in Business Informatics (BI), 10 students majoring in Economics, 10 students majoring in Management, and 10 students majoring in Law. The participants were selected on the basis of the degree of homogeneity of their cultural background and EFL competence level. They passed the IELTS at the end of their second year, which is required for all HSE students. Their IELTS scores ranged from 6 to 8. Participants of this study were 35 women and 15 men. The age of participants ranged from 21 to 23 years old. They all attended the Academic Writing course in English (60 academic hours). The students were assigned to prepare between 400 and 600 words where they narrated their journey towards writing academic English and the challenges and possibilities it creates for their research (academic papers in their disciplines). We anticipated that the deliberate inclusion of metaphor of journey into the writing task might influence levels of affective and cognitive engagement with the task, on the one hand, and would allow their beliefs to be more evident in their narrative about academic writing. By selecting this kind of task formulation, we focused on the most likely place to find these beliefs. The data were analysed through a multi-layered analysis process, involving critical metaphor analysis, which combines the potential of both Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, and it involves procedures of identification, interpretation and explanation (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Charteris-Black 2004; Musolff 2008; Hart 2008), which is described below. The procedures for the identification level of analysis were as follows: 1. Identified and listed metaphorical linguistic expressions related to academic writing from written narratives (Pragglejaz Group 2007). In the following sentence, we illustrate the proposed procedure. The context, which comes from our data, “However, as far as academic English came into my life when I entered the university, I understood that I needed to practice it more”, contains one of the lexical units that has a more basic meaning than its contextual meaning—come into. The noncontextual meaning of come into, which is “move towards you or arrive at the place where you are”  (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary

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English (n.d.)), is more basic than its contextual meaning, occur, or take place. The meaning of come into in this context can be understood in comparison with its more basic meaning. This lexical unit is marked as being metaphorically used. This stage of the analysis resulted in identifying the most salient metaphor sources and compiling the entire corpus of keyword metaphors, their concordances and collocations in five samples, divided according to the students’ disciplines. 2. Measured and compared the proportion in the percentage terms of metaphorical language with non-metaphorical language in five datasets of narratives written by SE students, BI students, Economics students, Management students and Law students. The results obtained at the identification stage of critical metaphor analysis could be further interpreted and explained at the interpretation and explanation stages. The procedures for the interpretation level of analysis were as follows: 1. Identified target and source for metaphorical linguistic expressions related to academic writing (Metaphor Identification Procedure VU University Amsterdam (MIPVU) (Steen 2009). The metaphor interpretation procedure was applied to establish mappings and model source domains by addressing the metaphor in terms of two conceptual structures, the source domain and the target domain. Following the conventions of cognitive linguistics, we used the term of target, which is structured as the frame, or the mental representation of target or structure of the concept, and that of source or the other part of the metaphor which is represented as the metaphor model. In the case of this study, the target was the abstract concept of academic writing, whereas the source depended on the participants. This method allowed us to identify specific features of metaphor by organising source domains into specific categories “that provide focal points for conceptualising the target topic” (Musolff 2006, p. 23). As metaphoric modelling is based on natural categorisation, linguistic data were interpreted with the help of dictionary entries (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (n.d.)) to identify the basic and the contextual meanings of lexical units. 2. Mapped source knowledge onto targets (Metaphor Identification Procedure VU University Amsterdam (MIPVU) (Steen 2009)). According to MIPVU (Steen 2009), conceptual metaphors consist of a source domain, a target domain, and a set of mappings. Therefore, basically, this level of analysis involved determining and examining the mappings. One example of the mappings of this level of analysis is as follows: Software Engineering students used a definite set of metaphors, such as “open up”, “way”, “fascinating journey”, “follow”, “end”, “take a whole life”, “road travelled”, “beginning”, “move further” for conceptualising Academic Writing English skills, learning, writing academic English, language, preparation for IELTS, and the English language. The way that these target domains are conceptualised in the sub-­ corpora of Software Engineering is illustrated below [Note: The examples given in the article are quoted exactly as they stand in the original]:

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(1) Academic Writing English skills open up different possibilities for students besides students have to face with challenges, which varies depending on writer (Software Engineering student). (2) I have already published some articles in English about statistics in medicine so I can say now that my way to academic writing in English was not fruitless. There are a lot of things for me to learn, but I hope keeping my way will lead me to bright future (Software Engineering student). (3) The most difficult and at the same time fascinating journey towards writing academic English was on the first two courses at the Higher School of Economics (Software Engineering student). (4) Language is hugely adaptable and follows particular rules in particular environments (Software Engineering student). (5) Despite this course is the finishing part of the whole minor, my journey to the English language and towards writing academic English will not end with it. Learning languages and its aspects will take whole life, as far as every language is constantly develops itself (Software Engineering student). (6) The journey began in the first year, when our teacher told us about compulsory examination in the second year (Software Engineering student). In Examples (1–5) obtained from the written responses given by Software Engineering students, academic writing was conceived as a way the traveller follows and discovers new perspectives for a journey, making it exciting for the traveller. Moreover, the traveller moves in the particular direction and finds this way long enough, taking all their life. These similarities arise as a result of the metaphorical conception of academic writing as a journey and can induce the perception of target domains of academic writing through these source domains. In particular, when involved in academic writing, the university student writes research papers in English, which may provide them with perspectives on English language competence development in educational and professional contexts. What is even more interesting is that students of Software Engineering emphasised a long-term nature of academic writing, with the preliminary stages of academic writing, such as English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses or IELTS preparation courses they attended. In Example (6), it could be observed that Software Engineering students set out on their path toward academic writing in their first year. In the examples below, the metaphors of obstacle and barrier are the metaphoric representations of the target domains of lexicon and grammar, learning to write, and limited time in the sub-corpora of Business Informatics, Economics, Management, Software Engineering and Law (7–11): (7) Moreover, I one of my major problems is a narrow lexicon as well as poor grammar even now, consequently, it raises for me a big obstacle in improving my different language skills because usually, I focus on these two things (Business Informatics student). (8) Personally, I had to overcome a lot of difficulties and obstacles in my life in order to learn how to write (Economics student). (9)  Writing academic English creates many challenges. As for me, the main obstacle is the limited time (Management student).

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Table 4.1  Academic writing is journey conceptual metaphor Source domain Journey The travellers ⇒ The journey ⇒ The starting point of the journey ⇒ The destination of the journey ⇒ The obstacles encountered ⇒

Target domain Academic writing The writers The events in writing The starting point of studying academic writing The goal of the studying academic writing The difficulties experienced

(10) Training at the Hilton gave me the skill of spoken communication, but also helped to remove some language barriers (Software Engineering student). (11) Ultimately, the research paper was written. This work helped me to overcome the language barrier, the problems with understanding scientific papers and writing academic texts in English (Law student). Through this analysis, the following source (journey) aspects were mapped onto the target (academic writing). Students in all specialisation fields predominantly construed academic writing concepts through the domain of journey, which structures academic writing through a set of correspondences between the source domain of a journey and the target domain of academic writing. We should note that it was the application of the journey domain to the academic writing domain that provided the concept of academic writing with this particular structure or set of elements. Hence, academic writing is journey conceptual metaphor has the following correspondences (Table 4.1). Following the metaphor interpretation procedure, we established metaphor domains and compared conceptual metaphors in all samples. This stage of the analysis allowed us to reveal the dynamics in metaphor choices. The purpose of the metaphor analysis phase of explanation was to explore the participants’ chosen sources as well as the ideological motivation of metaphor in discourse. To achieve this purpose, we collected another form of data, that is non-­ metaphorical language from the corpus of educational programmes (Educational Programme in Software Engineering (n.d.);  Educational Programme in Business Informatics (n.d.);  Educational Programme in Economics (n.d.);  Educational Programme in Management (n.d.); Educational Programme in Law (n.d.)). Then, we analysed the data through content analysis. After that, we compared the dataset of primary metaphors, which were identified and analysed previously in the narratives, with the non-metaphorical language from the corpus of educational programmes. The procedures for the explanation level of analysis were as follows: 1. Identified and listed non-metaphorical expressions that make up constituent elements of the meanings. 2. Compared the data of the content analysis of the educational programmes to the data obtained from the metaphor analysis of the narratives. 3.  Expressed these correlations through the formula “Metaphor domain Х is Discipline Y.”

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These correspondences underwent the following transformations: AW is Metaphor domain X Metaphor domain X is Discipline Y AW is Discipline Y, where AW is academic writing. 4. Applied this procedure to each sub-corpora. This stage of the analysis allowed us to reveal the dynamics in metaphor choices and ascertain the extent to which metaphors were determined by extralinguistic factors underlying these changes and accountable for constructing relations of social domination (ideology). Below are the illustrations of the data obtained at each stage of critical metaphor analysis.

4.6  С  ritical Metaphor Analysis of Russian EFL Students’ Narratives About Academic Writing Overall, following the procedures, we identified metaphor related words in the narratives of Russian learners of English from five disciplines. Then, we calculated the number of words and metaphors in all five samples and measured the proportion of metaphors use in each sample (Table 4.2). As shown in Table 4.2, the proportion of metaphors was the highest in the narratives of learners majoring in Business Informatics (1%), which was followed by the percentage of metaphors in the Software Engineering students’ narratives (0.9%). The lowest percentage of metaphors (0.6%) was identified in the narratives of learners majoring in Law. Nevertheless, there proved to be no difference in this figure in the narratives of Economics and Management students, at 0.7% in each sample. Thus, the findings obtained might indicate that the academic writing concept was construed through metaphor differently from the discipline-specific perspective. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of metaphoric representations in all sub-corpora indicated that learners provided the range of conceptual metaphors across all five samples (Table 4.3). Table 4.3 gives insight into the frequency of metaphoric representations of academic writing in the narratives of Software Engineering, Business Informatics, Table 4.2  Total number of words and metaphors and percentage of metaphors use in narratives of Russian learners of English across five disciplines Total number of words and metaphors Total number of words Total number of metaphors The percentage of metaphors use

Software Engineering 3930 34

Business Informatics 4397 51

Economics Management Law 4894 5350 4445 35 36 25

0.9%

1%

0.7%

0.7%

0.6%

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Table 4.3  An Overview of metaphors by Source Domain in Russian EFL students’ narratives from five disciplines (in the percentage terms) Source Software domain Engineering Human being 6 Journey 7 Building 2 Business Art 2 Object 1 Mechanism 1 Linguistics Religion Sports Total 19

Business Informatics 7 10 2 3 2 1 1 1 1 28

Economics Management Law Total 8 10 8 39 3 7 3 30 2 1 1 8 3 1 7 2 6 1 1 4 1 3 1 1 1 1 19 20 14 100

Economics, Management, and Law students. The first observation to be made is that few domains are ubiquitous in all students’ narratives, while some are used only by students of some disciplines. The metaphorical theme of human being was dominant in the entire corpus. The less pervasive metaphorical theme of commonality referred to journey. Building is also a common theme within the narratives from all five disciplines. Other less frequent source domains of business, art, object and mechanism were identified in some samples. The source domains of linguistics, religion, and sports seem least favoured only by Business Informatics and Management students. It is apparent from the table that Business Informatics students demonstrated the widest scope of metaphor sources, including nine out of ten source domains identified in the entire corpus. Both samples of Software Engineering and Economics students referred to the metaphorical representation of their conception of academic writing with six source domains in each group. In the sample comprising social sciences, management students’ conception of academic writing showed a comparatively high metaphoric frequency, with five source domains. However, Law students used five metaphor sources, and the frequency of their metaphoric representations appeared to be the lowest among all five sub-corpora of narratives. By using the dataset of primary metaphors in the narratives of Software Engineering students, we derived keyword metaphors and the corresponding contexts. The keyword metaphors illustrated in Table  4.4 allowed us to identify the following constituent elements of the meanings and collocations: large scale (long way, space, global space), including its relation to time (taking the whole life); excitement (new area, exciting way, art), regardless of obstacles (objects of struggle); property possession and mediation. These constituent elements may be mapped on the academic writing domain, which comprises the constituent elements of large scope, obstacles and struggle, possession of an exciting object (that is, employment and maintenance of an object). Their correspondences can be expressed as academic writing is unlimited possession.

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Table 4.4  Software Engineering students’ conceptualisations of Academic Writing Narratives of Software Engineering students Source domain (Primary metaphors) Constituent elements Keyword metaphors • Large scale, • New space for the including its movement that makes the relation to journey fascinating; the time; traveller, following the way in a particular direction; a • Excitement; • Obstacles; long way that takes a • Property whole life; possession; • Academic writing as an art • Mediation form with its own subtleties and Unlimited complexities; possession • Lexis and grammar as objects of struggle; • Vocabulary acquisition as possession of objects; • The English language that mediates communication between the writer and the global academic community; a person who intervenes in the relationship between people Academic writing is software engineering

Educational programme of Software Engineering Academic writing domain Constituent elements • Large scope; • Obstacles and struggle; • Possession of an exciting object

Academic writing is unlimited possession

Software engineering domain Constituent elements • Large scope and time; • Obstacles and struggle; • Employment and maintenance of exciting objects

Unlimited possession is software engineering

The content analysis of educational programme (Educational Programme in Software Engineering (n.d.)) revealed the following excerpts: ‘the amount, size and application spheres of computer software dramatically increased’; ‘software products are referred to the most sophisticated systems which are created by people’; ‘development of large and complex systems (that is systems, consisting of many million lines of code and involving several years of work done by many hundred software engineers’; ‘customer expectations and competition’; ‘jobs in high-tech industries of the economy’; ‘software development and maintenance’; ‘collecting and transferring information about non-conformity of the product to the specification’. It is necessary to note that these contexts refer to the concepts of large scope and time, obstacles and struggle, and employment and maintenance of exciting objects, which are consistent with the concepts identified in the narratives of Software Engineering students. Therefore, unlimited possession domain can be mapped onto software engineering domain and expressed as unlimited possession is software engineering. The mappings that characterise unlimited possession is

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Table 4.5  Business Informatics students’ conceptualisations of Academic Writing Narratives of Business Informatics students Source domain (Primary metaphors) Constituent elements Keyword metaphors • Large scale; • Global; never-ending way; a complex business • Creativity, beauty and system of divisions and perfection; processes; • Creating a masterpiece; a • Mysterious perspectives painter, aspiring for perfection in their Unachievable ideal creative work; • First engagement with academic writing; object with a magic power; reading academic texts as the hell Academic writing is business informatics

Educational programme of Business Informatics Academic writing domain Constituent elements • Large scope; • Creativity and perfect beauty; • Distant and mysterious perspectives

Business informatics domain Constituent elements • Large scope and time; • Creative business design; • Mysterious management of information systems development

Academic writing is Unachievable ideal is unachievable ideal business informatics

software engineering conceptual metaphor should further be mapped onto a new metaphoric domain of academic writing, and consequently making up academic writing is software engineering conceptual metaphor. Thus, it becomes obvious that the academic writing domain is structured through the metaphor source domain of the discipline or specifications of Software Engineering. Regarding the dataset of primary metaphors in the narratives of Business Informatics students, we identified the keyword metaphors as illustrated in Table 4.5. The elements of the meanings and collocations are as follows: large scale (global; a never-ending way; extended structure), creativity, beauty and perfection (a beautiful piece of art; perfection in art), mysterious perspectives (a never-ending way; first engagement for an inexperienced first-year student; an object, having a magic power; a long and difficult way towards the hell). These constituent elements may be mapped on the academic writing domain, which comprises the constituent elements of large scope, creativity and perfect beauty, and distant and mysterious perspectives. These correspondences can be expressed as academic writing is unachievable ideal. The content analysis of the educational programme (Educational Programme in Business Informatics (n.d.))  revealed the following excerpts: ‘designing business architecture’; ‘strategic planning for information systems development’; ‘analytical support of decision-making process in business management’. It can be seen from this analysis that the concepts of large scope and time, creative business design, mysterious management of information systems development are consistent with the concepts identified in the narratives of Business Informatics students.

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Table 4.6  Economics students’ conceptualisations of Academic Writing Educational programme of Economics

Narratives of Economics students Source domain (Primary metaphors) Constituent elements Keyword metaphors • Relatively • A road travelled by the average scope; traveller; a long but exciting • Means of journey; labour; • The structure of the human • Making body; functioning of a products mechanism; sophisticated • A product, which needs further modification and Competitive improvement; spraying paints business on the canvas and painting every detail to create a masterpiece

Academic writing domain Constituent elements • Average scope; • Means of production; • Quality and attractive products

Academic writing is competitive business

Economics domain Constituent elements • Medium-­sized production facilities; • Making high-quality products, which comply with modern market requirements

Competitive business is economics

Academic writing is economics

Therefore, unachievable ideal domain can be mapped onto business informatics domain and expressed as unachievable ideal is business informatics. The mappings that characterise unachievable ideal is business informatics conceptual metaphor should further be mapped onto a new metaphoric domain of academic writing, and consequently, making up academic writing is business informatics conceptual metaphor. Thus, the academic writing domain is structured through the metaphor source domain of the discipline or specifications of Business Informatics. The dataset of primary metaphors identified previously in the narratives of Economics students was used to derive keyword metaphors and the corresponding contexts. The keyword metaphors illustrated in Table 4.6 allowed us to identify the following elements of the meanings and collocations: relatively average scope (a road for a long journey), means of labour (person and mechanisms/machines), making products sophisticated (improving details of a product; focusing on the decorative elements of a product). These constituent elements may be mapped on the academic writing domain, based on the constituent elements of average scope, means of production, quality and attractive products. These correspondences can be expressed as academic writing is competitive business. The content analysis of the educational programme (Educational Programme in Economics (n.d.)) revealed the following excerpts: ‘adjusting graduates’ knowledge and skills to changing production and communication settings under new technological and socio-cultural conditions and encouraging them to realise their full potential in recent fields of knowledge and technology, in significant sectors of manufacturing and business, and social sphere’. It is apparent that the concepts of

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Table 4.7  Management students’ conceptualisations of Academic Writing

Narratives of Management students Source domain (Primary metaphors)

Academic writing domain Constituent elements • Proportionality; • Deliberate speed; • Regularity; • Methodology; • Agreement; • Harmony

Constituent elements Keyword metaphors • Small steps towards the • Little scope; • Measured and goal; systematic nature of • Avoiding quick jumps; the phenomenon; making recurrent • A sense of method; movements; • Interaction in a • Teacher; sportsman’s variety of communiperformance; cation formats; • Interaction with other • Harmony people, which evokes both positive feelings Harmony and the feeling of Academic writing is indifference; harmony • Consistency and harmony Academic writing is management

Educational programme of Management Management domain Constituent elements • Small scales; • Regularity; • Methodology; • Sociability; • Harmony

Harmony is management

medium-sized production facilities and making high-quality products, which comply with modern market requirements, are consistent with the concepts identified in the narratives of Economics students. Therefore, competitive business domain can be mapped onto economics domain and expressed as competitive business is economics. The mappings that characterise competitive business is economics conceptual metaphor should further be mapped onto a new metaphoric domain of academic writing, and consequently making up academic writing is economics conceptual metaphor. Thus, the academic writing domain is structured through the metaphor source domain of the discipline or specifications of Economics. By using the dataset of primary metaphors in the narratives of Management students, we derived keyword metaphors and the corresponding contexts. The keyword metaphors illustrated in Table 4.7 enabled us to identify the following elements of the meanings and collocations: little scope (small steps, avoiding jumps, making recurrent movements), measured and systematic nature of the phenomenon (avoiding quick movements, making recurrent movements), a sense of method (rigorous methodology in training a sportsman for the competition, a teacher’s methodical explanations), interaction in a variety of communication formats (communication with a person, that evokes both positive emotions and the feeling of indifference), harmony. Based on these constituent elements of proportionality and deliberate speed, regularity, methodology, agreement and harmony, it is possible to create cross-mapping that results in the metaphorical domain academic writing is harmony. The content analysis of the educational programme (Educational Programme in Management (n.d.))  revealed the following excerpts: ‘management systems and

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Table 4.8  Law students’ conceptualisations of Academic Writing Narratives of Law students Source domain (Primary metaphors) Constituent elements Keyword metaphors • The right • Searching for the direction of right way; movement; • Following the guide; • Focus on the • Returning to the sample; initial point and moving forward to a • Trend not to digress from the further destination; original path; • Stages of life; • Regularity and • Receiving a fee sequence; • Reward for work Law-abiding citizen

Educational programme of Law Academic writing domain

Law domain

Constituent elements • Movement in the right and desired direction; • Compliance with the standards, instructions and adopted social norms; • Consistency

Constituent elements • Law abidance; • Regularity; • Methodology; • Sociability; • Orientation to life-long learning in the professional context; • Social adaptation (including case study method)

Academic writing is law-abiding citizen

Law-abiding citizen is law

Academic writing is law

processes in business’; ‘entrepreneurship, setting up and developing a company’; ‘consulting services’. These contexts call attention to the concepts of small scales, regularity, methodology, sociability, harmony, which are consistent with the concepts identified in the narratives of Management students. Therefore, harmony domain can be mapped onto management domain and expressed as harmony is management. The mappings that characterise harmony is management conceptual metaphor should further be mapped onto a new metaphoric domain of academic writing, and consequently, making up academic writing is management conceptual metaphor. Thus, the academic writing domain is structured through the metaphor source domain of the discipline or specifications of Management. In respect of primary metaphors in the narratives of Law students, we derived keyword metaphors and the corresponding contexts and identified the following elements of the meanings and collocations: the right direction of movement (searching for the right way), focus on the sample (following the guide), a trend not to digress from the original path (returning to the initial point and moving forward to a further destination), regularity and sequence (stages of life), a reward for the work (receiving a fee) (Table 4.8). Based on the constituent elements of movement in the right and desired direction, compliance with the standards, instructions and adopted

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social norms, and consistency, the cross-mapping may result in the metaphorical domain academic writing is law-abiding citizen. The content analysis of the educational programme (Educational Programme in Law (n.d.))  revealed the following excerpts: ‘developing high-level legal culture and sense of justice, tolerance’; ‘development of communication and social adaptation skills’; ‘motivation for life-long learning in the professional context’, ‘application of effective educational technologies, in particular role-playing techniques.’ These contexts call attention to the concepts of law abidance, regularity, methodology, sociability, orientation to life-long learning in the professional context, social adaptation (including case study method), which are consistent with the concepts identified in the narratives of Law students. Therefore, law-abiding citizen domain can be mapped onto law domain and expressed as law-abiding citizen is law. The mappings that characterise law-abiding citizen is law conceptual metaphor should further be mapped onto a new metaphoric domain of academic writing, and consequently, making up academic writing is law conceptual metaphor. Thus, the academic writing domain is structured through the metaphor source domain of the discipline or specifications of Law.

4.7  Discussion The present study was designed to investigate the creation of specialised knowledge in different disciplinary contexts, with the focus on the interplay between knowledge of individuals and knowledge as a social phenomenon. In reviewing the literature, very little was found on the question of the role of tacit knowledge of learners about their learning contexts. By concentrating on learners’ beliefs and attitudes, the current study has attempted to disclose the process by which tacit knowledge is created through critical metaphor analysis. The results reported here may provide important insights into the knowledge creation theory as well as the discourse of learning. With respect to the amount of metaphor, we found that the level of metaphoric representation of academic writing concepts increased from social sciences to computer sciences. The dataset comprising students of Business Informatics showed the highest level of metaphor while that of Law students—the lowest level of metaphor. The level of metaphor was slightly lower in the responses of Software Engineering students than in those made by Business Informatics students. The datasets comprising students of Economics and Management demonstrated metaphoric density to be equal in their response to the task demands. It might be expected that this pattern is not unrelated to what is known about the disciplinary writing; for the differences between students’ perceptions of academic writing in English in terms of their major discipline may not have been influenced by other factors since the research dataset comprised participants of homogeneous cultural background and EFL proficiency level as well as their proportionate distribution in each sample in terms of gender and age. As for the discipline-specific

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count, it can be noticed that metaphors are to be narrowly watched in common law for the reason that they might make corporate responsibility and liability more obscure. Consequently, legal scholars urge others to avoid cliched conventional expressions and dead metaphors in attempts to make persuasive arguments (Gibbs 2018, p. 107). As far as economics and management are concerned, there is not much difference - metaphors are not very frequently used in the two disciplines. The importance of metaphor in economic discourse and management and organisational theory has been already recognised by proving the metaphorical foundation of terminology of economics and pointing to the obvious metaphoricity of much of elementary economic terminology (e.g., Langer 2015) and the prevalence of metaphor in organisational discourse as a basic, essentially static, building block or “creative form” (Morgan 1980, p. 610). As regards software engineering and business informatics, computer sciences metaphors are rich and diverse and “play specialised roles for software users and creators in learning new concepts, for language and machine developers in designing new tools, and for computer scientists in creating their own conservation ‘laws’“ (Colburn and Shute 2008, p. 533). This high metaphoricity can easily be explained by the fact that computer science has to deal with increasingly higher-level abstractions, many of which “begin their lives as metaphors” (Colburn and Shute 2008, p. 533). Thus, when reporting on their perceptions towards writing academic English, disciplinary backgrounds may have led students to rely on their previously acquired subject knowledge and the genre of academic writing in their respective disciplines. It can be seen from the above analysis that metaphoric domains in the narratives of students of different disciplines might not only uncover the influence of the discipline on students’ conceptualisation of academic writing but give insights into discourse functions realised through metaphors. The interpretations suggest that the metaphoric domains unlimited possession and unachievable ideal reflect centrifugal or eccentric notions. The clear evidence for this is extensive spacious and time scales, excitement, employment and maintenance of exciting, complex objects, creative design, magic management, perfect beauty, distant and mysterious perspectives. A possible explanation for these characteristics of the metaphoric domains might be the virtual nature of the objects that these domains depict. As such, eccentricity is interpreted as the opposition of the virtual to the real, in other words, as the opposition of the virtual power of a computer to the real abilities of a human being. As regards the comparison of these two metaphoric domains, unlimited possession domain is related to the production and possession, or application of intellectual products, whereas unachievable ideal domain is referred to the development of intellectual systems, whose limits can hardly be perceived even within the virtual space. The possible division of all metaphoric domains into eccentric and concentric domains can be associated with the dichotomy of “virtual – real,” in terms of different sciences both groups of domains are related to. Eccentric domains are based on artificially generated, or technological knowledge, that combines natural and

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humanitarian knowledge rather than on existing types of knowledge (natural sciences, social sciences, humanities). Meanwhile, concentric domains are based on social and humanitarian knowledge. It should be emphasised that all social sciences are aimed at regulating social relationships. If we compare the eccentric domains, their opposition may be expressed as something unrealisable or unachievable versus a wish fulfilled or a dream come true. The comparison of the concentric domains, which are related to social and humanitarian knowledge, is based on the dichotomy of static regulation versus dynamic regulation. Given the approaches to classifying disciplines mentioned above, the disciplines chosen as concrete examples in the current study comprise the sequence from knowledge domains of business informatics and programme engineering to law to management and economics. The experience of business informatics and programme engineering is relevant to the experience of art and refers to skills, technology and abilities to create something new. These technical or applied knowledge domains are characterised by a higher degree of formalisation and more impersonal content. Law is conceived as an example of episteme, which suggests that the existing legal knowledge is retrieved from the authoritative sources of information and is created for its subsequent application to a given situation. In terms of practical value, management and economics as social knowledge domains are referred to as phronetic rather than epistemic knowledge. These knowledge domains are oriented to contextual discussing values and norms and are opposed to the natural sciences as examples of epistemic knowledge. The total process of knowledge creation is summarised as follows. In the university as a knowledge-creating organisation, knowledge creation is cyclic, with different phases of the process being loosely linked, overlapping in part, and creating and realising concepts quickly and flexibly over the whole organisation. Since organisational knowledge creation is a continuous process with no ultimate end, with no definite boundaries, this process may involve participants from different educational departments to mobilise and explicit knowledge within the educational programme. Besides, at some point of the process, the created knowledge may be shared beyond the boundary of the educational programme for further knowledge creation. Starting at the individual level, knowledge creation is initiated by internalisation, when explicit knowledge is converted into tacit knowledge through a process of “learning by doing.” Through an iterative process of interaction and experimentation, explicit knowledge is gradually translated into different aspects of tacit knowledge. This explicit or articulated knowledge can become accepted knowledge through the process of acquisition (learning) and acceptance (internalisation). The students make extensive use of knowledge in the educational environment, that is, with the students and teachers of the departments of their respective major disciplines. The internalisation mode is followed by socialisation at the collective (group) level, which enables individuals to convert tacit knowledge through interaction between individuals, where individuals may acquire tacit knowledge without language through the sharing of members’ experiences and perspectives. Experiences have to be subject to knowledge acceptance procedure. The accepted tacit

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knowledge is referred to previously articulated and acquired knowledge through contact with cultural artefacts, socialisation or instruction. After being created, crystallised and justified in the organisation, the knowledge is integrated into the organisational knowledge-base, and a new process of knowledge creation is again initiated by a minor discipline. Students select this discipline to enter this field of interaction based on their intentions to develop their knowledge and skills of academic writing in English. The students are introduced to new concepts of academic writing. The knowledge created at the group level through experience and dialogue among individuals of the cross-disciplinary group of students in the Academic writing course in English is elevated to the organisational level. The responsibility of teachers of the academic writing course as a minor discipline is to articulate the grand concepts expressed in highly universal and abstract terms for subject-specific knowledge domains. This interaction induces the creation or reconstruction of the academic writing concept, causing the interactive proliferation of subject-specific concepts presented by their corresponding discipline and new concepts created by the Academic writing discipline. At this stage, students share their original experience, which is considered the fundamental source of tacit knowledge. At the same time, that is the stage when students may face the question of how to create concepts when inductive or deductive reasoning may not be sufficient. One of the suggested solutions is to create a new perspective through “the metaphorical process by merging perspectives, i.e., tacit knowledge” (Nonaka 1994, p. 25), that is, through the use of metaphors. It should be noted that even though the process is illustrated as a sequential model, the actual process progresses through stages, which can take place simultaneously or sometimes jump forward or backwards. Due to the convergence and divergence of knowledge creation in the groups of students of different major disciplines, it is a practical requirement that the students are given access to necessary information with the minimum number of steps through quick inquiry and preprocessing of existing knowledge and information so that they can create knowledge of new discipline efficiently. This way, “they are not loaded with information in the excess of each one’s cognitive capacity” (Nonaka 1994, p. 29). In other words, the responsibility of teachers of the academic writing course as a minor discipline is to articulate the grand concepts expressed in more concrete forms rather than in highly universal and abstract terms for subject-specific knowledge domains. Beyond the purview of the enquiry is a practical perspective on the management of organisational knowledge creation, that is, the aspects of “individual commitment” to the knowledge-creating process and “organisation-wide” facilitative factors. The role of teachers for knowledge creation has not been under scrutiny. Again, though, we assume that teachers of the academic writing course create basic concepts and transfer them in terms of learning objectives so that they may be implemented by the students. These instructional concepts might have been operational conditions for the students when they decide how to realise them. Teachers provide students with a field of interaction and a conceptual framework that help them make

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sense of their own experience. That is one more justification of the involvement of the knowledge created at all the levels, from personal to organisational. The model of knowledge creation proposed here is restricted to the personal level, not because of any irrelevance of other members of the educational process to knowledge creation rather than because of the centrality of the individual as an independent actor, a fundamental source of new concepts.

4.8  Conclusions Overall, this study investigated the creation of specialised knowledge in different disciplinary contexts, with the focus on the interplay between knowledge of individuals and knowledge as a social phenomenon. Its results corroborate the earlier findings obtained in the few studies that have examined tacit knowledge within the framework of organisational knowledge creation and cognitive metaphor studies. In this chapter, we contribute to the discussion by bringing a cognitive linguistic approach to the tacit knowledge of conceptions and attitudes of university students in Russia majoring in Software Engineering, Business Informatics, Economics, Management, and Law. The research objective was to get insights into how disciplinary knowledge is created by analysing metaphors given by Russian university students. The results reported here confirm the hypothesis that critical metaphor analysis might allow for (re)construction of knowledge creation in different disciplinary contexts and may provide important insights into the knowledge creation theory as well as the discourse of learning. By extending the methods used in organisational knowledge creation research to the creation of specialised knowledge in different disciplinary contexts and applying critical metaphor analysis to approach learners’ conceptualisation of academic writing, we attempted to demonstrate how different types of knowledge are involved in the process of creation of specialised knowledge. Critical metaphor analysis allowed us to approach learners’ conceptualisation of academic writing by analysing metaphors by source domain in the narratives written by Russian EFL learners and non-metaphorical language from the corpus of educational programmes through the procedures of identification, interpretation and explanation. Following the metaphor interpretation procedure, we established metaphor domains and revealed the dynamics in metaphor choices. The dataset of primary metaphors, which were identified and analysed previously in the narratives, were then compared to non-metaphorical language from the corpus of educational programmes. The overall analysis allowed us to ascertain the extent to which metaphors were accountable for constructing relations of social domination (ideology) and reveal the convergence and divergence of knowledge creation in the groups of students of different major disciplines. A limitation of the study was the relatively small sample size. For this reason, the findings cannot be generalised. Other reservations for the generalisation of the conclusions include mono-culture variation and task requirements. However, to

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recapitulate the research findings, we can state that this study attempted to develop rigorous techniques for the (re)construction of specialised knowledge creation in different disciplinary contexts.

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Chapter 5

Semantic Framing for Specialized Knowledge Modelling Ekaterina Isaeva

, Oksana Manzhula

, and Olga Baiburova

Abstract  The chapter is devoted to the updated method of Ch. Fillmore’s semantic framing applied to specialized texts. First, we define roles as the qualifiers of arguments in a discourse event. They comprise both the semantics and syntactic positions of arguments supplementing a verb in a simple sentence or a clause, referring to an act of an event. In a sentence or a clause, an act is expressed by a verb characterized by specific valent properties and arguments, which comply with the verb. Altogether, they make the frame of the act. The study shows that the semantic role is primarily determined by the syntactic role of the term in a sentence. The chapter attempts to provide a new logic to the system of roles or deep cases, divided into five major semantic groups: Actor, Object, Locative, Temporal, and Qualitative modifiers. One can find correlations with certain syntactic parts of a sentence. For example, the Actor group usually refers to the subject of the sentence, the Object, to the object, the Locative modifier, to the adverbial modifier of place, the Temporal modifier to the adverbial modifier of time and the Qualitative modifier, to the attribute. Further, we describe these semantic groups which contain specific semantic roles. In our classification, the Actor semantic group includes the roles of the Agent, the Protoagent, and the Experiencer. It is shown that the subject or the actor of the clause is the Agent or the Experiencer of the semantic frame. In passive constructions, the initiator of the action is introduced with the preposition by and is assigned the Protoagent role. The Object semantic group is widely represented in a specialized discourse. It includes the semantic roles of the Counteragent, the Comitative, the Patient, the Benefactive, the Addressee, the Cause, the Perceptive, the Objective, the Instrument, and the Result.

E. Isaeva · O. Manzhula · O. Baiburova (*) Perm State University, Perm, Russia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_5

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We separately examine the semantic groups of the Locative, the Temporal, and the Qualitative Modifiers. The Locative group contains the roles of the Place, the Source, the Target, and the Trajectory. The Temporal modifier specifies the time of the action, and the Qualitative modifier provides the particularizing and descriptive information in the form of the Specifier and the Feature roles. The system helps establish syntactic-semantic relations between arguments in a specialized discourse event, highlighting the synergy between language, grammar, thought, and communication. Keywords  Semantic framing · Semantic roles · Specialized knowledge · Terminology · Discourse · Semantics · Case grammar

5.1  Introduction More than 50 years ago, Charles J. Fillmore presented his theory, which evolved from the transformational generative grammar to case grammar and frame semantics. This theory proves that “grammar, semantics, and lexicon exist on a continuum” (Fillmore 1982). The traditional approach to the grammatical case describes the way nouns, pronouns, gerunds, and in some languages, other parts of speech, like adjectives, and participles, are connected syntactically together with a verb to form a sentence. In this context, a verb is described in terms of its valences, i.e. the number and types of arguments the verb can control. Thus, the verb and its valent arguments make up a semantic frame. Suppose we abstract our mind from the surface interpretation of this term. In that case, we will understand the frame as it was determined in Frame semantics, as “any system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of them you have to understand the whole structure in which it fits; when one of the things in such a structure is introduced into a text, or into a conversation, all of the others are automatically made available; … general cover term for the set of concepts variously known … as ‘schema’, ‘script’, scenario’, ‘ideal scaffolding’, ‘cognitive model’, or ‘folk theory’ (Fillmore 1982, p. 111). The semantic frame” is a system of categories structured in accordance with some motivating context. Some words exist to provide access to knowledge of such frames to the participants in the communication process, and simultaneously serve to perform a categorization which takes such framing for granted“(Fillmore 1982, p.  121). Ch. Fillmore describes frames as being “based on recurring experiences”. Thus, they represent generalized and, to some extent, universal event models based on empirical semantics. To describe semantic relations within the frame at a high degree of abstraction, the concept of deep cases, i.e. underlying semantic roles, is used. W. A. Cook, who continued working in the field of case grammar and maintained Ch. Fillmore’s system of deep cases highlighted the theory’s viability for “analyzing the content behind the clause rather than its surface structure“(Cook 1989, p. 28). He also noted

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that “the data is not in language expression but in the content behind the expression” (Cook 1989, p. 28). Thus, case grammar and frame semantics enable “a particular way of looking at word meanings, as well as a way of characterizing principles for creating new words and phrases, for adding new meanings to words, and for assembling the meanings of elements in a text into a total meaning of the text” (Fillmore 1982, p. 111). So, dealing with grammar and especially the case grammar applied to the deep level of semantics, one can open the potential of reaching human thinking through a syntactic deconstruction of a sentence into patterns and their subsequent assembling into a generalized frame. This approach correlates with the modern one, connected with mental models, described by T. van Dijk. Both appeal to the way human thinking is ordered based on mental frames or models. According to these theories, one can recognize similar frames, determining how a man conceptualizes an event. This happens by appealing to the conventional event or context models (van Dijk 2006) and ‘computing’ the underlying information through a set of universal, presumably innate, concepts which identify certain types of judgments, which human beings are capable of making on the events that are going on around them, judgments on such matters as who did it, who it happened to, what got changed, etc.” (Fillmore 1967, p. 46; Fillmore 1982, p. 122). It means that some frame elements may be evident on the surface, while others are being reconstructed by the human ability to embed new conceptual patterns into an established environment and merge them into a continuum of knowledge generation. Let us now summarize the basic semantic roles differentiated by Ch. Fillmore (Fillmore 1967) and W.A. Cook (Cook 1989): • Agent/Agentive (A)—the nominative, the perceived instigator of the action identified by the verb, typically animate; • Object/Objective (O)—anything representable by a noun whose role in the action or state expressed by the verb is determined by the semantic interpretation of the verb itself; conceivably, the concept should be limited to things which are affected by the action; • Dative (D)—the ‘residue’ case, capable of expressing any notion compatible with the meaning of the remainder of the sentence, the animate being affected by the state or action identified by the verb; • Locative (L)—the case which pinpoints the location or spatial orientation of the state or action identified by the verb, a Locative preposition-phrase which occurs outside the constituent verbal phrase (VP) indicates the place where the action described by the VP takes place; a Locative preposition phrase inside the VP is a complement to the verb; • Source (S)—the origin or starting point; • Goal (G)—the object or endpoint; • Instrument/Instrumental (I)—the inanimate force or object causing action or state;

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• Factitive (F)—the object or being resulting from the action or state identified by the verb or understood as a part of the meaning of the verb; • Comitative (C)—a typically animate case used to express accompaniment, the prepositional marker is with; • Patient (P)/Affected Person/ Experiencer (E)—the accusative; an object affected by the action, animate; • Beneficiary/Benefactive/Interested Person (B)—an animate object for whom the action is performed; • Time/Temperative (T)—temporal relations, the temporal orientation of the action. The above written are the semantic roles played by the nominative agents of the frame constructed around the verb. Bellow, you can see the valences typical of the verbal frames. The list can be used for automated and manual text annotation. Table 5.1 seems helpful for both manual and automatic roles’ tagging and retrieving other frame-generating verbs not included in this lexicon. This can be done by determining synonyms and analogies using open-source libraries, like Reverso Synonyms (https://synonyms.reverso.net/).

5.2  Updated System of Semantic Roles In our model viewed through the prism of cognitive-discursive linguistics, Fillmore’s cases are presented as semantic roles assigned to nominative terms perceived in their contexts. This means we do not start by analyzing verbs and their syntactic frames in terms of their valences, but on the contrary, we simulate cognitive frames which nominative terms become part of in the contexts they occur in specialized texts. This approach has developed from the habit of associating cognition with ontology development and, consequently, terms as nodes of ontology. In this framework, the relations which are established between terms represent terms valences. From this perspective, the verbal part of the frame turns to be subordinate rather than determining as it is in the case grammar. In this case, if terms represent specific concepts, verbs represent these concepts’ ontological relations. At the same time, being disciples of the trend for using mathematical methods and algorithmization to study language and cognition, we tend to order the semantic roles in the form of a primitive taxonomy, which helps us establish relations between syntactic elements and frame arguments. Thus, our generalized model of a semantic frame looks as follows (Table 5.2). We have studied the distribution of semantic roles in texts for specific purposes belonging to the computer security discourse. The research has revealed a strong correlation between syntactic and semantic roles the terms play in sentences. Based on our observations, we have combined all the semantic roles into five integrated groups, namely Actor, Object, Locative, Temporal and Qualitative Modifiers. Let us now study all these roles applied to the computer security discourse. We do this by analyzing the collocates of the word combination computer virus in its lemmatized form with the verbs represented in Fillmore 1968 Lexicon and the

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Table 5.1  Fillmore 1968 lexicon Be apparent Be hot Be in Be interesting Be on Be sad Be true Be with Be windy Believe Belong to Blame for Blame on Break Break Break Break Build Buy Cause Cook Cook Die Expect Force Give Have Have in Have on Have with Hear Keep Kill Kill Know Learn Leave Like Listen to

O, D L O, L O, D O, L D O O, C L D, O O, D A, D, O A, O, D O I, O A, O A, I, O A, F A, O A, O O A, O O D, O A, D, O A, D, O D, O L, O L, O C, O D, O A, O, L I, O A, I, O D, O A, O A, O, L D, O A, O

Look at Murder Murder Open Open Open Open Persuade Plant in Plant with Please Predict Put Remove Run Say See Show Smear on Smear with Spray on Spray with Stack on Stack with Stuff into Stuff with Swarm in Swarm with Take Talk to Talk about Terrorize Think Use Wake up Wake up Wake up Wake up Want

A, O A, O A, I, O O I, O A, O A, I, O A, D, O A, O, L A, O, L O, D A, O A, O, L A, O A A, O D, O A, D, O A, O, L A, L, O A, O, L A, L, O A, O, L A, L, O A, O, L A, L, O O, L L, O A, O, L A, D, O A, O, D A, O D, O A, I O A, O A, O A, I, O D, O

Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Next, the instructions for formulating the search request are presented in the following two paragraphs. Finally, we provide our description of the Actor role-specific for the computer security discourse with subsequent illustration with the entries from COCA ( 2020).

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Table 5.2  The generalized cognitive discursive model of semantic roles Actor

Object

Locative modifier

Temporal modifier Qualitative modifier

Agent Protoagent Experiencer (Recipient) Counteragent Comitative Patient Benefactive Addressee (Dative) Cause Perceptive (Stimulus) Objective Instrument Result (Factive) Source (Ablative) Target (Directive) Place Trajectory (Transitive) Time Specifier (Instance) Feature (Quality)

5.2.1  The Actor Semantic Group The group of the Actor includes the semantic roles of the Agent, the Protoagent, and the Experiencer (Recipient). In the sentence, the Actor plays the syntactic role of the Subject. The Agent is not simply involved in an event or state but is a conscious and deliberate participant who initiates an event or changes another participant’s state or condition. The Agent exists independently of the event marked with a verb. It purposefully carries out the action conveyed by the verb. Syntactically, the role can be described as the subject of a sentence with a predicate in the active voice. The distinctive feature of the Agent role in the Computer security discourse is that the initiator of the action is not necessarily animate. Moreover, it is represented by software or a technique. This can be explained by the specificity of our conceptualization of the elements of computer security through metaphors often carrying personification and animation. As is mentioned above, to illustrate the role implementation, we address COCA.  Thus, for the collocation with the verb cause, which includes the Agent valence, we formulate the following search query:

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Word/phrase: computer virus*; Collocates: caus* where the asterisk (*) means that virus and caus may take any ending. In the search window, we also restrict the disposition of the lemma cause from 0 to 2 words to the right of the term computer virus in case some intermediate elements occur, like adverbs or conjunctions, etc. They do not interfere with the valence of the verb, and in the computer jargon, they are called noise or stop words. Thus, these words are excluded from the analysis. This search returns two results, one with the form causes and one with the form cause. Let us consider example (1): …as we near the end of the race, a period in which dirty tricks are unlikely to attract enough media attention to be tactically unwise, the ambush political marketing has begun -…computer virus that causes the backside of every printed page of an outlook email to be a political ad;… (Wasserman 2012) Example (1) shows that the computer virus influences the contents of the printout text. This example illustrates a distinctive feature of political marketing to shift the responsibility for some unworthy activity to some uncontrolled vicious force, like the computer virus. This effect is achieved through the coeffect of syntactic and semantic properties of the Agent role assigned to the word combination computer virus in the example above. The Protoagent is the latent Actor that is neither the direct initiator of the action nor the main character in the sentence. The focus in such a sentence is on what is influenced by the so-called passive Agent. This participant is the bearer of the action. The action is performed with his participation, indirectly, in relation to him. In the sentence structure, the Protoagent is transferred through an objective complement introduced with the preposition by. The verb inside this frame usually occurs in the passive voice or as part of a compound verbal predicate with get, e.g. (2): (2) I always patch my system and run regular scans with updated antivirus and antispyware scanners. But while researching this story, I got hit by a Trojan horse (**26;7624;TOOLONG) that was too new for my antivirus program to catch. (Brandt 2006) In (2), the frame is built around the verb hit, which is not included in Fillmore 1968 Lexicon but based on the example, we can annotate this verb together with get and a valent Protoagent as a frame generating verb. The Experiencer (Recipient) is a subject of perception, a carrier of emotions. Meant as an animate participant, the actant is a part of many frames marked with the letter D in the Fillmore 1968 Lexicon, namely be apparent, be interesting, believe, show, think, like, want, and others, not included in Table  5.1, e.g., see, hear, be afraid of, feel, enjoy, etc. (3) Your antivirus noticed a virus and likely removed it without prompting you. (Hedding and Chris 2018) In (3), your antivirus acts as the Experiencer of the notice frame, for it is the active participant of the perceptive process. Due to the mechanism of metaphor actual in this frame, the antivirus possesses the features of animacy.

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5.2.2  The Object Semantic Group The Object group includes the roles, which were originally intended as both animate and inanimate. This is especially relevant in the context of intensive metaphorization of the professional domain, due to which the line between animate and inanimate concepts is blurred. The initially animate roles are Counteragent, Comitative, Patient, Benefactive, and Addressee (Dative). The inanimate roles are Cause, Perceptive (Stimulus), Objective, Instrument, and Result (Factive). These roles are united in one Object group for several reasons, including their semantic and syntactic reasoning. First of all, they all determine inactive participants of the semantic frame, i.e., they are directly involved in the activity initiated by the Actor, whose action is either directed towards them, influences them or is carried out with their help. As is known, in the computer security discourse, metaphor adds animation to many professional concepts, which makes us rethink the features of the semantic roles. Thus, the role of the Counteragent is typical of a concept which determines some force against which the Actor’s action is directed. Again, due to metaphor, this role can be precepted as either animate or not, depending on the concept, event, and the type of the discourse (for more information on the specificity of metaphorization in the Computer security discourse of different types see (Isaeva 2019). This role is not described in the Fillmore 1968 Lexicon. Still, according to our observations of the role implementation in the discourse of computer security, the Counteragent is expressed with the verbs struggle, conflict, fight, combat, and their synonyms and other verbs with the preposition against and others. For instance, see example (4). (4) Spectrum of viruses: Protects against more than 500 viruses. (Oligschlaeger and Richter 1991) Example (4) shows the protect frame where some antivirus software acts as the Agent against some malicious force (the Counteragent) embodied in computer viruses. Here, the role of the Counteragent is triggered by the preposition against. The role of the Comitative has also been found in the computer security discourse, e.g. (5): (5) On Oct. 18, 2006, Apple announced that it accidentally shipped many of its new video iPods with a virus that affects computers running Microsoft Windows. (Things that need to BE DESTROYED 2012) Example (5) demonstrates a virus playing the role of the Comitative of some devices, namely, video iPods. The idea of accompaniment is expressed in (5) through the preposition with. Now, we consider the role of the Patient. First, the Patient participates in the action and undergoes a qualitative change, either positive or negative. As usually, initially, an animate role undergoes some changes and becomes inanimate applied to software, hardware, and devices, e.g. (6):

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(6) Boot viruses hide in the boot sector of a floppy disk until you boot from the floppy and infect the hard drive. (Miastkowski 1999) Example (6) illustrates the role of the Patient assigned to the concept of the hard drive part of the infect frame. It is well known that infection with a computer virus causes program changes and may be the reason for hardware’s malfunction. The Benefactive is an object to the benefit or sometimes harm supposed to be done by the action performed in the frame. The fact of this influence is not established, which differentiates this role from the Patient. The role can be established by the preposition for attached to the verbs, like do, make, execute, create, etc. The role also loses animateness and can be applied to inanimate professional concepts, like in (7). (7) Geographic studies by Microsoft, Symantec, and others show the majority of infections to be in Iran, making it a likely location for Stuxnet’s presumed target. (Clayton 2010) As we can see in (7), the role of the nominative phrase in question, i.e. Stuxnet’s presumed target, is determined by the verbal phrase make for. The role of Addressee (Dative) is not comprehensively studied in the original case grammar theory. However, it can be conceived as part of the Dative case, which at the same time includes some other roles, as we have mentioned earlier. The Addressee is the participant to whom the agent sends something. In the framework of the computer security professional communication, this is frequently information, software or part of the software, a program code, a message and others. The Addressee might be either animate, e.g. a computer user, or inanimate, e.g. computer or hardware. The frame is typically formed around the verbs send, transmit, pass, communicate, deliver and alike, accompanied with the preposition to. A point in case is (8): (8) Once we I.D.’ d his cell number, I sent a virus to the phone, which forwarded cloned copies of the most recent calls, texts and e-mails back to us. (NCIS: Los Angeles 2013) Here, we find a cell phone acting in the role of the Addressee of the malicious attack, which consisted in sending a computer virus to a device for the sake of authorized information retrieval. In our extended role system, we present the role of the Cause, which is not given in the original Fillmore’s collection. The role is especially relevant for professional communication, as it provides a logical link between the action and the underlying reason. The Cause expresses what makes the action happen and is often accompanied with the prepositions due to, because of, since, for and others, as is shown in (9). (9) Before 2 years, I used to get a lot of virus attacks and damaged my hard disk due to virus attacks. (Wallen 2012) Example (9) demonstrates that the reason for the damage is virus attacks. So, they are assigned the Cause semantic role introduced with due to.

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The next role to describe is the Perceptive. This is an integral part of the Experiencer frame. While the Experience is the Subject of perception, the Perceptive (Stimulus) is the object of perception, i.e. in computer security, some information, software or process that can be observed in this field. In example (3) discussed above, the Perceptive is a virus. And in (10), this part is done by Trojans. (10) One of the first Trojans seen on the PC, the AIDS-Trojan in 1989, worked exactly this way, but for many years such attacks were rare. (Ransomware is on the rise 2012) The most neutral of the roles in the Object group is the Objective, which participates in the action but is not subject to change. The list of verbs typical of the Objective is vast and, in most cases, corresponds to those distinguished by Ch. Fillmore for the role of the Object, marked with the letter O in the lexicon (Table 5.1). This role is usually part of the Addressee frame. For example, in (8), a virus is the Objective transmitted to the Addressee without any changes. Unlike many examples above, where we witnessed the transformation of initially animate roles to inanimate ones, we have registered the opposite trend in the following example (11). (11) DNSChanger is a Trojan horse that changes the DNS settings on computers and routers to send users to malicious sites which then steals personal information and generates illegal ad revenue for scammers. (MBorsick 2012) In (11), the Objective role is tagged to the term users, determining an animate concept. One of the most representative roles for the discourse of computer security is the Instrument. This is because various types of malware, antivirus software, and other elements of this field are used as tools, which help malefactors, developers, users and other participants of the discourse to carry out their intended actions. The characteristic features of the Instrument are the verbs use, apply, employ and the preposition with or the phrase with the help of, e.g. (12). (12) It could be the Trojan horse with which they capture the interactive markets of tomorrow. (Henkoff 1995) The last role in the Object group is the Result (Factive). It denotes an object that has appeared or vice versa, stopped existing. For the field of computer security, this role often occurs with such verbs as develop, design, create, make, build, or elaborate, e.g. (13): (13) The Stuxnet virus, reportedly developed by the US and Israel, has only slowed down Iran but has failed to stop it from developing nuclear weapons. (Mandler 2012) In (13), the result, i.e. The Stuxnet virus of some programming and, at the same time, of some political activity, is marked with the verb developed.

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5.2.3  The Locative Group of Semantic Roles The next generated group is the Locative Modifier. It includes the Place, the Source (Ablative), the Target (Directive), and the Trajectory (Transitive). Terms playing these roles represent the location or the direction of action, and in the sentence, they execute the syntactic function of the adverbial modifier of place. The Place is the actant that determines where the action takes place. In the context of computer security, this is usually part of the software, hardware, or network. It can also represent the place, the country, or an IT company, where some IT product or technology has been developed, first found, occurred, etc. After considering the list of Fillmore’s lexicon, which includes many verbs taking the Locative valence, we assume that the most likely verbs to trigger the Locative in general and the Place role, in particular, are occur, appear, happen, be developed, be registered, etc. supplemented with the preposition in, e.g. (14). (14) Ironically though, the same week they announced this, a brand new zero day appeared in the wild used in attack toolkits. (Schell 2012) In (14), the substantivized term the wild, which in the discourse of computer security, means opensource, outside the lab or a computer system where the program has been developed, is part of the appear frame and is marked as the Location with the preposition in. Now, we would like to discuss two closely connected Locatives, namely The Source (Ablative) and the Target (Directive). The former is the place from where the movement in space begins, while the latter is a place where the final point of the movement is located. When the event is connected with some malware circulation and transmission, or the threat or fraud in the IT sphere, the Source is often the World Wide Net, an IT company/corporation, a country, a website, an email, anything else where the threat of the information security is supposed to come from. The role is usually marked with the preposition from. A point in case is (15), which shows that the source of the threat caused by the Zero Day virus is one of the IT companies from which the virus is purchased. (15) If a cyber attack does darken a major American city, our adversaries will likely have purchased a zero day from one of the same companies that Google, the NSA, and many American banks now support. (Romeo 2014) As for the Target role, which in the computer security discourse usually assigned to the user’s computer, software or its part, someone’s account on the Internet, or even the country, the state, the city, company, etc. targeted by some malicious activity, it is usually accompanied with the prepositions to, towards, or in the direction of, e.g. (16). (16) Readers will relish this fast-paced thriller as Zero Day has come to West Virginia and other nearby states feedback. (Baldacci 2012)

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Example (16) shows that the Zero Day virus moved to the location designated as West Virginia, which serves as Zero Day’s Target in the frame generated by the verb come. The last role in the Locative group is the Trajectory (Transitive). It denotes the place through which the “path” of the movements runs. In the field of computer security, this means a channel, a digital route, a port, or a security patch through which malware and antivirus software are transferred or an attack is mounted. This Locative can be determined by the prepositions through and via as is seen in (17). (17) The most common threat is that of receiving a virus sent via e-mail. (Aspinwall 2000) In (17), the security patch found in the email client plays the semantic role of the Trajectory within the receive frame. The role is introduced with the preposition via.

5.2.4  The Temporal Modifier Semantic Group The Temporal modifier group has not been studied in the framework of our project, for it is not represented in our terminological database of the computer security discourse. However, we believe that for other discourses, e.g. chemistry, terminology for the temporal description of chemical processes and experiments might be necessary. These may include the temporal designation of the starting point, the duration and the end of the process. For this reason, we include this group into our table of semantic roles but leave it empty for further investigation in other discourses.

5.2.5  The Qualitative Modifier Semantic Group Finally, based on the data we have analyzed, we have agreed on the necessity to introduce a new group of semantic roles. They are attached to the noun terms having the attributive syntactic role and, probably, for this reason, fell out of the scope of the disciples of the original case grammar. By now, we have given the provisional titles to the group and the roles included in it, which further might be subject to update. The Qualitative modifier group includes the Specifier and the Feature (Quality). The Specifier is attributed to an instance or a particular case of a professional concept and is often introduced with the verb to be or such markers as like, namely, for instance, such as, etc. For illustration, see (18): (18) Then open Internet Explorer (the best browser to use in Safe Mode) and run an online virus scanner such as Bitdefender. (Spector 2013)

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Example (18) demonstrates an instance of an online virus scanner, i.e. Bitdefender, which acts as the Specifier of a more general term, i.e. online virus scanner. The Feature role represents some quality, type or characteristic of a term and can occur in front of or after it in a sentence. Thus, we differentiate between a prepositional and postpositional qualitative modifier. The former is usually represented by a noun, attached to another nominative term and adds new information, while the latter particularizes the concept designated with the term, highlights its distinctive feature, which is typically introduced with the preposition of, e.g. (19): (19) It is not hard to imagine computer viruses of the future that will be just as alive as biological viruses. (Amato 1990) This demonstrates the Feature role in the form of a postpositional modifier, which adds new quality of the future to the term computer viruses. This role is relatively frequent in the discourse of computer security and seems relevant for the cognitive discursive studies of professional communication in general. Additionally, this complement to the generalized model of semantic roles is worthwhile considering applied to the project on semantic parsing in computational linguistics aiming to automate semantic roles tagging. For this reason, the original case grammar system seems viable but demands disambiguation, simplification, and refinement to get rid of the empty slots.

5.3  Conclusion In this generalized model, we tried to preserve the coherence between semantics, grammar, and syntax, as it was initially meant in Ch. Fillmore’s theory but highlighted the aspects more relevant for ontology-based cognition and applicable for further normalization and algorithmization of semantic framing. To achieve ordering and taxonomic representation of the generalized model of semantic roles, we have subdivided the roles into five groups, which strongly correlate with the syntactic roles of the subject, the object, the adverbial modifier, and the attribute. On the other hand, the key principle of the model structuring is the function that the actants execute in the semantic frame, i.e., being the initiator of the action or the object of the action’s influence, determining the conditions for the action’s execution or the description of the frame participants. These complete the frame and make it free of empty slots. The distinctive feature of professional communication is its metaphoric density, which adds new features, like animateness, to many of its concepts. This enabled us to attribute originally animate roles to inanimate concepts, such as computer viruses and other types of information security threats. However, the ideas behind this paper need further research, and this fact opens us new perspectives, such as elaboration of the extended lexicon of framing verbs of professional communication. This lexicon would add greatly to the development of

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software for text-mining aiming at automatic semantic roles tagging in the texts for specific purposes. More than that, we believe it would be reasonable to test the model on texts for specific purposes belonging to different discourses and update the system if necessary, for instance, to elaborate the Temporal modifier group. In addition, it would also be fruitful to apply this system for comparing different discourses and types of discourse to see the conceptual difference between communicants’ ontologies and see the ways of mediation a high level of abstraction.

References Cook WA (1989) S. J. case grammar theory. Georgetown University Press, Washington, D. Fillmore CJ (1967) The Case for Case. To appear in Emmon Bach and Robert Harms, eds., Proceedings of the Texas Symposium, on Language Universals April 13–15, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967 Fillmore CJ (1982) Frame semantics. In: Linguistics in the morning calm: selected papers from SICOL-1981, by The Linguistic Society of Korea, Seoul, Korea, Hanshin Publishing Company, pp 111–137 Isaeva E (2019) Metaphor in terminology: finding tools for efficient professional communication. Fachsprache 41(Sp. Issue):65–86 The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Available at: https://www.english-­ corpora.org/coca/. Last Accessed 26 Dec 2020 van Dijk TA (2006) Discourse, context and cognition. Discourse Stud (Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra) 8(1):159–177

Sources of Linguistic Data Amato I (1990) Inventing life (cover story). Sci News 137(20):312–314. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Aspinwall J (2000) The complete guide to Internet privacy. Mother Earth News. The original guide to living wisely, October/November, 182:32–39. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Brandt A (2006) THE 10 BIGGEST SECURITY RISKS You Don’t Know About. PC World, 76–86. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www. english-­corpora.org/coca/ Clayton M (September 24, 2010) Stuxnet worm mystery: what’s the cyber weapon after? Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Hedding L, Chris H (November 12, 2018) How to remove viruses and malware on your windows PC.  Available at https://www.howtogeek.com/. Last visited December 15, 2020. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora. org/coca/ Henkoff R (1995) Smartest & dumbest managerial moves of 1994. Fortune, 84–93. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora. org/coca/ Mandler D (2012). Humanity learning to have humanity. Blogs. 2012. Available at: http://drmandler. wordpress.com/2012/09/16/humanity-­learning-­to-­have-­humanity-­reflections-­on-­the-­end-­

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of-­year-­5772/. Last visited December 15, 2020. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ MBorsick. CEBUG. 2012. Available at: http://cebug.org/mborsick/able-­access-­internet-­come-­ march-­8th. Last Accessed December 16, 2020. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Miastkowski S. “Virucide!” PC World, February 1999: 123–121. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ NCIS: Los Angeles. USA, 2013. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Oligschlaeger Ch., Richter E. (1991) Buyer’s guide to virus protection software. Compute. Vol. 134 (Special Anniversary Issue): 54–60. “Ransomware is on the rise, oddly.” GigaOM Pro. 2012. Available at: http://pro.gigaom.com/blog/ ransomware-is-on-the-rise-oddly/. Last accessed December 16, 2020. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Romeo N (November 13, 2014) War details the unsettling implications of cyber warfare and espionage. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Schell T (2012) Microsoft Serves Up a Turkey for Thanksgiving this Patch Tuesday. Ivanti. 2012. Available at: http://blog.lumension.com/6092/microsoft-­serves-­up-­a-­turkey-­for-­thanksgiving-­ this-­patch-­tuesday/. Last accessed December 15, 2020. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Spector L (September 2013) When Malware Strikes: How to clean an infected PC.  PC World: 177–180. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https:// www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ “Things that need to BE DESTROYED.” NegativePositive. 2012. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Wallen J (2012) With the rise of the Linux desktop, will viruses follow?" TechRepublic. 2012. Available at: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/with-­the-­rise-­of-­the-­linux-­ desktop-­will-­viruses-­follow/3818. Last accessed December 16, 2020. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https://www.english-­corpora.org/coca/ Wasserman H (November 5, 2012) Jingle deprivation and other afflications at the center of the political universe. PrawfsBlawg. Available at: https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2012/11/jingle-­d eprivation-­a nd-­o ther-­a fflications-­a t-­t he-­c enter-­o f-­t he-­p olitical-­ universe.html. Last accessed November 23, 2020 “Zero Day by David Baldacci, Grand Central.” BARNES & NOBLE. 2012. Available at: http:// www.barnesandnoble.com/w/zero-­day-­david-­baldacci/1100165399. Last accessed November 29, 2020. Retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English, available at https:// www.english-­corpora.org/coca/

Chapter 6

Cognitive Aspect of Morphological Modelling Ekaterina Isaeva

and Olga Baiburova

Abstract  A morpheme is a minimal unit of the semantic level of language. It is widely considered to be the essential part of a word that allows the word’s perception and understanding. In speech production, morphemes construct new words and transform or inflect the existing ones. In this paper, we consider the morphemic structure of 350 one-word terms from the sphere of computer security. For the study, only nouns have been selected. As the meaning of a word depends on the meaning of constituent morphemes, we have divided the terms under consideration into morphemes. Then, we analyzed them with the help of modern corpus-based free online dictionaries and the “Online Etymology Dictionary” that explains what the English words meant and how they sounded hundreds of years ago. The chapter describes the typical morphemic structure of the computer security terms, identifies the most frequent prefixes, suffixes, and roots. We also reveal prevailing patterns of word-formation that can be used to compare terminological systems in different types of discourse and to create a term’s cognitive model based on its morphemic structure. Keywords  Cognitive morphology · Computer security discourse · Term units · Morphemic structure · Word-building pattern · Knowledge · Morpheme · Affix · Prefix · Root

6.1  Introduction Cognitive linguistics is known to erase the boundaries between the areas isolated in the interpretation of traditional linguistics (vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and semantics), thus revealing the most general principles of human thinking implicated

E. Isaeva · O. Baiburova (*) Perm State University, Perm, Russia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_6

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in language forms (Besedina 2006 p. 36). Any language unit may be a “trigger” for deep cognitive processes that predetermine ways and means of constructing linguistic meaning (Iriskhanova 2000 p. 62). In professional discourse, all the possible sources of information are relevant for communication. Among them are morphemic structures and derivational patterns of terminological units as specialized units of cognition, represented by linguistic means. A morpheme may be defined as the smallest unit of language that has its meaning, either a word or a part of a word (Cambridge Dictionary Online 2020). It is a “meaningful segmental component of the word that is formed by phonemes and is indivisible into smaller segments as regards its significative function” (Blokh 2006 p. 23). Additionally, a morpheme is referred to as the smallest unit required for grammatical and lexical analysis (Greenbaum 1996 p. 470). Finally, it is “the simplest kind of symbolic unit, in which a semantic and a phonological structure participate as analyzable wholes in a symbolic relationship” (Langacker 1987 p. 58). It accounts for both the structure and the meaning of a word and is essential for speech production and perception. It contributes to the understanding of a statement and the correct choice of terms in a specialized discourse. The morphological system can be broadly considered “a result of the interaction of human cognitive operations enabling the processing of information coming to a person and morphological parameters inherent in that language”1 (Besedina 2006 p. 21). The system reveals its properties in the morphemic structure of words. Word formation plays a vital role in formatting linguistic world image, the acts of categorization, and the acts of cognitive processing of information coming to a person (Kubryakova 2004 pp. 393–394). “The concepts underlying the formation of the semantics of a derivative word correlate with the conceptual features of the word-building formant and the features of the producing base. From the cognitive point of view, the semantics of the base can be seen as a cognitive background, refined and structured through the semantics of derivative formants”2 (Abrosimova 2011 pp. 11–12). In traditional classification, roots express a concrete part of the meaning while affixes add lexical-semantic and grammatical-semantic information (Blokh 2006 p. 24). According to T.  G. Borisova, terminology of a particular field is a cognitive-­ derivative set of terms reflecting a system of specific concepts and functioning exclusively in the field of a particular gnoseological sphere. The creation of terms of a cognitive area is a process of secondary nomination in the terminology system based on mechanisms and methods of structuring, production, and the emergence of terminological units. Terms derivation is a conscious process based on the derivative system of the national language (Borisova 2008 pp. 13–14).

 Translation is ours.  Translation is ours.

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There are various approaches to the role of morphology in word processing, from full storage theories in which words are stored and accessed as whole units to full parsing theories assuming decomposition of all words into roots and affixes. Mixed models combine full-form access and decomposition (for the review of models, see (Zwitserlood 2018). The dual-route models suggest a flexible system of word processing depending on various factors such as word frequency, regularity, productivity, and personal experience. “The processing of complex words crucially depends on the strength of their paradigmatic relationships, i.e. their connections with words belonging to the same family (stem and derived forms) or the same series (forms constructed with the same affix)” (Giraudo and Dal Maso 2018 p. 618). What is more, some modern theories of word recognition emphasize that the process of perception is simultaneous at different layers, including phonetic features, single phonemes, syllables, morphemes, and whole words (Chugaeva 2007), (Sendlmeier 1987). Experiments devoted to speech perception applying the model of the perceptual base have shown that frequency, stressed vowel, and length in syllables are the most significant features of words influencing word recognition. The length in morphemes is more critical for perceiving long English words, whereas it is irrelevant for one- and two-syllable words (Baiburova 2008). According to I.  Plag, “frequency of occurrence plays an important role in the storage, access, and retrieval of both simplex and complex words. Infrequent complex words have a strong tendency to be decomposed. By contrast, highly frequent forms, be they completely regular or not, tend to be stored as whole words in the lexicon. Based on these psycholinguistic arguments, the notion of a non-redundant lexicon should be rejected” (Plag 2002 p. 63). To understand an unknown word, we need to decompose it into its “constituent morphemes and compute the meaning based on the meaning of the parts” (Plag 2002 p. 66). Thus, the meaning of the word can be derived from its structure. An alternative view suggests that to understand a morphologically complex terminological unit, a person considers its formal and semantic similarities, as well as paradigmatic properties (Giraudo and Dal Maso 2018 p. 604). Awareness of the structure and meaning of words and the ability to manage and manipulate these structures is called morphological awareness. The latter contributes to literacy development in phonology, orthography, word meaning, and reading skills acquisition, essential for language comprehension (Carlisle 2010). Analyzing the morphemic structure of a term unit is viewed as one of the steps in knowledge processing and verbalization, especially in professional settings. When interpreting field-specific terminology or unknown units, non-experts are assisted by their background knowledge of morphemes existing in other words in General English and the terminological units known to them. With this in mind, the study aims to analyze the terminology of computer security professional communication from the point of view of its morphemic structure.

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6.2  Method For 5 years, members of the Department of English for Professional Communication of Perm State University have been collecting the corpus of expert-provided term units from different scientific areas (Physics, Mathematics, Information Technologies, Chemistry, Biology, and Geology). The terms are mainly taken from research articles and monographs on the corresponding scientific fields. Every term is identified in a specialized academic context, attributed to a system of predefined categories, supplied with a definition from terminological and explanatory dictionaries and an English-Russian translation. For our analysis, all the terms have been lemmatized (brought to stems). It seems significant to supplement each lexical entry with information about its morphemic structure and word-building type of the term. This task requires a specialized linguistic analysis based on the data from modern corpus-based free online dictionaries (Cambridge Dictionary Online  2020), (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online  2020), (Macmillan Dictionary  2020), (The  Free Dictionary by Farlex 2020), and reference books (Borror 1960), (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998), (Sheehan 2000) as well as (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020). We applied a structural-semantic approach to word formation, focusing on the relationship between the structure and semantics of term units. The elementary meaningful parts of the terms were singled out using morphemic and word-­ formation analysis, taking into account word families, word-formation relations, attribution to a part of speech, and morphonological transformations of a word. The etymological background was added in case of ambiguity. We have considered a list of 350 one-word terminological units from Computer Security discourse collected during 2016–2018. Both one-stem words and composite formations have been analyzed. Among the compounds, we have studied only those written solid (keylogger, ActionScript) or hyphenated (spear-phishing, Trojan-­ Ransom). After excluding ten adjectival items (cross-platform, malicious, hardwired, hard-coded, air-gapped, suspicious, compromised, wireless, implemented, stable), two verbal items (listen, decrypt), and one adverbial item (intermittently), we limited our analysis to the corpus of 297 one-word nominative term units. Forty more nominative units could not be considered as their origin is not clear. All of them are proper names of computer viruses (Rugrat, Duts, Nimnul, Stuxnet, Rakhni, etc.), organizations, and groups of people (e.g. APT groups Sofacy, Lamberts, Turla, Carbanak) or software (AutoIT, DanderSpritz, Mimikatz, Xen, etc.).

6.3  Results The terms analyzed are from one to six morphemes long. We have registered 48 term units consisting of one morpheme (root-words), 134 units formed from two morphemes and, 71 terms having three morphemes. Quadri-, penta- and hexa-­ morphemic terms are less numerous (18, 6, and 2 lexemes, respectively).

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Based on the statistics of our study, the average length of a one-word term of computer security discourse is 2.3 morphemes. Thus, a typical term has two morphemes, the most frequent structure being represented by two bases without affixes, for instance, backdoor, platform, handshake, Paypal, loophole, and framework. The terms studied belong to different types of word-formation (the first two types are the most typical for our corpus of terms): 1. Affixation (adding prefixes or/and affixes to the base, and by this adding a certain meaning to a word): (a) the model prefix + root (abuse, reboot); (b) the model root + suffix (user, identification); (c) the model prefix + root + suffix (decryption, disinfection). 2. Compounding (combining two or more bases, a compound being “a word that consists of two elements, the first of which is either a root, a word or a phrase, the second of which is either a root or a word” (Plag 2002 p. 173), such as backdoor, feedback, firewall. This type of compounding is the most typical for English (Ivanova and Arzhantseva 2012 p.  33). The bases of compounds often have affixes: bootloader, user-agent, Trojan-Ransom, LuckyMouse, ActionScript, BitDefender, database, busybox, eavesdropping, or may be connected with a linking element or interfix, e.g. Fortinet, accelerometer. It should be added that compounding is the most productive type of word formation process in English (Plag 2002 p. 169) and German (Nosacheva and Danilina 2019 p. 146). According to I. Plag (Plag 2002 p. 202), words containing combining forms (neoclassical formations) are best described not as the result of affixation but as a result of compounding. To make up a new word, combining forms can be used with bound roots (e.g. accelerometry, steganography), with words (cryptolocker, multi-scanner, cyber-terrorism), or with another combining form (telemetry, Telegram, biometrics). Some compounds appear to be lexicalized word combinations in which a syntactic construction is formed into one term with the help of hyphenation, for instance, pass-the-hash, pass-the-ticket, denial-of-service. For this type of word-­ formation, function words are used, which are “small units that have some independence, occurring with more freedom of position than affixes (thus they are somewhat root-like), but which have grammar-like meaning rather than concrete lexical content (which makes them more affix-like). For example, some function words in English are the, a, he, she, it, if, although, etc. “Function words can be thought of as right in between roots and affixes” (The  Words in English Website 2020). 3. Conversion (the change of the base from one part of speech to another without any change of form): to display (verb, to show something on a screen)—a display (noun, an electronic device used to display video output from computers), to reboot (verb, to restart a computer)—reboot (noun, the act of restarting a computer), terminal (adjective, forming a boundary or a limit)—a terminal (noun, a device that terminates the sender or the receiver of a communicated signal),

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criminal (adjective, sinful)—cybercriminal (noun, a person engaged in cybercrime). 4. Blending (making compounds from parts of two words), for example, mutex from MUTual EXclusion; modem—from MOdulator/DEModulator; adware— from ADvertisement  +  softWARE; Linux from LINUs (Toralds) and MiniX; CleanDroid from clean  +  AnDROID, Telnet from TELetype NETwork, Intel from INTegrated ELectronics; Internet from inter-  +  NETwork; botnet— roBOT  +  NETwork. In some term units, we can trace creative respelling, for instance, pixel—from PICS (a clip of pictures, transformed to pix) + ELement; WannaCry—from “want to cry”; WhatsApp—from “What is up?”. 5.  Acronyms formed by taking the first letters or the first syllables of a phrase: Radar from RAdio Detecting And Ranging; Unix from the original Unics UNiplexed Information and Computing Service; a combination of an acronym with a word - simswap from Subscriber Identity Module; CCleaner from Crap Cleaner. 6.  Clipping (Shortening of a Word) Mac—short for Macintosh, a brand of computers and operating systems by Apple Inc.; config—for configuration; phone—short for telephone (in smartphone). Coming now to the morphemic analysis, it should be mentioned that in the corpus of terms analyzed, we have come across two inflections (morphemes that signal grammatical variants of words) with the same lexico-grammatical meaning: the productive inflectional suffix -s at the end of a noun indicating that the noun is plural (e.g. credentials, user-agents, Windows, keywords, settings, plugins) and -a which is a plural ending of nouns borrowed from Greek and Latin (metadata, database). All the rest affixes were derivational. Among the prefixes and combining forms that may be initial segments of words the most frequently registered are: ad-/ac-/at-/ap-/ar- (prefix expressing motion toward, addition to, nearness to (Sheehan 2000 p. 4): adversary, account, attacker, cyber-attack, application, array, com-/con- (word-forming element usually meaning “with, together,” (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 pp.  26–27): telecommunication, compressor, compression, consistency, confidentiality, containerization, console, config, smart-contract, re- (prefix meaning “back to the original place; again, anew, once more,” also with a sense of “undoing” (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020): recovery, reboot, resident, register, crypto-/crypt- (combining form meaning “secret, hidden, covered” (Sheehan 2000 p. 23): cryptocurrency, cryptor, encryption, decryption, cryptovirology, cyber- (origin—cybernetics, combining form meaning “relating to computers” (Sheehan 2000 p. 24): cyber-attack, cybercrime, cybersecurity, cyberthreat, cyber-­ espionage, cybertheft, cyberterrorism, de- (prefix, combining with nouns to form verbs which indicate that the thing referred to by the noun is removed; combining with verbs to form new verbs describing an action that has the opposite effect of, or reverse, the process described by the original verb; away (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 pp.  33–34): decryption, debugger, defacement, denial-of-service, BitDefender,

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dis-/ dif-/di- (prefix meaning “apart, out” (Sheehan 2000 p. 26): display, disinfection, GreenDispencer, directory, tele-/tel- (combining form meaning “far, far off, operating over distance” (also, since 1940, “television”), from Greek tele “far off, afar, at or to a distance” (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020): telemetry, telecommunication, Telegram, Telnet, in- (prefix meaning “within, in; into; towards” (The Free Dictionary by Farlex 2020): infection, disinfection, installation, instruction. Other prefixes and initial combining forms were (meanings are taken from (Sheehan 2000) and (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020): ab- from, off, away, opposite to. In the term abuse, the prefix refers to improper practice, violation, anti- against, preventing, curing, neutralizing (antivirus—a virus neutralizer), archi- main, chief, principal (architecture—a fundamental underlying design of computer hardware or software), auto- self; self-moving (authentication—proving that someone is who they say they are), du- two (duplication—a data compression technique in which redundant or repeated copies of data are removed from a system making a copy of a file or directory on a separate storage device), e-/ex- away (antivirus evasion—getting away from the antivirus software), en- in, put in or on (encryption—the process of saving data in encoded form), hyper- over, above, excessive (hypervisor—a virtual machine monitor), inter- between, among, mutual, reciprocal (interface—an apparatus allowing interaction between two devices, Internеt—a public network involving many separate computers), intra- within, inside (intranet—an internal private enterprise’s network), mal- bad, wrong, ill (malware—software intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems), meta- beyond, higher (metadata—information describing other data), micro- small in size or extent (microcontroller—a small computer on a single integrated circuit), para- beside, beyond, altered (paravirtualization—a virtualization technique presenting a software interface to virtual machines that is similar, but not identical to that of the underlying hardware (The Free Dictionary by Farlex 2020), peri- around, surrounding, near (peripherals—devices connected to a computer to provide communication), pro- moving forward, acting for, supporting (provider—a company that offers access to the internet), se- away from, free from (security—protection from access, change or any kind of damage), sub- under, below, inferior to, division (subnet—a part of a network), trans- across, beyond (transaction—transmission and processing of data, transmission—transferring data over a communication channel), un- back, reversal (unpacker—a programme that decompresses data).

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Among the suffixes and final combining forms, we registered more than 30 different elements, the most frequent being the suffixes: -er/-or (suffix added to some verbs to form nouns that refer to people or things that do that particular activity (Cambridge Dictionary Online  2020): 37 terminological units, e.g. keylogger, sniffer, parser, dropper, sensor, emulator, -ion/-ation (suffix combining with verbs to form nouns to refer to the state or process described by the verb, or to an instance of that process (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 p. 85): encryption, application, authentication, containerization, paravirtualization, version, evasion, penetration, -at(e) (suffix forming verbs with the meanings “to become, cause to become, form or produce, provide or treat with, put in the form of, form by means of, to arrange for” (Sheehan 2000 p. 11): installation, validation, penetration, emulator, -enc(e) (suffix forming nouns from verbs indicating the action, process, or state described by the original verbs; combining with adjectives ending in ‘ent’ to form nouns referring to the state or quality described by the original adjective (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 pp. 45–46): consistency, cryptocurrency, Silence, frequency, -ent (suffix combining with verbs to form adjectives and nouns to refer to a person or thing that performs the action or that experiences the process described by the original verb (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 p. 46): user-agents, credentials, confidentiality, resident, -al/-ial (a suffix with the general sense “of the kind of, pertaining to, having the form or character of” that named by the stem, occurring in loanwords from Latin and productive in English on the Latin model, usually with bases of Latin origin; a suffix forming nouns from verbs, usually verbs of French or Latin origin (The Free Dictionary by Farlex  2020): credentials, cybercriminal, terminal, denial-of-service, -ment (suffix combining with verbs to form nouns referring to the process of making or doing something, or to the result of this process (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 p. 109): defacement, implemented, deployment, argument, -ing (suffix combining with the base form of verbs to form the present participle and nouns referring to the activity described by the verb (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 p. 81): phishing, spoofing, eavesdropping, hacking, carding, hashing, setting, -ity (suffix that combines with adjectives to form nouns referring to the state, character, or condition described by the adjective (Sinclair, J. (Ed.). 1998 p. 94): security, vulnerability, cybersecurity, confidentiality. Less frequent suffixes and combining forms were: -an belonging to, born in, living in (Trojan—a type of virus, a programme installed on a computer that looks harmless but is, in fact, malicious; from the “Trojan horse”), -ary a person or a thing related to (adversary—a person, a group, or a force that opposes or attacks), -el, -et diminutive suffixes (kernel—the core component of an operating system, socket—a software object that acts as an endpoint establishing a bidirectional network communication link between a server-side and a client-side program (Techopedia - The IT Education Site 2020),

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-graphy writing, recording, or description (steganography—hiding (writing) secret data within a non-secret file), -ic having to do with, having the nature of (authentication—security measures taken to verify the identity of a user before granting access to data), -ice condition, state, quality of (service—work done for a person or organization), -ics science, activities, system (biometrics—a method of authentication based on biology), -in of, pertaining to (terminal—a device that terminates a sender or a receiver of a signal), -ism act, result of, practice (cyberterrorism—terrorist activities intended to damage computer systems), -ize cause to be or become, make, subject to (paravirtualization—a virtualization technique presenting a software interface to virtual machines that is similar, but not identical to that of the underlying hardware (The Free Dictionary by Farlex 2020), -oid shape, like, resembling (Android—a mobile operating system first developed by a Silicon Valley company by the name of Android Inc.), -ology/-logy science, theory (cryptovirology—the study of the applications of cryptography to malicious software), -ory a place for (directory—a named group of related files that are separated by the naming convention from other groups of files), -th state or quality of being/having (bandwidth—the bit-rate measure of the transmission capacity over a network communication system), -ure act/result of being, agent of; instrument of; scope of; state of being (signature—a technique used to validate the authenticity and identity), -y condition of, quality (consistency—conformity with valid data, rules). As for the root morphemes, they are of various origins and semantics. Most terms originate from Latin (adversary, authentication, consistency, credentials, sensor, binary, configuration, host, site, data, etc.), Old French (privilege, emulator, domain, protocol, exploit, utility, confidentiality, pass-the-hash, platform, transaction, etc.), Old English (bootloader, kernel, key, sandbox, stealer, software, spare-­ phishing, shell, threat, thread, etc.), and Greek (Android, synchronization, syntax, daemon, Delphi, Trojan and combining forms anti- bio-, -metry, para-, hypercrypto-, meta-, tele-) (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020). The repeating roots include: serv- (from Latin) meaning “slave, serve” (Sheehan 2000 p. 78) (server, service, denial-of-service), -lock- (from Old English loc “bolt, appliance for fastening a door, lid, etc.) denoting “means of fastening,” (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020) (cryptolocker, spinlock, a computer virus called Shylock), -net- (from Old English net “open textile fabric tied or woven with a mesh for catching fish, birds, or wild animals alive; network; spider web,” (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020) in the computer sphere meaning “a complex, interconnected group or system (The Free Dictionary by Farlex 2020) (botnet, subnet, intranet, Ethernet, Telnet, Ghostnet, Internet, Fortinet, Netscape),

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-ware (from Old English waru “article of merchandise,” from PIE root *wer- “perceive, watch out for.”) generally meaning “manufactured goods, goods for sale” (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020) (adware, ransomware, malware, software, spyware, firmware, Stalkerware, scareware, Malwarebytes). Repeating roots are not an exception but a technic of the linguistic economy. For the sake of reasoning, a term-inventor may turn to a stem that wears a cognitive burden. Frequent use of some roots may be caused by the desire to save effort through the use of units known to computer security specialists and the apparent inclination to avoid ambiguity. From the research conducted, it may be concluded that a typical one-word nominative term unit in the discourse of the computer security sphere is a bi-morphemic, with two roots or a root and an affix. Compound words may have one, two, or at most three roots (bound morphemes, free morphemes, combining forms). In addition, the terms may have a maximum of one prefix and three suffixes.

6.4  Discussion Our ability to decode and analyze the morphemic structure of words promotes grammatical accuracy and vocabulary knowledge (Oz 2014). Therefore, morphological awareness is beneficial for developing academic and professional vocabulary. As suffixes and prefixes have their lexical meaning, knowledge of the morphemic structure of a word is practically relevant. On the one hand, by adding the meaning of an affix to the original word’s meaning, one can understand the meaning of the whole word. On the other hand, having learnt the meaning and use of frequently used affixes, free and bound morphemes, one can make up new words. Both processes allow optimizing professional communication and specialized knowledge mediation. The results of the study can be applied to teaching English for Academic and Professional Purposes. Exercises on derivation effectively form “language skills based on the ability to effectuate the structural and semantic features of the word. Studying word formation helps to develop logical thinking, as well as the ability to analyze and synthesize” (Shchuklina et al. 2016 p. 190). Morphemic analysis, including analysis of Greek and Latin word parts, is crucial for acquiring, storing, and transmitting information in a professional area and specialized text translation. Lexical and grammatical knowledge is acquired from experience. In the process of language acquisition, the learner needs not only to derive word meanings from “the interaction of affix semantics with the meaning of the base” (Kawaletz and Plag 2015 p. 289) but also to learn to reproduce the re-occurring structures in service of the communicative goals (Kapatsinski 2018 p. 549). Suffixes are a productive word-formation resource in scientific discourse, and “morphological productivity is subject to register variation” (Montero-Fleta 2011 p. 12). The description of the word-formation patterns typical for computer security discourse can be used to compare terminological systems in different scientific areas and different languages. In the transition from one scientific area to another, a

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morpheme preserves its main meaning-making semes. This principle underlies the mechanism of metaphor, which works even at the morpheme level and enables understanding a term of one scientific area through a term of another field, expressed by the same word or containing the same morpheme. This idea can be illustrated with an example of semantic proximity established between web bug and alkaline with the TSGraph web resource for building multifield ontology graph and drawing cross-field semantic relations between terms. The web bug term belongs to the computer security scientific area, while alkaline is part of the chemical terminology. The implicit semantic relation between these terms is determined due to the morpheme line part of alkaline. The former is connected with the word web by the partitive relation.

6.5  Conclusion To conclude, we would like to summarize what initial assumptions have been proved in the study of morphemes making up the terms of computer security. First, we stated that morphemes are meaningful and trigger a deep cognitive understanding of terms. This assumption has been supported by detailed etymological analyses of terms’ constituents and the semes making up their meanings and preserved during the morphemes’ development. Secondly, we pointed out the cognitive load of the term’s root. We proved it with examples of computer security terms containing the same root (e.g. ware), which affects terms’ mental processing and categorization. Next, the phenomenon of morphological awareness has been highlighted, which is especially relevant in processing multimorphemic terms and contributes not only to perceiving the word meaning but also to developing language comprehension skills. This idea is also sustained with the analysis of morphemes’ etymology and their evolution. Finally, we draw attention to the mechanism of metaphor, which makes it possible to retrieve the meaning of terms through the meaning of morphemes belonging to other scientific areas or the language for general purposes. The abovesaid proves that knowledge mediation should start with the morphological stage, including delving into its etymology and semantics and appealing to the cognitive mechanisms of their processing.

References Abrosimova LS (2011) Origins and main principles of cognitive derivatology. Tomsk State Univ J (351), 7–13. [Абросимова, Л. С. (2011). Истоки и основные принципы когнитивной дериватологии. Вестник Томского государственного университета (351), 7–13] Baiburova OV (2008) Mechanisms of perception of multi-syllable English words. Cand. philol. sci. diss. 223. [Байбурова, О. В. (2008). Механизмы восприятия разносложных типов английского слова: дисс. ... канд. филол. наук]

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Besedina NA (2006) The cognitive basis of morphological representation in the language. Vestnik Orenburg State Univ (2), 18–23 [Беседина, Н. А. (2006). Когнитивные основания морфологической репрезентации в языке. Вестник ОГУ(2), 18–23] Blokh MY (2006) A course in theoretical English grammar. Vysshaya Shkola Pbl, Moscow Borisova TG (2008) The cognitive mechanisms of derivation: The Derivational Category of Substance in the Modern Russian Language. Autoabstract of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of philological sciences, 50. Krasnodar. Retrieved 12 25, 2020, from https://dlib. rsl.ru/viewer/01003465292#?page=1 [Борисова, Т. Г. (2008). Когнитивные механизмы деривации: деривационная категория веществен-ности в современном русском языке. Автореф. дис. ... д-ра филол. наук, 50. Краснодар] Borror DJ (1960) Dictionary of word roots and combining forms. Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, CA Carlisle JF (2010) Effects of instruction in morphological awareness on literacy achievement: an integrative review. Read Res Q 45(4):464–487 Chugaeva TN (2007) The perceptual aspect of the sound system of the English language. Yekaterinburg, Perm, UB RAS Press [Чугаева, Т. Н. (2007). Перцептивный аспект звукового строя английского языка: монография. Екатеринбург, Пермь: УроРАН] Giraudo H, Dal Maso S (2018) Towards a constructional approach of L2 morphological processing. In: Booij G, Ed. The Construction of Words. Studies in Morphology (4), pp.  603–622. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­74394-­3_21 Greenbaum S (1996) The Oxford english grammar. Oxford University Press, New York Iriskhanova OK (2000) The theory of conceptual integration. Traditional Problems of Linguistics in the Light of New Paradigms of Knowledge (Proceedings of the Round Table, 11 April, 2000) (pp 62–68). The Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences [Ирисханова, О. К. (2000). О теории концептуальной интеграции. радиционные проблемы языкознания в свете новых парадигм знания (материалы круглого стола, 11 апреля 2000 г.) (pp 62–68). М.: Институт языкознания РАН] Ivanova T, Arzhantseva NV (2012) Terminological system of the comparative compound word-­ building of the Russian, German and English Languages. Bulletin of Chelyabinsk State University, 62(2), 30–37 [Иванова, Т. К., & Аржанцева, Н. В. (2012). Терминосистема сопоставительного словосложения русского, немецкого и английского языков. Вестник Челябинского государственного университета. Филология. Искусствоведение., 62(2), 30–37] Kapatsinski V (2018) Learning morphological constructions. Booij G, Ed. The construction of words. Studies in morphology (4), pp  547–581. Retrieved from https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­74394-­3_19 Kawaletz L, Plag I (2015) Predicting the semantics of English nominalizations: a frame-based analysis of -ment suffixation. In: Baur L, Körtvélyessy L, Štekauer P, Eds. Semantics of complex words. Studies in morphology (3), pp  289–319. Retrieved from https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­14102-­2_14 Kubryakova ES (2004) Language and knowledge. M.: Yaziki slavyanskoy kulturi [Кубрякова, Е. С. (2004). Язык и знание. М.: Языки славянской культуры] Langacker RW (1987) Foundations of cognitive grammar. Volume I: theoretical prerequisites. Stanford University Press, Stanford Montero-Fleta B (2011) Suffixes in word-formation processes in scientific English. Language for Special Purposes: Professional Communication, Knowledge Management and Cognition. 2(2):4–14. Retrieved 12 26, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/235735270_Suffixes_in_word-­formation_processes_in_scientific_English Nosacheva MI, Danilina NI (2019) Types of compound word-formation in medical terminology (on the material of the German language). Sc J VolSU. Linguistics. 4(18):145–156 [Носачёва, М., & Данилина, Н. И. (2019). Способы образования сложных слов (на материале немецкого языка). Вестник ВолГУ. Серия 2, Языкознание, 18(4), 145–156]

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Online Dictionaries Cambridge Dictionary Online. Retrieved 12 25, 2020., from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online. Retrieved 10 15, 2020., from: https://www. ldoceonline.com/ Macmillan Dictionary. Retrieved 12 16, 2020., from: https://www.macmillandictionary.com/ Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 10 12, 2020., from: https://www.etymonline.com/ Techopedia - The IT Education Site. Retrieved 10 12, 2020., from: https://www.techopedia.com The Free Dictionary by Farlex. Retrieved 10 10, 2020., from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com The Words in English Website. Retrieved 12 23, 2020., from: https://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/ Words04/

Chapter 7

Ontologization and Term System Modelling by means of AI Methods Ekaterina Isaeva

, Andrey Tararkov, and Vadim Bakhtin

Abstract  In this chapter, we report on the latest updates of the software for specialised text-mining developed by the Perm State University team working on the project on the mediation of specialised knowledge by means of automated ontological and metaphorical modelling. The team has developed two programs TSBuilder (Term System Builder) and TSGraph (Term System Graph) working as a software package, making it possible to automate term systems construction and their visualisation in the form of a graph (Isaeva, Bakhtin and Tararkov 2020). TSBuilder relies on a training data set of manually extracted and categorised terms. In version 2.0 of the program, the use of synonymic proximity for terms consisting of one or more words has been added. This updating allows us to add new words to the database that are close in meaning to the words in the database. Furthermore, the algorithm for estimating synonymy has directly been implemented to categorise terms in the subject area, positively impacting clustering accuracy. We obtained 20 synonyms for the term with the help of api.datamuse.com, among which we selected those that can be classified using information and rules from our database. Then, they were grouped by classes and received the weight of the class, after which the delta was counted for the weight of words within the new term, which took into account both the synonymy of the word and the synonymy of the second word in the pair. Algorithms to translate words of the natural language into a vector form were also required to assess the degree of synonymy. After that, TSGraph employs the obtained database to develop ontologies of several domains, e.g. Computer security, Biology, and Chemistry, to show intra- and cross-domain relations of terms. The software provides insights on the overlap of ontologies of different domains based on corpus-provided data on semantic relations of words.

E. Isaeva · A. Tararkov Perm State University, Perm, Russia V. Bakhtin (*) Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Perm, Russia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_7

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Keywords  Ontology · Terminology · TSBuilder · TSGraph · Specialised knowledge · Graph · Term system · Modelling · Database · Class · Automated ontological modelling · Automated metaphorical modelling

7.1  Introduction: Project Description The project on the mediation of specialised knowledge by means of automated ontological and metaphorical modelling is aimed at automated simulation of terminologies of different domains (subject areas) with subsequent modelling of their semantic closeness, illustrated through these simulated terminologies graphical overlappings. The research is based on the methodology of modelling from both linguistics and computer science perspectives. This methodology “offers the possibility to investigate systems or regimes that are outside of the experimental domain or the system that is under invention or construction” (Chinecherem et  al. 2018, 143). In our case, modelling is a convenient way to estimate and illustrate the role of metaphor cross-domain professional communication based on the semantic closeness of terminologies of different subject areas (domains). To simulate terminologies and their overlappings, we build on the following methodological principles: • “modelling is the purposeful abstraction of a real or a planned system with the objective of reducing it to a limited, but representative, set of components and interactions that allow the qualitative and quantitative description of its properties” (Nelson et al. 2013); • modelling provides tools for the empiric study of abstract or intangible objects or phenomena; • particular methods, procedures, and instruments for developing a model depend on the researchers’ or end users’ goals and demands. From the standpoint of philosophy, modelling preserves the number of properties, namely logic, compliance with the rules, generalisation, abstraction, hierarchy, ontological power, and probability. When building a model of some cognitive processes, a cognitive engineer appeals to “the observed data, i.e., a set of proposed processes that operate in particular ways to produce the data of interest. Interesting and important models address a general issue that may lead to the understanding of underlying mechanisms that produce the existing data” (Nelson et al. 2013, 7). Our project was initiated by an interdisciplinary team of experts, including linguists, cognitologists, terminologists, and programmers, in 2013. As a result of their 7-year cooperation, two programs, namely TSBuilder (Term System Builder) and

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TSGraph (Term System Graph), have been developed. They were working as a software package, making it possible to automate term systems construction and their visualisation in the form of a graph (Isaeva et al. 2020). The starting point of these programs is the database of terms selected manually from up-to-date specialised texts in the English language in various fields. The terms were extracted manually by field experts under the guidance of linguists-terminologists and categorised by their fields of knowledge (domains) and intradomain categories. Additionally, terms’ definitions in English, translations into Russian, and the contexts of their usage in the original texts were obtained. The two programs aim to automate terms extraction and categorisation (TSBuilder) and database ontologization and visualisation (TSGraph). The current paper mainly deals with the latter couple of operations.

7.2  Methods 7.2.1  Ontology Construction TSGraph receives terms from the database following the predetermined clusters of knowledge domains. The obtained terms become the nodes of an undirected graph and are connected by edges that denote semantic relations between terms. The user can click on the node of the graph and get information about the domain affiliation and the list of related terms.

7.2.2  New Terms Uploading TSGraph is a dynamic system enabling instant online updating. To upload new terms to the database, you need to go to TSGraph’s domain (http://85.143.175.29) and select the “Upload new terms” tab (Fig. 7.1). The terms are uploaded from a spreadsheet (one-page Excel document). This document should be prepared beforehand; this means that the data need to be structured, standardised, cleared of noisy data. The table should consist of at least one column with terms. Additionally, the table might include columns with terms’ translations, classes, definitions and contexts (these features are yet to be added to visualisation options). For instant uploading, one need to select a file for upload from a computer or another device. Then, type in or select the spreadsheet column number, where terms are located, select the domain from a drop-down list or create a new one, type in or select the spreadsheet column number where classes are located. After that, check, if appropriate, the boxes for uploading translations and contexts and select the number of corresponding columns in the spreadsheet. Also, if

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Fig. 7.1  Terms’ preparation

required, check the boxes for excluding the first row of the spreadsheet, where the column titles are usually located. Additionally, for retrieving terms relations and ontology creation, one can check the option for automated upload of synonyms from Datamuse API (https://www.datamuse.com/api/). For instance, we want to upload a new set of terms to the Geology domain from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, containing geological terms in English, classes, translation into Russian, and the terms’ contexts. After choosing the file from the computer local storage, checking all the required boxes, inserting all the necessary columns’ numbers, and clicking the “Prepare terms for upload” button, you receive the following feedback from the system (Fig. 7.2). As seen in Fig.  7.2, the system gives feedback on the number of terms to be uploaded and their classes, both existing and new ones. The latter option is convenient for excluding typos (e.g. ingeering geology and dinamic geology) and analogues classes liable for unification (e.g. Engineering geology/Engineering Geology and Geology/ General Geology).

7.2.3  Terms’ Selection To build a graph representing terminological domains with synonymous relations, select the “Home” tab (Fig. 7.3). At present, the database includes four domains, namely Computer security, Biology, Chemistry, and Geology. The graph settings allow you to select the domains you want to be included in the graph by checking the corresponding box. To visualise the data, the system chooses 50 terms from each domain with the highest number of cross-domain relations for graphical output.

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Fig. 7.2  Upload stats

Fig. 7.3  TSGraph settings

7.3  Ontology Visualisation 7.3.1  Domains’ Overlapping Module TSGraph provides visualisation of terminological domains, particularly their semantic relations and overlappings. The terms uploaded into the system are

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subdivided into domains. At the output, graph domains differ in colour. The nodes (small squares, designating the terms’ position in the graph) correspond to the domains they belong to, in the tone, but are more intensive. Intradomain relations of terms are depicted with grey lines (branches) connecting the terms (nodes) located in the same domains. Interdomain relations are marked with blue lines and connect the terms from different domains. Besides that, the terms that have external connections are highlighted with coloured circles around the nodes. The intensity of the circle’s colour determines the number of interdomain connections and becomes more intensive with the growth of the number of cross-domain links the term has. The domains’ overlapping is estimated based on the number of terms for which the program established interdomain synonymic relations. The more two domains have interrelated terms, the broader the domains’ overlapping is. For illustration, let us consider the graph including the four domains, Geology, Chemistry, Biology, and Computer Security. To build the graph, we checked the four available domains and obtained the graph presented below (Fig. 7.4). As shown in Fig. 7.4, the most overlapping domains are Computer security and Biology, as well as Computer security and Chemistry. Geology has some scarce links with the rest of the domains, but these make it hardly overlap with any of them.

7.3.2  Ontology Statistics For statistics of the domains’ semantic closeness, go to the “Show statistic” tab. For the four domains considered in the graph above, the following share of interrelations is available: Biology | Computer security: Links count: 28 (56.0%). Chemistry | Computer security: Links count: 19 (38.0%). Geology | Biology: Links count: 12 (24.0%). Chemistry | Biology: Links count: 11 (22.0%). Chemistry | Geology: Links count: 7 (14.0%). Geology | Computer security: Links count: 6 (12.0%). The figures are flexible and change with the upload of new terms into the database.

7.4  Results of Automated Cognitive-linguistic Analysis The share presented above correlates with our initial expectations, especially connected with Computer security and Biology correlation. Their closeness can be explained by the fact that the current stage of computer security is centred around computer virology. The computer virus concept dates back to John von Neumann’s self-replicating machines in a cellular automata (CA) environment. The general

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Fig. 7.4  Graph construction

idea was borrowed from Biology and formalised such properties of biological organisms as self-replication, open-ended evolution, and growth of complexity. The proximity of Chemistry, Computer security, and Biology might also be due to the converge of Chemical Engineering and Virology (Yin 2007). Geology, chemistry, and Biology are also interrelated areas. They all belong to the Earth sciences and are often merged into one university course; a point in case is the Earth Sciences course taught at the University of Oxford https://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/teaching/

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undergraduates/course-­information/. This fact can be the reason for the interchange of terminologies in these scientific areas. Let us have a closer look at the links between terms. For example, at the click on the term web bug, we receive the following system feedback: Term: web bug Project: Computer security Linked with: Computer security | MINI-44 virus Computer security | stealth virus Computer security | mini-44 virus Computer security | simile.d virus Computer security | finnpoly virus Computer security | w95/zmist virus Computer security | virus w95/boza Biology | sex-linked Biology | genetic code Biology | codominant Biology | magnetoencephalography Chemistry | nuclear magnetic resonance Chemistry | chromatography Chemistry | aromatic ring Chemistry | alkaline Geology | Syncline Geology | Anticline Geology | Contour line Geology | strike line Geology | Mantle The above means that the term web bug belongs to the Computer security domain. The term is linked to other terms in the same domain, namely MINI-44 virus, stealth virus, mini-44 virus, simile.d virus, finnpoly virus, w95/zmist virus, and virus w95/boza. These links are pretty evident as the term web bug stands for “a method for passing information from the user’s computer to a third party website. Used in conjunction with cookies, Web bugs enable information to be gathered and tracked in the stateless environment of the Internet” (Web bugs 1981–2019). These features make a web bug related to the group of computer viruses, which the rest linked terms from the Computer security domain belong to. To understand what makes web bug connected to the terms from other domains, one should understand how the relations are established. First, the term is sent to Datamuse API, which “returns a list of words (and multiword expressions) from a given vocabulary that match a given set of constraints… require that the results have a meaning related to this string value, which can be any word or sequence of words. (This is effectively the reverse dictionary feature of OneLook).” (Datamuse). As a result, TSGraph works with the given list of words semantically related to each of the term’s constituents ranked by relevance.

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To understand how Datamuse API (n.d.) establishes the links between terms, we attempt a search for the synonyms of the term web bug in the OneLook Thesaurus (Thesaurus n.d.). The search request returns a list of 999 related terms. TSGrapgh limits the working area to the first 20 words with the highest semantic relations (Fig. 7.5). If we compare the list with the one obtained in the OneLook Thesaurus, we see no difference in the selected range. It is interesting to study semantic relations between the node term and the retrieved ones. For instance, let us take the term mesh. The OneLook Thesaurus provides several definitions for mesh. They reason the links between the terms, namely “an open fabric of string or rope or wire woven together at regular intervals” (Thesaurus) and “the topology of a network whose components are all connected directly to every other component” (Thesaurus). These senses relate to web as “a fabric (especially a fabric in the process of being woven)” (Thesaurus) and “computer network consisting of a collection of internet sites that offer text and graphics and sound and animation resources through the hypertext transfer protocol” (Thesaurus) respectively. In the same way, the rest of the terms in the list could be checked for semantic closeness. Fig. 7.5  List of Web bug’s synonyms

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Fig. 7.6  Rationale for terms’ linking

Returning to linking the terms within the TSGraph database, we should note one feature. Namely, suppose the words from the list of the node-term’s synonyms are found in similarly retrieved lists of semantically close words associated with other terms in the TSGraph database. In that case, they are tagged as semantically related. Recap that even morphemes (parts of the words) are taken into account for their semantics is embedded in meaning-making (Baiburova and Isaeva 2021). For instance, the web bug list of synonyms contains the word line, which is also part of the terms from the Chemical (alkaline) and Geological (Syncline, Anticline, Contour line, strike line) domains, which reasons the terms’ semantic closeness. The information window with the rationale of the terms’ closeness and the morphemes underneath these relations is available upon request in TSGraph (Fig. 7.6). Figure 7.6 shows the information window, which pops up at clicking the term’s node on the graph. The background colour of the term’s field in this window is similar to the colour of the term’s node and correlates with the term’s domain on the graph. Thus, as you see, computer security terms are highlighted with blue, biology terms, with green, and chemistry terms, with red. Again, this facilitates linguistic interpretation and adds to knowledge visibility.

7.5  Conclusion As the result of our study of AI means for ontologization and term system modelling, we realised that TSGraph is a convenient way to establish and visualise terminologies’ overlappings. The semantic closeness of terms is established at different morphological levels, particularly at words and morphemes. This approach recognises marginal semantic relations between terms latent in pure linguistic research but implicitly involved in the term’s meaning-making. The system also provides a

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user-friendly interface for the terms’ database augmentation. It can be used as a tool for modelling semantic nets based on inter- and intradomain synonymy. The further development of TSBuilder must be focused on establishing other kinds of relations between terms, such as semantic distance, collocation options, as well as extended work with terms’ definitions and contexts, which would open up new vistas for cognitive linguistic analysis. However, the system is new and developing. In the nearest future, the team of developers is going to add such features as term’s search, definitions and contexts visibility. Ambitious plans include adding more links between terms, for instance, terms’ distance or antonymy as opposed to terms’ closeness or synonymy, collocational relations, as well as intradomain categorisation and tagging typical semantic roles (Fillmore 2006) to the terms in contexts. Acknowledgements  The reported study was funded by RFBR according to the research project № 18-012-00825 А.

References Baiburova O, Isaeva E (2021) Cognitive aspect of morphological modelling. To be published in. In: Specialized knowledge mediation: ontological & metaphorical modelling. Isaeva E, Ed. Cham, Springer Chinecherem OO, Nwagu CK, Inyiama H (2018) Computer science research methodologies. Int J Comput Sci Inf Secur 16(4):142–144 Datamuse API (n.d.). https://www.datamuse.com/api/ (Accessed 09 13, 2020) Fillmore CJ (2006) Frame semantics. In: Geeraerts D (ed) Cognitive linguistics: basic readings. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 373–400 Isaeva, E., Bakhtin V., Tararkov A. (2020). Formal Cross-Domain Ontologization of Human Knowledge. Information Technology and Systems. Proceedings of ICITS 2020. Eds. Álvaro Rocha, Carlos Ferrás, Carlos Enrique Montenegro Marin, Víctor Hugo Medina García. Springer, Cham Nelson J et al (2013) About computing science research methodology “Thesaurus.” OneLook. (n.d.) “Web bugs.” Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. 1981–2019 Yin J (2007) Chemical engineering and virology: challenges and opportunities at the interface. AIChE J (Wiley) 53(9):2202–2209

Part III

Application of Mediation

Chapter 8

Issues in Translating English and Arabic Common Names of Chemical Compounds by Student-Translators in Saudi Arabia Reima Al-Jarf

Abstract  Some chemical compounds have a technical name used by specialists, and a common name used by non-specialists in everyday communication. A corpus of English and Arabic common names of chemical compounds was collected from online resources and analysed. A contrastive analysis of English and Arabic common names revealed several types of Arabic equivalents such as: (1) pure Arabic equivalents (Acetic Acid: Vinegar 2); (‫ )الخل‬borrowings (Ferric Oxide: hematite 3); (‫ )الهيماتيت‬Arabized (naturalized) equivalents (Potassium Carbonate: Potash 4); (‫ )البوتاس‬semi-borrowed (Sodium Hydroxide: caustic soda 5( )‫); (الكاوية‬5 ‫)الصودا‬ multiple equivalents (Ammonium Chloride: ammonia 6); (‫ النشادر‬،‫ )األمونيا‬calques (English salt 7); (‫ )الملح االنجليزي‬neologism (Lactic Acid ‫ ;)حمض اللبنيك‬and (8) old names (Red Antimony‫)زنفجر‬. Test results showed that student-translators have difficulty translating English chemical common names to Arabic. They only gave correct responses to fewer than 20% of the test items; and 55% were blank responses. Their most common translation strategy was transliteration of the English name and literal translation. The students reported that they are not familiar with most of the English and Arabic chemical common names. Results of the contrastive analysis, types of equivalents, test results, students’ mistranslation strategies and errors sources are reported. Recommendations for translation instruction are also given. Keywords  Chemical compounds · Translation problems · Translation strategies · Translation equivalence · English chemical common names · Arabic chemical common names

R. Al-Jarf (*) King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_8

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8.1  Introduction A chemical compound is composed of atoms from two or more elements such as Ammonium Chloride (NH4Cl), Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and Acetic Acid (CH3COOH). Some chemical compounds have a technical name used by specialists, and a common name used by non-specialists in everyday life. For instance, the chemical name NH4Cl is Ammonium Chloride, and its common name is ammonia ‫ النشادر‬،‫ ;األمونيا‬NaOH is Sodium Hydroxide, and its common name is caustic soda ‫ ;الصودا الكاوية‬C1H3COOH is Acetic Acid, and its common name is vinegar ‫أوالخل‬ ‫حمض الخليك‬. Knowledge of at least some technical names of chemical compounds and their common names is important for high school students, college students majoring in chemistry, and those majoring in translation. This knowledge is useful for everyday communication, working in the industry, construction, chemistry fields, medical labs, and translation. In this respect, Sayle (2009) indicated that chemical compound names remain the primary method of conveying molecular structures between chemists and researchers. In research articles, patents, chemical catalogues, government legislations, and textbooks, the use of IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) and traditional compound names is universal. Despite the importance of acquiring and knowing technical terms, translation of technical terms, including chemical terms, poses several difficulties for both professional and student translators. A review of the literature has shown numerous studies that focused on the challenges that translators face in translating technical texts from English to a number of languages such as Portuguese, Swedish, Indonesian, Russian, Romanian, Croatian, Persian, Vietnamese, Igbo, and Arabic, some of which are: The challenges translators face in translating structural engineering texts from English to Swedish with a focus on search and textual strategies that are helpful in translation them (Karlsson 2011); problems of translating technical texts from English to the Igbo language in Africa (Ijioma and Ezeafulukwe 2015); difficulties that hinder the translation of textile industry terms from Romanian to English and vice versa, and the application of borrowing, calque, and literal translation (Buzarna-­Tihenea and Nadrag 2016); grammatical, lexical, rhetorical, and pragmatic problems that most beginning students have in English-Indonesian translation (Napu and Hasan 2019); analysis of a mixed corpus of medical and biomedical text types translated from English to European Portuguese by novice and experienced translators to find out whether they prefer source-oriented or target-oriented translation solutions (Valdez 2019); and characteristics of language of information technologies, the adaptation of English neologisms in Russian, the contribution of information technology to the Russian lexical and phraseological systems, and borrowing and accumulating English terms through replication, transliteration and transcription (Kameneva 2019). In addition, some studies in the literature proposed models for translating technical texts and technical terms from English to a number of languages. For example, a study by Mai et al. (2014) proposed a Coordinate Translation Model for translating English to Vietnamese terms in context, by recombining semantic components and functional

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equivalents, together with Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1977) translation strategies, viz. direct borrowing, calque (loan translation), literal translation, transposition, modulation, and adaptation. Likewise, Forutanian (2013) proposed a model for translating technical/scientific terminology to Persian that aimed at providing real equivalents for one-word terms. i.e., sub-technical terms and neologisms, and above-word terms, i.e., translation by shifts (transposition), transposition with the automatic change in word order from the source (SL) to the target language (TL), translation by a rank-shift, translation by paraphrase, use of recognized translation, and loan translation. A third group of studies in the literature specifically focused on the translation of technical texts from English to Arabic and the translation strategies utilized by translators. For instance, Ashqar (2013) investigated the problem of equivalence in the English-Arabic translation of specialized technology in open-access texts (online Arabic commercials promoting web services) and limited-access texts (price quotation and a website agreement sent by email or fax). Transliterated equivalents were the most frequently used strategy to enhance TL usability, although translation can replace them. Appropriateness and convenience for the commissioner had priority over accuracy for the translator. Similarly, Hassan (2017a) examined the techniques and strategies used in translating the Microsoft Terminology Collection into Arabic. He identified several types of translation strategies: Semantic translation, transliteration, naturalization of loanwords, semantic translation at the morphological level, gloss, and communicative translation. Due to the unprecedented increase in the number of English technical terms, Hassan (2017a) advised that it is more appropriate to use Arabic-expanding techniques such as derivation and compounding, and technical terms derived from common linguistic English roots to maintain the integrity and authenticity of Arabic as TL. Arabicisation should be only used with SL proper nouns, or any words derived from them. Other strategies like semantic and communicative translation and their use in the translation of scientific texts were examined by Hassan (2017b), who found that Scientific American (Arabic Edition) uses semantic translation, communicative translation, and a combination of both, while Nature (Arabic Edition) depends heavily on gloss translation. In Australia, Alhihi (2015) pointed out that accredited translators who translated health documents in New South Wales made several types of lexical errors such as additions, omissions, compounds, synonyms, collocations, and inconsistencies. Moreover, AI-Kharabsheh (2003) evaluated the problems of translating seven types of techno-scientific compounds (endocentric, verbal, metaphoric, rhyming, phrasal compounds, compounds with an exocentric determinant unit, and compounds with lexicalised bound morphemes) from English to Arabic by M.A. students majoring in translation in Jordan and the UK. Results indicated that techno-scientific compounds posed considerable difficulties for M.A. students-­translators, with an overall total difficulty of 82.09%. The students had conceptual (semantic), textual, stylistic, and lexical difficulties and they resorted to literal translation, calque, idiomatic translation, transliteration, transposition, omission, contraction, explanation, expansion, Naht, and blank. Likewise, Al-Jarf (2010) found that junior college students majoring in translation at the College of Languages and Translation (COLT) had difficulty recognizing English neologisms, understanding their meaning of, and translating them to Arabic.

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As for translating chemistry terminology and translating chemical texts, few studies exist in the literature. Studies by Rapić and Varga-Defterdarović (2013), Kastelan-Macan (2008), Taljard and Nchabeleng (2012), Raos (2015), and Sayle (2009) focused on Croatian chemistry terminology and traced their history of development and focused on developing a Quadrilingual Explanatory Dictionary of Chemistry. Sayle (2009) suggested the use of software tools to allow chemical names to be parsed and generated with almost the same ease as conventional connection tables. He added that although most chemistry terminology are English, a fraction of them are available in other languages. This makes the task of filing and analyzing chemical patents, purchasing from chemical compound vendors, and text mining research articles and Webpages more complex. He described some issues of manipulating chemical names in various languages like British and American English, Spanish, German, Swedish, Hungarian, Polish, Chinese, and Japanese, and proposed software tools that can simplify the process. In addition to chemical terminology, a study by Namdari and Shahrokhi (2015) compared the translation accuracy of students specialized in translation studies and those majoring in chemistry. Results revealed significant differences between translation and chemistry major students in translating chemistry texts. Chemistry students outperformed translation students in translation accuracy and the lexical and pragmatic features of the target text; but translation students were better in terms of the syntactic features of the target text. In another study, Tabrizi and Pezeshki (2015) examined the strategies of filling lexical gaps in translating a technical book titled “Biomass Gasification and Pyrolysis” from English to Persian. They found that the following strategies were used in translating seventy terms for which no Persian equivalents exist: Loan words, loan translation, and loan blends, with loan translation as the most frequently used strategy (68.5%). Based on the above review of the literature, prior studies investigated the difficulties faced in translating technical texts and technical terminology in structural engineering, information technology, medical, biomedical and health sciences, textile industry, techno-scientific, online commercials promoting web services, and the Microsoft Terminology Collection from English to a variety of languages such as Igbo, Portuguese, Swedish, Indonesian, Russian, Romanian, Croatian, Persian, Vietnamese and Arabic. However, the literature review showed lack of studies that focus on the translation of English chemical texts and chemical terms from English to Arabic, in general, and those that compare common names of chemical compounds in English and Arabic, difficulties that student-translators face, and the strategies that they utilize in translating common names of chemical compounds from English to Arabic and vice versa. Therefore, the present study aims to: (1) compare and contrast a sample of English and Arabic common names of chemical compounds; (2) find out the difficulties that student-translators enrolled in a Natural Translation course face in translating chemical common names from English to Arabic and Arabic to English; (3) the strategies that they use in translating chemical common names from English to Arabic and vice versa; (4) the sources of translation errors; and (5) give some implications for translation instruction, practice, translators’ training and for enhancing students’ translation competence and performance.

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Revealing the difficulties that student-translators have and the faulty translation strategies that they use will help translation instructors modify the content of the Natural Science Translation course, utilize new techniques for enhancing the acquisition of English and Arabic chemical common names by student-translators, and for developing their translation competence. Results of the study will also raise student-translators, translation instructors and professional translators’ awareness of the necessity for using Arabic chemical common names in everyday professional communication, particularly scientific and educational work. Since some chemical terms have multiple technical and common names, as it is the case in Arabic medical terminology, recognizing and selecting appropriate Arabic equivalents to multiple chemical names is essential for translation accuracy and for enhancing students’ translation competence (Al-Jarf 2018). Since translation students at COLT take a Natural Science Translation course, results of the present study will shed light on aspects of English and Arabic chemical terms that need to be acquired by the students, those with which they have difficulty, and aspects that need to receive more attention in the course.

8.2  Study Samples 8.2.1  Student Sample A total of 67 undergraduate students majoring in translation at the College of Languages of Translation (COLT), King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia participated in the study. The students were enrolled in a Natural Science Translation course (2 h/week) in which they studied a sample of English and Arabic technical terms in physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, earth science, oceanography, and materials sciences. The students were concurrently enrolled in a Medical and Humanities Translation course (2 h each). All the participants had completed 4 levels (semesters) of listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary and grammar courses in English; linguistics, semantics, stylistics, and text linguistics courses, in addition to Arabic language morphology and syntax courses. All of the subjects were native speakers of Arabic, with English as their second language.

8.2.2  S  ample of English and Arabic Common Names of Chemical Compounds Two samples of Arabic and English common names of chemical compounds were collected from various online resources such as: Spectro Analytical Labs Limited; Common Chemicals and Supplies in and Around Your Home (Katz et al. 2002); International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC); List of Chemical

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Compounds and their Common Names and Formulas (Shebint 2020); PubChem (n.d.); Oliveboard (n.d.); Glosbe Multilingual Online Dictionary; English and Arabic Wikipedia; Al-Maani English-Arabic and Arabic-English Online Chemistry Dictionary; Arabic Ontology from Bir Zeit University (2021); Common Names for Most Common Chemical Compounds (Al-Ali 2019) and others. To be included in the sample, the chemical common name should be different from the chemical technical term. For example, hydroxyl (OH) ‫ هيدروكسيل‬is not a common name, whereas limestone is the common name for calcium carbonate CaCo3. Chemical terms with variant spelling such as sulphide & sulfide, or a variant element name as in Ferric Oxide & Iron Oxide were counted as one term. The two samples were then pooled so that for each chemical compound (technical name and its chemical formula) one or more Arabic and English common names were listed side by side. Thus, the final corpus consisted of 225 technical chemical compounds, with 400 English-Arabic common names, as some chemical compounds have two or more common names in English and/or Arabic. The author verified each English and/or Arabic common name of chemical compounds in two or more resources to avoid misnomers. In addition, all English and Arabic common names in the English and Arabic samples include common names only, and not technical chemistry terms.

8.3  Instruments 8.3.1  The Chemical Common Names Tests Student-translators enrolled in a Natural Science Translation Course at COLT were given an Arabic and an English Chemical Common Name Test, each of which consisting of 30 English and 30 Arabic chemical common names that were randomly selected from the English and Arabic chemical common name samples. The English and Arabic test items cover pure (original) Arabic names, borrowings, Arabized names, polysemous common names, toponyms/eponyms, old names and new names, synonyms, neologisms, color-based names, and calques. Since many English and Arabic common names are opaque, in some test items the English common name was included in the English test, and its Arabic equivalent was included in the Arabic test to make sure that students can recognize them, and to check the validity of the test items and the reliability of students’ responses. The test items were presented in isolation as presenting them in context might help the students infer their meaning. The test instructions specified what the items were. The subjects were asked to translate each English common name into one or more Arabic equivalents, and vice versa. The students were not allowed to use any online or paper dictionaries. No time limit was imposed on the test session.

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The English Chemical Common Name Test For each English common name of a chemical compound, give one or more Arabic equivalent common names: Ammoniac, aqua ammonia, ammonia liquor, feldspar, lamp oil, slaked lime, chlorinating powder, soda water, sour salt, bluestone algicide, grain alcohol, lactic acid, marsh gas, spirit of niter, laughing gas, table salt, sulfur potash, battery acid, acetic acid, uric acid, quicksilver, blue vitriol, saltpetre, oil of wintergreen, arseneous anhydride, Aqua Tofani, litharge, cinnabar, lunar caustic, stearic acid. The Arabic Chemical Common Name Test For each Arabic common name of a chemical compound, give one or more English equivalent common names: ‫ الماء‬،‫ ماء النار‬،‫ الغاز المسيل للدموع‬،‫ الطباشير الفرنسي‬،‫ الحجر الكلسي‬،‫ النشادر‬،‫ القَ ْلقَ ْن‬.‫السلقون‬ ‫ العطرون‬،‫ زاج الخارصين‬،‫ زيت الزاج‬،‫ حمض النمليك‬،‫ حجر جهنم‬،‫ ماء الفضة‬،‫ الماء الملكي‬،‫القوي‬ ‫ الزنجار‬،‫ الجير المطفأ‬،‫ الصخر الحريري‬،‫ مسحوق التبييض‬،‫ ملح البارود‬،‫ مسحوق القاصر‬،‫او النطرون‬ ‫ األبيض‬،‫ قلي الصودا‬،‫ الصودا الكاوية‬،‫ محلول برمنجنات البوتاس‬،‫ حمض الدردي‬،‫ حمض الجاويك‬،‫الفرنسي‬ ‫ الملح اإلنجليزي‬،‫ الملح المر‬،‫ الشب‬،‫الكاوي‬،

8.3.2  The Chemical Common Names Questionnaire-Survey To find out the difficulties that student-translators have with chemical common names, they responded to a questionnaire-survey, with an open-ended question that asked them to state their difficulties while translating English common chemical names to Arabic, and Arabic common names to English, and give examples. Students’ responses were analyzed qualitatively by the author.

8.4  Data Analysis 8.4.1  C  omparison of English and Arabic Chemical Common Names To compare/contrast the meaning equivalence of English and Arabic Chemical Common Names, and to classify the Arabic translation of English common names, the following categories were developed by the author based on the translation strategies identified by Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1977), AI-Kharabsheh (2003), Forutanian (2013), Mai et al. (2014), Ijioma and Ezeafulukwe (2015), Hassan (2017b), Al-Jarf (2018), Kameneva (2019), and Al-Jarf (2019). Those were also used to classify the students’ responses to the tests. Each category is described below.

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1. Pure (original) Arabic equivalents: Acetic Acid: Vinegar‫ ;الخل‬Ammonia Water ‫ محلول النشادر‬،‫ماء النشادر‬ ; Limestone ‫ حجر الجير‬، ‫ ;الحجر الجيري‬Asbestos ‫ير‬ ُ ‫ال َح ِر‬ ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ ال‬،‫ َح َج ُر الفَتِي ِل‬، ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ ;ال‬Caustic Soda ‫ األبيض‬، ‫ محاليل الصابون‬،‫قلي الصودا‬ ِ ‫ص ْخ ُر ال َح ِر‬ ُّ ‫ير‬ ُّ ‫ص ْخ ِر‬ ‫ ;الكاوي‬Alumina ‫ ;مسحوق السنباذج‬Ammonium Alum ‫ ;الشب‬Citric Acid ،‫حمض الليمونيك‬ ‫ض اللَّيمون‬ ُ ‫;حم‬ ْ Blue Vitriol.‫ النحاس األزرق‬،‫ الزاج األزرق‬،‫ الحجارة الزرقاء‬،‫;الحجر األزرق‬ Benzoic Acid .‫ الصمغ الجاوي حمض‬،‫حمض الجاويك‬ 2. Borrowings, loan words or transliteration. Hematite ‫هيماتيت‬ Latex ‫التكس‬ Chloroform ‫كلوروفورم‬ Quartz ‫الكوارتز‬

Acetone ‫اسيتون‬ Benzol ‫بنزول‬ Borax ‫بوراكس‬ Freon ‫الفريون‬

Naphthalene ‫نفتالين‬ Methanol ‫ميثانول‬ Galena ‫جالينا‬ Formalin ‫فورمالين‬

3. Arabized (naturalized) terms where the borrowed term is modified phonologically and morphologically Soda ‫صودا‬ Gas‫غاز‬ Carbonate ‫كربونات‬

Malachite ‫ملخيت‬ Tararic Acid ‫الطرطريك‬ Potash ‫البوتاس‬

Magnesia ‫مانيسيا‬ Feldspar ‫الفلسبار‬ Gypsum ‫جبس‬

4. Synonyms which are chemical common names for a particular term that have the same denotation but are different in form. Synonyms can be single or compound names as in Limestone ‫ حجر الجير‬، ‫الحجر الجيري‬. Asbestos ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ ال‬،‫ َح َج ُر الفَتِي ِل‬، ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ير ال‬ ُ ‫ال َح ِر‬. ِ ‫ص ْخ ُر ال َح ِر‬ ُّ ‫ير‬ ُّ ‫ص ْخ ِر‬ Cast Iron ‫ حديد السبك‬،‫ حديد الصب‬،‫حديد زهر‬. Caustic Soda ‫ األبيض الكاوي‬،‫ محاليل الصابون‬،‫ قلي الصودا‬،‫ الفالش‬،‫الصودا الكاوية‬. Copper Sulphate: Blue Vitriol ‫ النحاس األزرق‬,‫ الزاج األزرق‬,‫ الحجارة الزرقاء‬,‫الحجر األزرق‬. 5. Eponyms: Terms adopted from names of famous scientists or inventers such as Glober salt ‫ملح جلوبر‬ Glover acid ‫حمض جلوفر‬ Rochelle salt ‫ملح روشيل‬ Condy’s crystals ‫بلورات كوندي‬

Mohr’s salt ‫ملح مور‬ Epsom salt ‫ الملح المر‬،‫الملح اإلنجليزي‬ Seignette salt ‫ملح سنييت‬ Aqua Tofani ‫سم توفاني‬

6. Toponyms: Terms adopted from names of places (cities, countries…etc.) such as Copper acetate: Paris green ‫أخضر باريس‬ Plaster of Paris ‫عجينة باريس‬ Zinc oxide: zinc white ‫أبيض الصين‬ Vienna lime ‫جير فيينا‬

Mercuric oxide ‫أحمر فينيسيا‬ Chile saltpetre ‫ملح شيلي‬ Cupric acetate ‫الزنجار الفرنسي‬ Kaolin clay ‫ غضار صيني‬، ‫طين صيني‬

7. Derived forms as in Chlorinating powder ‫ القصر‬،‫مسحوق القاصر‬. Limestone ‫ حجر الجير‬،‫الحجر الجيري‬. Copper sulphate: blue vitriol ‫ الحجارة الزرقاء‬,‫الحجر األزرق‬. Asbestos ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ ال‬، ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ير ال‬ ُ ‫ال َح ِر‬. ِ ‫ص ْخ ُر ال َح ِر‬ ُّ ‫ير‬ ُّ ‫ص ْخ ِر‬

8  Issues in Translating English and Arabic Common Names of Chemical Compounds…

161

Laughing gas ‫ الغاز المضحك‬، ‫غاز الضحك‬. Citric acid ‫ض اللَّيمون‬ ُ ‫ َح ْم‬،‫حمض الليمونيك‬. 8. Equivalents of a polyseme. Here the English common name has several meanings used in different contexts, therefore an Arabic equivalent is given to each meaning, e.g.:

(a) Calcium carbonate may mean limestone ‫ الحجر الكلسي‬،‫ حجر الجير‬،‫;الحجر الجيري‬ chalk ‫ ;الطباشير‬or marble‫الرخام; أزرق باريس‬ (b) Carbonic acid may mean soda water ‫ ;مياه غازية ماء الصودا‬soda lime ‫;جير الصودا‬ soda alum ‫ ;شب الصودا‬soda-nitre ‫ ;نترات الصودا‬or soda ash ‫الصودا‬ (c) Sodium bicarbonate may mean Baking powder ‫ صودا‬،‫ بيكنج باودر‬، ‫كربونات‬ ‫ صودا الخبز‬،‫ الخبيز‬، (d) Calcium chloride may mean Ice melter ‫ ;مذيب الجليد‬road salt ‫;ملح الطريق‬or deicer .‫الجليد‬

9. Old and modern equivalents especially in Arabic such as: Litharge ‫س ْنج‬ َ ‫ ال ُم ْردَا‬،‫مرتك الرصاص‬. Red lead ‫ الرصاص األحمر‬،‫السلقون‬. Green vitriol ‫ ال َمشِيق‬،‫ القَ ْلقَ ْنت‬،‫ القَ ْلقَ ْند‬،‫الزاج األخضر‬. Hematite ‫ الهيماتيت‬،‫شاذنج‬. Antimony tetroxide ‫رباعي أكسيد اإلثمد‬. Asbestos ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ ال‬،‫ َح َج ُر الفَتِي ِل‬، ‫ي‬ َّ ‫ َح َج ُر الفَتِيل ال‬. ِ ‫ص ْخ ُر ال َح ِر‬ ُّ ‫ير‬ ُّ ‫ص ْخ ِر‬ Red antimony‫ زنفجر‬،‫األنتيمون األحمر‬. 10. Neologisms where a naturalized English suffix is borrowed and added to an Arabic chemical term to match borrowed chemical names ending with the same suffix: Sulphric ‫ ;الكبريتيك‬Acetic ‫ ;الخليك‬Lactic ‫ ;اللبنيك‬formic ‫النمليك‬، citric ‫;الليمونيك‬ sulphric ‫ ;الكبريتيد‬ferric ‫ ;حديديك‬ferrous ‫ ;حديدوز‬sulphr ‫الكبريتوز‬،; sucrose ‫سكروز‬. Neologisms also include new derived forms of original Arabic or borrowed chemical terms as in: ‫ كلورة‬،‫ مكلور‬،‫ مكبرت‬،‫مكربن‬. 11. A calque or loan translation in which the Arabic equivalent is an imitation of the English term in structure or manner of expression. It can be a literal translation, word-for-word translation, or root-for-root translation as in: Ice melter ‫مذيب الجليد‬ Butter of zinc ‫زبدة الخارصين‬ Calcium chloride: ice melter ‫مذيب الجليد‬ Moth balls ‫كرات العثة‬

Rubbing alcohol ‫كحول الدلك‬ Venetian red ‫احمر فينيسيا‬ Wood alcohol ‫كحول الخشب‬ Baker’s ammonia ‫امونيا الخبازين‬

12. Color-based common names as in Green vitriol ‫الزاج األخضر‬ Blue vitriol ‫ النحاس األزرق‬،‫ الزاج األزرق‬،‫الحجر األزرق‬ Cerussite ‫ازرق الرصاص‬ Yellow prussiate of potash‫سيانيد البوتاس األصفر‬

Caustic soda ‫ األبيض الكاوي‬Zinc oxide: Zinc White ‫أبيض الصين‬ Red antimony‫األنتيمون األحمر‬ Carbon graphite ‫الرصاص األسود‬ Tenorite ‫أكسيد النحاس األسود‬ Chrome yellow ‫أصفر الكروم‬

162

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13. When an English chemical common name is a compound consisting of 2 or more, the following equivalents are used:

(a) An original Arabic word + a loan word (borrowing) as in: Milk of Magnesia ‫ ;حليب المغنيسيوم‬Oil of Wintergreen ‫ ;زيت وينترجرين‬Sodium Citrate ‫ليمونات‬ ‫ ;الصوديوم‬Butter of Antimony ‫ ;زبدة االنتيمون‬barbecue fuel ‫قار البروبان‬.

An original Arabic word or identifier + an Arabized (naturalized) name: Methyl Alcohol ‫ ;كحول مثيلي‬Sulfur Potash ‫ ;البوتاس المكبرت‬Battery Acid‫ض‬ ُ ‫َح ْم‬ َّ َ‫ ;الب‬Caustic Soda ‫ ;الصودا الكاوية‬Chlorinating Powder ‫مسحوق الكلورة‬. ‫اريَّ ِة‬ ِ ‫ط‬ An Arabic identifier + an Arabized word + a borrowing: Yellow Prussiate of Soda ‫ سيانيد الصودا األصفر‬،‫ ;بروسيونات الصودا الصفراء‬Carbonic Acid Gas ‫;غاز حمض الكربونيك‬ Nitric Acid Ethyl Ester ‫روح إيثير النيتروز‬. Two Arabized Words: Chlorinating powder ‫ ;كلوريد الكلس‬Permanganate of Potash ‫برمنجنات البوتاس‬.

8.4.2  R  eliability and Validity of the Arabic Translation Equivalents and Their Categories Categories of the translation equivalents and their definitions were validated by two professors of English-Arabic translation and linguistics who took a look at the categories, their definitions and examples and made comments. The two professors used the same categories in classifying a sample of English chemical common names and their Arabic equivalents. Their classifications were compared with those of the author and discrepancies were solved by discussion. The percentages of agreement between the raters and the author in classifying the Arabic equivalents was 94%. Discrepancies were discussed and amendments were made accordingly.

8.4.3  Analysis of the Students’ Responses The subjects’ written responses to the English and Arabic Chemical Common Name Tests were marked by the author. To be marked as correct, each English and Arabic chemical common name had to be translated correctly and in full, either by one or more equivalent common names. Partial answers were not counted as correct. Spelling errors in English responses were ignored. To find out the strategies that the students used in translating the English and Arabic chemical common names, mistranslations were compiled and subjected to further analysis. Students’ translation strategies were classified into: (1) avoidance (leaving the answer blank), (2) literal translation, i.e., word-for-word translation, (3) transliteration, (4) partial translation, (5) how many equivalents the students gave for chemical terms with multiple common names, (6) explanation or paraphrase, (7) translation shift and (8) transposition.

8  Issues in Translating English and Arabic Common Names of Chemical Compounds…

163

The translation error corpus consisted of 1512 incorrect responses. The author went through each English chemical common name in the sample and its Arabic equivalent(s), and each Arabic chemical common name and its English equivalent(s), classified each equivalent according to the categories in Sect. 4.1. The percentage of errors in each category was calculated in percentages. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses of the chemical common name error data are reported in the results section below.

8.4.4  R  eliability and Validity of the Arabic and English Common Names Tests Since it was not possible to use parallel forms, split-halves, or re-test the students 2 weeks after the first administration of the Chemical Common Name Tests, reliability of the Chemical Common Name Test scores was calculated using the Kuder-­ Richardson 21′ formula, as it estimates the internal-consistency of the test items from a single administration of the test. The reliability coefficient of the English chemical common names test scores was .78 and of the Arabic Chemical Common Name Test was .76. Inter-scorer reliability was also calculated by having a colleague who taught Natural Science translation mark a sample of answer sheets, and by comparing her sores with those of the author’s. There was a 97% agreement between the two scorers as most items were left blank. Disagreements were solved by discussion.

8.5  Results 8.5.1  T  ranslation Equivalence in Arabic Chemical Common Names The chemical common name structural analysis of the data of the Arabic common names revealed that 23.5% are single-word Arabic common names; 74.5% are two-­word Arabic common names, and 2% are three-word Arabic common names as in: Muriatic Acid‫ ;حمض كلور الماء‬Salt Lapis Infernalis ‫ ;ملح الالزورد الجهنمي‬Yellow Prussiate of Potash ‫ ;األصفر سيانيد البوتاس األصفر; سيانيد الصودا‬Ferric Chloride ‫كلوريد الحديد‬ ‫ ;الالمائي‬Carbonic Acid Gas ‫ ;غاز حمض الكربونيك‬Tenorite ‫أكسيد النحاس األسود‬. As for the types of translation equivalence of English and Arabic common names of chemical compounds, data analysis showed the following: • 44% of the Arabic equivalents in the sample are pure (original) Arabic common names as in: oil of vitriol ‫ ;زيت الزاج‬Epsom salt ‫ ;الملح المر‬carborundum ‫;الورق المفحم‬ aqua fortis ‫ ;ماء النار‬spirit of niter ‫ الماء القوي‬،‫ ;ماء الفضة‬aqua regia ‫ ;الماء الملكي‬lactic

164

•

•

•

• •

• • • •

R. Al-Jarf

acid ‫ ;حمض اللبن‬lead acetate ‫ ;خالت الرصاص‬saltpetre ‫ ملح البارود‬،‫ ;الملح الصخري‬marsh gas ‫ غاز المناجم والمستنقعات‬. 15% of the Arabic common names are transliterations of or borrowings from English such as: Hematite ‫ ;هيماتيت‬Magnetite ‫ ;ماجناتيت‬Methanol ‫;ميثانول‬ Naphthalene ‫ ;نفتالين‬Paraffin ‫ ;برافين‬Chloroform ‫ ;كلوروفورم‬Acetone ‫ ;اسيتون‬Graphite ‫ ;جرافيت‬Silica ‫ ;سيليكا‬cryolite ‫الكريوليت‬ 14.5% are equivalents to polysemous English chemical common names. For instance: Calcium carbonate may mean limestone ‫ الحجر‬،‫ حجر الجير‬،‫الحجر الجيري‬ ‫ ;الكلسي‬chalk ‫ ;الطباشير‬or marble‫ ;الرخام; أزرق باريس‬and Carbonic acid may mean: soda water ‫ ;مياه غازية ماء الصودا‬soda lime ‫ ;جير الصودا‬soda alum ‫ ;شب الصودا‬sodanitre ‫ ;نترات الصودا‬or soda ash ‫ رماد الصودا‬. 13.5% consist of an Arabized (naturalized) term + an original Arabic word such as: Caustic potash ‫ ;البوتاس الكاوية‬hydrochloric acid ‫ ;حمض كلور الماء‬ethyl alcohol ‫ ;كحول اثيلي‬milk of magnesia ‫ ;حليب المغنيسيوم‬ethyl ‫ ;كحول اثيلي‬baking powder ‫ صودا الخبز‬،‫ ;صودا الخبيز‬shiny antimony ‫ ;األنتيمون الالمع‬black antimony‫ األنتيمون األسود‬. 12% consist of a borrowed word + an original Arabic word which, in many cases, is an identifier (gas, salt, alcohol, solution, water, solution) as in: Epsom salt ‫ ;ملح ابسوم‬sodium acetate ‫ ;خالت الصوديوم‬Rochelle salt ‫ ملح روشيل‬. 10.% are color-based common names. For instance: Green vitriol ‫;الزاج األخضر‬ Cerussite ‫ ;ازرق الرصاص‬Yellow Prussiate of Potash‫ ;سيانيد البوتاس األصفر‬Caustic soda ‫ ;األبيض الكاوي‬Red Antimony‫ ;األنتيمون األحمر‬Tenorite ‫ ;أكسيد النحاس األسود‬Chrome yellow ‫ أصفر الكروم‬. 10% are calques (loan translations) as in: Plaster of Paris ‫ ;عجينة باريس‬Venetian Red ‫ ;احمر فينيسيا‬Zinc White ‫ ;أبيض الخارصين‬Ice Melter ‫ ;مذيب الجليد‬Rubbing Alcohol ‫ ;كحول الدلك‬Butter of Antimony ‫ ;زبدة االنتيمون‬Chile Saltpetre ‫ملح شيلي‬. 6.5% are eponyms and toponyms: Glober salt ‫ ;ملح جلوبر‬Rochelle salt ‫;ملح روشيل‬ Mohr’s salt ‫ ;ملح مور‬Aqua Tofani ‫ ;سم توفاني‬Plaster of Paris ‫ ;عجينة باريس‬Vienna lime ‫ ;جير فيينا‬Mercuric Oxide ‫ ;أحمر فينيسيا‬Chile saltpetre ‫ملح شيلي‬. 6.5% are old names: Litharge ‫س ْنج‬ َ ‫ ال ُم ْردَا‬،‫ ;مرتك الرصاص‬Green vitriol ،‫الزاج األخضر‬ ‫ ال َمشِيق‬،‫ القَ ْلقَ ْنت‬،‫ ;القَ ْلقَ ْند‬Hematite ‫ ;شاذنج‬Red antimony ‫ زنفجر‬. 3.5% are Arabized (naturalized) English common names: Potash ‫ ;البوتاس‬Silica ‫ ;سيليكا‬Magnesia ‫ ;مانيسيا‬Magnesia‫ ;ماغنيسيا‬Gypsum ‫ ;الجبس‬Soda ‫ ;صودا‬Calcium Chloride ‫ ;كلوريد الكلس‬Feldspar‫ ;الفلسبار‬Asbestos ‫ ;أسبست‬Caustic Potash ‫;البوتاسيا‬ Chlorinating Powder ‫ ;مسحوق الكلورة‬Tartar ‫ ;الطرطار‬Nitrate ‫ نترات‬.

These findings are consistent with findings of other prior studies by Karlsson (2011); Tabrizi and Pezeshki (2015); Buzarna-Tihenea and Nadrag (2016); and Kameneva (2019) which investigated the strategies used in translating medical, biomedical, textile industry, information technology, and chemistry texts and terminology from English to Portuguese, Romanian, Russian and Persian languages. Those studies found common translation strategies such as literal translation, borrowings (loan words), calque (loan translation), transliteration (transcription), adaptation (naturalization), addition, replication, loan blend (a word that is composed of parts from different languages) with varying degrees of focus on those strategies depending on the subject matter translated and target language.

8  Issues in Translating English and Arabic Common Names of Chemical Compounds…

165

On the other hand, findings of the present study are partially consistent with findings of prior studies by Ashqar (2013), Hassan (2017a), Hassan (2017b), and AI-Kharabsheh (2003) which investigated the translation of specialized open-access and closed-access technological texts, the Microsoft Terminology Collection, and techno-scientific terms from English to Arabic. Those studies found transliterated equivalents, Arabicisation, communicative translation, semantic translation, gloss translation and expansion techniques to be the most common translation strategies. Communicative translation, semantic translation, expansion, omission, contraction, transposition, Naht, and blank techniques were not evident in the present study as focus was on translating chemical common names in isolation and not chemical texts.

8.5.2  A  nalysis of Students’ Responses to the English and Arabic Common Name Tests Analysis of the students’ responses to the English and Arabic Chemical Common Name Tests showed that undergraduate student-translators in the present study had considerable difficulty in translating English common names of chemical compounds to Arabic and vice versa. The students gave a total of 690 and 824 incorrect responses to the English and Arabic test items respectively, as opposed to 420 and 411 total correct responses to the English and Arabic test items respectively. There were 2211 or 55% blank responses on both tests. The typical student responded to 35% of the chemical common names on the whole test. However, less than 20% of the attempts, i.e., test items they responded to were fully correct (See Table 8.1). In addition, test results showed that many undergraduate translation students in the present study did not notice that some items on both tests are equivalents or synonyms as they left some blank of they gave partial or faulty translation as in the following examples that are synonyms: aqua ammonia & ammonia liquor; ،‫ ماء الفضة; الصودا الكاوية‬،‫ الماء الملكي‬،‫القاصر & مسحوق التبييض; ماء النار & الماء القوي‬ ‫مسحوق‬ ‫ ;قلي الصودا & األبيض الكاوي; الملح اإلنجليزي & الملح المر‬and the following items on the English and Arabic tests that are equivalents: spirit of niter & ‫ ;حجر جهنم‬chlorinating powder ‫مسحوق القاصر‬ & ‫ ;مسحوق التبييض‬saltpetre ‫البارود‬ ‫ملح‬  and that the equivalent of lunar caustic is ‫ حجر جهنم‬although it literally means stone from hell. Table 8.1  Mean, Median, Range And Sum of Correct and Incorrect Responses to the English and Arabic Chemical Common Names Tests Chemical Names Test N Arabic 67 English 67 Total

Mean Correct (%) 25.2 27.4 24.7

Incorrect (%) 41.7 42.2 40.0

Median Correct (%) 20 22 20

Range Incorrect (%) 43 41 43

Correct 2–11 3–10 2–17

Sum Incorrect 3–19 2–20 2–20

Correct 411 420 831

Incorrect  824  690 1514

166

R. Al-Jarf

The difficulties that undergraduate students have in translating English and Arabic chemical common names are consistent with findings of a study by An-Nayef’s (2002) which reported that the majority of his subjects did not know the exact meaning of many key medical terms in a medical text, which negatively affected their comprehension of the medical text and then translating it properly into Arabic. The present study findings are also consistent with Argeg’s (2015) study which indicated that translation of medical terms was problematic for inexperienced translators and postgraduate translation students in his study. Inexperienced translators and postgraduate students in his study were weak at finding accurate translations and appropriate explanations for the medical terms that they could not locate in EnglishArabic medical dictionaries. As in AI-Kharabsheh’s study, mistranslations in the present study can be attributed to the tendency to use literal translation, students’ poor linguistic competence, and lack of specialization in technical chemical terminology and their common names, and insufficient experience in chemical translation. Another possible explanation is unfamiliarity with most English and Arabic common names on the test, or because many English and Arabic chemical common names are opaque.

8.5.3  S  trategies That Students Used in Translating Chemical Common Names Data analysis showed that the strategies the subjects utilized in translating English and Arabic chemical common names were as follows: 1. Avoidance which constituted the most common strategy, as there were 55% blank responses on both tests by all students. Many students left the following items on both tests blank: ammonia liquor, feldspar, slaked lime, chlorinating powder, chlorinated soda, citric acid, bluestone algicide, lactic acid, spirit of niter, sulfur potash, acetic acid, blue vitriol, Arseneous Anhydride, saltpeter،‫الزرنيخ الالمائي‬ ‫ الزنجار‬،‫ مسحوق القاصر‬،‫ العطرون او النطرون‬،‫ زاج الخارصين‬،‫ زيت الزاج‬،‫حجر جهنم‬. 2. Literal translation where the subjects tended to translate the English and Arabic chemical common names word-for-word, i.e., as two single words, not as a unit, although Arabic and/or English equivalent common names exist, as in the following English and Arabic faulty responses: English as ST • Soda water was translated as ‫صودا الماء‬ • rather than ‫المياه الغازية‬ • Acetic acid ‫حمض االستيك‬ • Quicksilver ‫ الفضة السريعة‬not ‫الفضة الحية‬ • Sour salt ‫ الملح الحامض أو الملح المر‬not ‫ملح الليمون‬ • Table salt ‫ ملح الطاولة‬not ‫ملح الطعام‬ • Ammonia liquor ‫كحول األمونيا‬

Arabic as ST • ‫ الحجر الكلسي‬kils stone not limestone • ‫ حجر جهنم‬hell/hot stone not lunar caustic • ‫ حمض النمليك‬ant acid not formic acid • ‫ الطباشير الفرنسي‬French chalk not talc • ‫ ماء الفضة‬silver water not spirit of niter • ‫ الماء الملكي‬royal water not water regia

8  Issues in Translating English and Arabic Common Names of Chemical Compounds…

167

3. Transliteration. Here the students transcribed the English common names Ammoniac, aqua ammonia, aqua Tofani, Feldspar, citric acid, lactic acid, sulfur potash, acetic acid, uric acid, vitriol, saltpetre with Arabic letters; and the Arabic common names ‫ الشب‬،‫ نطرون‬،‫ الزنجار‬،‫ حمض الجاويك‬،‫ السلقون‬with Latin letters. 4. Partial translation where part of the compound common name, mostly the identifier such as: gas, alcohol, water, salt, oil, was translated; the other part was left blank. For instance: English as ST Quicksilver ‫الفضة‬ Slaked lime ‫الحجر الجيري‬ Bluestone algicide ‫الحجر األزرق‬ Spirit of niter ‫روح‬ Chlorinating powder ‫مسحوق‬

Arabic as ST ‫ زيت الزاج‬oil ‫ زاج الخارصين‬zinc ‫ مسحوق القاصر‬powder ‫ قلي الصودا‬soda ‫ األبيض الكاوي‬white

5. Giving one equivalent only, in the case of multiple equivalents in which case the equivalent given was the borrowed (English) common name rather than the pure Arabic or Arabized equivalent. e.g.:

(a) Citric acid was translated as ‫ حمض الستريك‬rather than ‫حمض الليمونيك‬ (b) Lactic acid was translated as ‫ حمض الالكتيك‬rather than ‫حمض اللبن أو حمض اللبنيك‬ (c) Acetic acid was translated as ‫ حمض االستيك‬rather than ‫حمض الخليك أو حمض الخل‬ (d) Battery acid was translated as ‫ حمض البطارية‬rather than ‫حمض المراكن‬ (e) Uric acid was translated as ‫ يوريك أسيد‬rather than ‫حمض البوليك أو حمض البول‬

6. Explanation (paraphrase) as in: (a) Chlorinating powder ‫ إضافة الكلور الى المسحوق‬or ‫ مسحوق الكلور‬instead of ‫مسحوق الكلورة‬ (b) Chlorinated soda ‫ إضافة الكلور إلى الصودا‬or ‫ صودا الكلور‬instead of ‫الصودا المكلورة‬ (c) ‫ حجر جهنم‬hot stone instead of lunar caustic 7. Transposition and Translation Shift (a) Aqua ammonia was translated by reversing (transposing) th two words of the compound thus changing the part of speech and definiteness of the two words of the compound such as saying ‫ االمونيا المائية‬instead of ‫ماء األمونيا‬. (b) Changing the word type in the compound. Sulfur potash was translated into a compound using a noun rather than the new derived form (past participle) as in ‫ بوتاس الكبريت‬instead of ‫البوتاس المكبرت‬ (c) Changing the number of a component of the compound as in saying Battery acid ‫ حمض البطارية‬in the singular rather than using the plural ‫حمض البطاريات‬. The above findings are consistent with findings of other prior studies conducted with translation students at COLT by Al-Jarf (2010), Al-Jarf (2018), which investigated the strategies used in translating neologisms and medical terminology from English to Arabic and vice versa; and strategies used in translating non-technical and non-scientific lexical items and structures such as binomials,

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om- and abu-expressions, color-based metaphors and plural forms (Al-Jarf 2016; Al-Jarf 2017; Al-Jarf (2019); Al-Jarf 2020). In all of those studies, translation students at COLT, used the same translation strategies such as literal translation, loan words, loan translation, transliteration, adaptation, addition, replication, and/or loan blends with varying degrees of focus on those strategies depending on the subject matter translated. In addition, the above findings are partially consistent with findings of Alhihi (2015) and AI-Kharabsheh’s (2003) studies that reported lexical and compound translation problems in health and techno-scientific documents translated by English-Arabic accredited translators and M.A. students majoring in translation respectively. Results of their data analysis showed addition, omission, compound, synonym, collocation, transliteration, transposition, explanation, expansion, and idiomatic translation errors and inconsistencies. Alhihi attributed lexical errors to complex and/or new lexical items, and AI-Kharabsheh attributed them to students’ poor linguistic competence, poor contrastive translation competence, the varying degrees of opaqueness in the terms, unfamiliarity with technical compounds, and insufficient experience and practice in technical translation. Unlike Alhihi and Al-Kharabshe’s studies, no textual and stylistic problems, nor collocation, expansion, and idiomatic translation errors were found, as common names in the present study were translated out of context, and not in a text.

8.5.4  Sources of Translation Errors The mistranslation strategies that student-translators in the present study used reflect insufficient knowledge of English and Arabic chemical common names, what they mean and their conceptual basis, resulting in an inadequate ability to comprehend, match and transfer their meaning from one language to the other. This was confirmed by the qualitative analysis of the students’ responses to the questionnaire-­survey. All of the students reported that they are not familiar with most of the English and Arabic common names of chemical compounds on the test such as blue vitriol, saltpetre, oil of wintergreen, Arseneous anhydride and ‫ الماء‬،‫ماء النار‬ ‫ العطرون او‬،‫ زاج الخارصين‬،‫ زيت الزاج‬،‫ حمض النمليك‬،‫ حجر جهنم‬،‫ ماء الفضة‬،‫ الماء الملكي‬،‫القوي‬ ‫النطرون‬،. They did not know whether to translate those literally, transliterate them or whether there is a common name that is different in form and meaning which they did not know. They added that in some cases, they are more familiar with the borrowing (loan word) such as ammonia & zinc than the original Arabic equivalents ‫نشادر & خارصين‬, and that they are not familiar with some newly Arabized words) neologisms (such as ‫ مكلور‬،‫ كلورة‬،‫ الجاويك‬،‫ حمض الليمونيك‬،‫مكبرت‬. Furthermore, many students indicated that some chemical common names are easier to understand than others, especially those where the Arabic common name is a calque of loan translation, a borrowing or an Arabized word of the English common name as in chloroform, acetone, freon, silica, quartz, and magnetite.

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The students also reported that translating chemical technical terms from one language to another is easier than translating chemical common names from English to Arabic and vice versa, as there is a one-to-one correspondence between the English and Arabic chemical technical terms, but there is no such correspondence in many chemical common names in the two languages. Many technical chemical terms are the same in English and Arabic such as Sodium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Aluminum Silicate and Sodium Phosphate. They are just different in word order to fit the syntactic system of each language. In the former case, the students learn the technical terms for the elements and compounds in both languages. As a result, it is easier to translate any technical term of even a new compound from one language to the other. On the other hand, when translating common names, the meaning, in many cases, is opaque, and there is no correspondence in form and meaning between the English and Arabic common names of a particular technical term (lunar caustic ‫حجر جهنم‬, washing soda ‫)العطرون النطرون‬. The difficulties that students in the present study have with English and Arabic chemical common names translation equivalents are similar to some of the problems that medical translators face such as translation of eponyms because they are usually synonyms for other terms (Huang 2013). Lack of background knowledge in chemistry and its effect on translation quality is supported by Namdari and Shahrokhi (2015), who compared translation students and chemistry majors and found significant differences between both groups’ translation accuracy, and pragmatic and lexico-­syntactic features of the target text. Chemistry students outperformed translation students in translation accuracy and lexical and pragmatic features of the translation, whereas translation students were better in terms of syntactic features of the translation. This means that knowledge of the subject matter and specialized terminology is more critical than language skills.

8.6  Conclusion Findings of the present study showed that student-translators have considerable difficulty in translating English and Arabic common names of chemical compounds. To help students master English and Arabic chemical common names, the present study recommends that common names of chemical compounds be directly and explicitly taught in the Natural Science Translation course. It also recommends that translation instructors provide students with translation activities that help enhance their knowledge of common names of chemical compounds and develop their ability to transfer their meaning from English into Arabic and vice versa. Translation instructors may implement problem-based learning by relating the translation of chemistry texts and chemical common names to the real-world to help the students build interdisciplinary connections, and to allow them to directly engage with the industry, hospitals, specialists, and translation clients in the field. Instructors may teach students how to work with chemical common names of their future professional translation activity.

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Moreover, translation instructors can help students form and develop self-­ education skills that are useful for their future professional translation activity as chemical translators. They may teach students independent research skills to enable them to locate and verify chemical common names and their equivalents in different internet resources, especially specialized dictionaries. Students may create their own glossary of chemical technical terms and their equivalent common names in both English and Arabic. To solve students’ difficulties in understanding common names of chemical compounds, Huang (2013) recommends providing the students with adequate background knowledge through reading specialized texts in SL and TL, and checking reliable chemistry websites such as PubChem, IUPAC, Spectro Analytical Labs Limited (n.d.) and a variety of monolingual and bilingual specialized dictionaries, such as Al-Maani English-Arabic and Arabic-English Online Chemistry Dictionary; the Arabic ontology from Bir Zait University, to name just a few. Finally, the present study recommends that an English-Arabic online database of English-Arabic chemical common names be created where all the terminology covered in all of the English-Arabic chemistry dictionaries is stored, because the author noticed some shortcomings of the English-Arabic online chemistry dictionaries, in particular. Those shortcomings include providing common names for some technical terms but not for others; giving all entries for all compounds sharing the same element, rather than giving the entry for the specific compound entered in the search box; lack of comprehensive coverage; and the random arrangement of the entries obtained in which case one has to go through all of the entries to find the term he/ she is looking for. To overcome those shortcomings, common names of a single chemical technical term can be compiled from all of the dictionaries, the different equivalents evaluated, the best selected, and the entries arranged alphabetically. The database search engine should also be more rigorous so that a user only gets the terms he/she is looking for, not everything. Linguists, chemical translators, Arabic Language Academies, the Arabization Center in Morocco and other stakeholders can contribute to the establishment of this chemical terminology database, maintaining and updating its content, checking the equivalents orthographically, semantically, and morphologically. This way student-translators and instructors can have access to all of the dictionaries, terms, their common names, and their equivalents. This will save their time and efforts and provide them with a more reliable, accurate and comprehensive list of common names and their equivalents.

References AI-Kharabsheh A (2003) The translation of different types of technico-scientific compounds from English into Arabic. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Salford, UK Al-Ali A (2019) Common names for most common chemical compounds (In Arabic). https:// www.chemistrysources.com/2019/07/‫­ال‬-‫­المركبات‬-‫­ألشهر‬-‫­الكيميائية‬-‫األسماء‬/. Accessed 25 June 2020 Alhihi N (2015) Lexical problems in English to Arabic translation: a critical analysis of health documents in Australia. Arab World Engl J 6(2):316–328

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Al-Jarf R (2010) Translation students’ difficulties with English neologisms. Analele Universităţii “Dunărea De Jos” Din Galaţi, Fascicula 24, Anul 3(2). 431–437. ERIC ED613253 Al-Jarf R (2016) Translation of English and Arabic binomials by advanced and novice student translators. In: Ilynska L, Platonova M (eds) Meaning in translation: illusion of precision. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, pp 281–298 Al-Jarf R (2017) Issues in translating Arabic Om- and Abu-Expressions. Alatoo Acad Stud. 3:278–282. ERIC ED613247 Al-Jarf R (2018) Multiple Arabic equivalents to English medical terms: translation issues. Int Linguist Res 1(1):102–110. https://doi.org/10.30560/ilr.v1n1p102 Al-Jarf R (2019) Translation students’ difficulties with English and Arabic color-based metaphorical expressions. Fachsprache 41(Sp. Issue):101–118. https://doi.org/10.24989/fs.v41iS1.1774 Al-Jarf R (2020) Issues in translating English and Arabic plurals. Universitatea “1 Decembrie 1918” din Alba Iulia. J Linguistic Intercult Educ (uab.ro). https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2020.13.1 An-Nayef M (2002) Strategies used by Syrian postgraduate medical students when translating an English medical text into Arabic. Second International TEFL Conference on Literature: Towards Better Intercultural Communication, Damascus University, May 28–30 Argeg G (2015) The problems of translating medical terms from English into Arabic. Ph.D. Thesis. Durham University, UK Ashqar A (2013) The problem of equivalence: The translation into Arabic of specialized technological texts. M.A. Thesis. An-Najah National University Bir Zeit University. Arabic ontology. https://ontology.birzeit.edu. Accessed August 1, 2021 Buzarna-Tihenea A, Nadrag L (2016) The challenges of technical translation: Case study. Ovidius Univ Ann Econ Sci Ser 16(2):192–197 Forutanian S (2013) Designing a model for translation of technical terminology. IJRELT 1(2):40–48 Hassan B-e (2017a) Translating scientific terminology: examples from the Arabic versions of two international magazines. Mediterr J Soc Sci 8(2):183–193 Hassan S (2017b) Translating technical terms into Arabic: Microsoft terminology collection (English Arabic) as an example. Int J Transl Interpreting Res 9(2):67–86 Huang J (2013) Terminology issues unique to medical translation. https://termcoordwordpress. com/2013/06/11/terminology-­issues-­unique-­to-­medical-­translation/. Accessed 1 Aug 2021 Ijioma N, Ezeafulukwe O (2015) Translating technical texts: The Igbo language example. Afr Educ Res J 3(2):104–110 Kameneva N (2019) Analysis of lexical features of the Russian and English languages in the sphere of information technologies. Russ J Linguist Vestnik RUDN 23(1):185–199 Karlsson S (2011) Terminology in the translation of two texts on structural engineering. University of Linnaeus, Växjö Kastelan-Macan M (2008) Croatian analytical terminology. Kem Ind 57(4):175–188 Katz D, O’Brien T, Bonham D, Rubeck M, Khalsa G (2002) Common chemicals and supplies in and around your home. http://www.chymist.com/Common%20 chemicals.pdf. Accessed 1 Aug 2021 Mai LH, Ngoc L, Tuan L (2014) Translating scientific terms. J Lang Teach Res 5(3):572–580 Namdari R, Shahrokhi M (2015) Differences in translation by translation specialized and non-­ specialized students in terms of accuracy of pragmatic equivalence and lexico-syntactic properties. Int J Engl Lang Transl Stud 3(2):67–73 Napu N, Hasan R (2019) Translation problems analysis of students’ academic essay. Int J Linguist Lit Transl 2(5):1–11 Oliveboard (ND) (n.d.) Common chemical compounds names and formulas. https://download. oliveboard.in/pdf/Ebook-Chemical-Compounds.pdf. Accessed 1 Aug 2021 PubChem (n.d.). https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. Accessed 1 Aug 2021 Raos N (2015) Chemical nomenclature and terminology in the light of nationalism. Kem Ind 64(1-2):19–25. https://doi.org/10.15255/KUI.2013.037 Rapić V, Varga-Defterdarović L (2013) Nomenclature and terminology of organic chemistry. sixty years of croatian nomenclature of organic chemistry. Kem Ind 62(07-08):261–270

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Sayle R (2009) Foreign language translation of chemical nomenclature by computer. J Chem Inf Mod 49(3):519–530 Shebint N (2020) List of chemical compounds and their common names and formulas. https://entri. app/blog/list-­of-­chemical-­compounds-­and-­their-­common-­names-­and-­formulas/. Accessed 1 Aug 2021 Spectro Analytical Labs Limited (n.d.) Common names of certain chemical compounds. https:// www.spectro.in/Chemical-­Compounds.html. Accessed 1 Aug 2021 Tabrizi HH, Pezeshki M (2015) Strategies used in translation of scientific texts to cope with lexical gaps. Theory Pract Lang Stud 5(6):1173–1178 Taljard E, Nchabeleng M (2012) Management and internal standardization of chemistry terminology: a Northern Sotho case study. Lexikos 21:1. https://doi.org/10.5788/21-­1-­43 Valdez S (2019) Perceived and observed translational norms in biomedical translation in the contemporary Portuguese translation market: A quantitative and qualitative product- and process-­ oriented study. Ph.D. Thesis. Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Vinay J-P, Darbelnet J (1977) Stylistique comparée du Français et de L’Anglais. Didier, Paris

Chapter 9

Mediating and Transforming Knowledge in Daily Intercultural Communication: A Case of Arthurian Myth in Politics Anastasia Sharapkova

“I agree with the Bretons that King Arthur’s name will live for evermore.” (Chretien de Troyes, Ywain)

Abstract  Myth as a complex conceptual matrix is proved to be not a relic of the past but a viable tool for cognising the world, organising knowledge, and mediating it. Myth has always played a vital role in forming national identities; some authors even claimed that contemporary politics “goes on at a mythic level” (Singer 2014: i). However, the possible limits of myth transformation and the typical transformations have not been addressed from the cognitive linguistic perspective. This chapter addresses the historical practices the myth got exploited in different periods of crisis and shifts providing examples from British and American history. The myth about King Arthur is shown to be easily filled with new relevant content to be used as a political tool. The chapter further analyses how the Arthurian myth got actualised in contemporary media discourse. British press devoted to a political crisis in the UK (Brexit) in 2016–2020 is scrutinised through the cognitive-­linguistic methodology. We single out four stages the myth got reactualized in. For each stage, we define the cognitive mechanisms of representing various characters and artefacts of the famous myth as well as the linguistic tools making the models suggested by a myth more vivid. We have chosen the following newspapers: “The Guardian”, “The Times”, “Independent”, “BBC”, “Telegraph” as major sources, yet other sources we resort to as well when necessary. We traced how the Holy Grail metaphor first appeared as a description of some critical cornerstone idea before the referendum and how the positive background of the idiom was changed to a negative one. Next, references to the famous film This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, the grant No. 18–78–00128. A. Sharapkova (*) Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_9

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“Monty Python and the Holy grail” were found to be used in Brexit discourse, and, finally, the myth of King Arthur became actualised. The conceptual possibility for a new leader of the country to be searched for was created. The peak was reached when the British nation reacted to another film based on Arthurian motives—“The kid who would be king” (2019), where the old myth was successfully transferred to a contemporary reality and old concepts mediated through modern realia. Advertised as a film for children, it introduced an ironic interpretation of the most important mythological elements (such as the appearance of Excalibur’s sword in the bathroom or the use of a Google Translate for the Latin language). It had an undoubting educational potential (to be a good friend, not offend the weak). Yet, it was clearly understood as a message against Brexit by the adult audience. Linguistic and conceptual analysis reveals how the myth is gradually updated, manipulated, and actualised to interpret, augment, and potentially even transform reality. The myth about King Arthur is quickly filled with novel, relevant content and still determines the Anglo-Saxon identity and the formation of a national ideology. In this case, the myth about King Arthur serves as a marker of crisis and could model potential ways out of it. Keywords  Knowledge · Discourse · Myth · Brexit · King Arthur · Conceptualization · Cognitive mechanism · Knowledge mediation · Cognitive mechanisms · Conceptual matrix

9.1  Introduction and Theoretical Background Surrounded by appealing manifestations of scientific thought transforming the world around us, we tend to believe that myths are nothing more than idle tales successfully pushed out by critical thinking to the enclaves with indigenous tribes or times immemorial. Still, as the amounting research into mythology has most clearly demonstrated, these “traditional prose narratives” (Bascom 1965, p. 136) distributed through societies still form part and parcel of our daily lives whether we realise it or not. One of the pioneers of myth studies, Mircea Eliade, stressed that the human mind is greatly mythologised: “The modern man who feels and claims that he is nonreligious still retains a large stock of camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals” (Eliade 1963, pp. 204–205). About half a century after Midgley developed it further, “they (myths) decide what we think important and what we ignore. They provide the tools with which we organise the mass of incoming data” (Midgley 2011, p. 4). Central to myth understanding is that it reflects both the conceptualisations of large groups of people and the individual ones. Myth is not “a story for its own sake. It shows how we should behave” based on distilled, processed, and solidified common knowledge (Armstrong 2005, p. 4). Therefore, the myth becomes the

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first natural cognitive tool to bridge the gap between social and individual knowledge storage. Myth is a constituent part of collective consciousness as it implies a set of tools and techniques to deal with the surrounding world beyond the limits of direct perception. It explains the world drawing the meaningful lines. We proceed from the argument that “while meaning is identified as conceptualisation, cognition at all levels is both embodied and culturally embedded” (Langacker 2014, p.  33). So, myth could be viewed as a cultural phenomenon, as any culture inevitably has its own myths—the first and most important pillar in understanding the functions of myth in any period. Several crucial functions the myths could fulfil were singled out in pertinent literature. The most studied ones are as following: (1) religious and ritual (Eliade 1998); (2) psychological (Lévi-Strauss 1955); (3) social (regulatory) (Dumézil 1973; Barthes 2006); (4) cognitive (Losev 2001); (5) creative (Meletinsky 2014; Midgley 2011); (6) communicative (Cassirer 1979); and (7) educational (Campbell 1970). Many of them emerged in an archaic society and vanished into thin air once fulfilling their functions. However, not all myths have faded into oblivion, many survived, and their functions got significantly transformed with time. Studies into mythologies of various cultural communities at different stages of their development and those into mass consciousness have shown the pervasiveness of such phenomenon as myth in human culture. At the heart of myth studies, there lies the linguistic medium or the form the myths lives by; myth is stored in narrations and is spread through them. Thus, there is always an inseparable bond between the structures of knowledge stored in myth and the discourse they are presented with no one being superior. The meaning takes the recognisable form; while the form impacts the meaning-making, it is possible to mimic the initial mythological discourse in the secondary ones. The possibility to mythologise almost any discourse was shown for various types of discourse (Barthes 2006). In this case, a recognisable form or a familiar narration comes to the limelight, as Barthes poetically described it in the following way: “the form does not suppress the meaning, it only impoverishes it, it puts it at a distance, it holds it at one’s disposal the form must constantly be able to be rooted again in the meaning and to get there what nature it needs for its nutriment; above all, it must be able to hide there. It is this constant game of hide-and-seek between the meaning and the form which defines myth” (Barthes 1984). Therefore, the myth gets reactualised in retellings of the well-known stories, the process reminiscent of the repeated rituals myths were projected onto society in archaic times (McCauley and Lawson 2002). This process embraces recognisable elements in discourse and proceeds through what Vygotsky called the “semiotic mediation” of higher cognition. This process is constitutive of higher cognitive functions, including yet not restricted to the mediation of thought by language (the cultural rituals not requiring words are the example). He most clearly argued: “The central fact about our psychology is the fact of mediation” (Vygotsky 1982:166). Myths in this respect allow to mediate specific knowledge easier and more effectively in large social groups to ‘think together’ to be able to ‘work together’, thus leading to cooperation—the cornerstone of human

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evolution at large. Quoting the representative of cultural-historical approach to mind again, “all higher mental functions are internalised social relationships” (Vygotsky 1982, p. 164). Mediation could be understood in the most general sense as myths, being referred to the “ontological stories” (Uspensky 1996, p. 26), developed “our ability to think beyond the here and now storytelling helps us not to override the given, but to be less restricted by it, to cope with it more flexibly and on something more like our own terms” (Boyd 2010, p. 50). Myths are the earliest systems that “fix and organise abstract conceptual relationships in terms of concrete images and thus make speculative thought possible” (Geertz 2000, p. 13). Therefore, we proceed to the second pillar in our reasoning about myth: it is revealed to be not only a cultural phenomenon but also a cognitive one, albeit rather complicated. Myth and the early forms of religion are considered to be the “natural product of aggregated ordinary cognitive processes” as cognitive anthropology studies of the past years demonstrated (Barrett 2000, p. 29), and myth concepts are largely “governed by the same kind of constraints” (Boyer and Ramble 2001). These processes embrace categorisation that implies construing the ontological category membership invariant through cultures (Keil 1989) and conceptualisation, i.e. building minimally counterintuitive concepts. The latter means forming the base-­ level concepts that “resemble intuitive ontological assumptions” (Barrett 2000, p. 30). In the cognitive approach to mythological studies, myths were defined as “mental models in the minds of individuals in a culture” (Hodge 2006, p. 8). They were proved to be not a relic of the past but a viable tool for cognising the world, organising the incoming data, and even mediating knowledge “between social structure and group as well as individual knowledge, perception, attitudes and activities” (van Dijk 2014, p. 398). Therefore, myths could be studied as a complex multi-levelled matrix or the pragmatically required cognitive construct for processing new data and interpreting the world through the existing models. Both old and new myths were revealed to be operating within and operated upon within the following areas: ideology, advertising, and mass culture. Some authors even claimed that contemporary politics “goes on at a mythic level” (Singer 2014: i). One of the possible definitions of the nation reads as follows: “a named human population sharing a historic territory, common myths, and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members” (Smith 1992). Construing some consensus on a collective past facilitates mediating the views on the collective future. More or less concurrent with this view, Stråth wrote, “there is a connection between myth and historiography through the form of narration, through the very way in which the story is told” (Strath 2006, p.  28). However, it is still unclear how myths could be actualised in the human psyche and be disseminated through verbal products today. This fact necessitates a thorough linguistic and cognitive linguistic analysis of myths in contemporary discourse. This could allow addressing the possible functions they fulfil in modern society. Moreover, it will pinpoint some tendencies in mediating and transforming knowledge in daily intercultural communication, especially the role myths play in it.

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The present chapter is going to address these questions from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Firstly, we discuss the myth about King Arthur and the historical practices the myth got exploited in different periods of crisis and shifts providing examples from British and American history. Secondly, we analyse the steps the myth got actualised during the Brexit crisis. Finally, we discuss the function the myth could play in contemporary society.

9.2  Historical Background: Arthurian Myth in Politics Arguably one of the best possible models to study myths and their role in mediating knowledge in daily communication and mass culture is the myth about King Arthur being the core element of Anglo-Saxon culture. Originating presumably in the fifth century A.D., the myth about King Arthur underwent several key transformations, setting the tone for medieval romances (“Le Morted’Arthur” by T. Malory), defining Victorian ideology (“Idylls of the King” by A. Tennyson), and serving as the basis for American ideology (boy scouting movement). Fundamentally, the myth about King Arthur is the embodiment of power, a vivid example of a just ruler protecting his people verbalised in the recurrent phrase known nearly to every child: “rex quon dam, rex que futurus”. What is more, this myth is inevitably about selfand nation-identity and has revived to tell the everlasting story of magnificence, bravery and honour. Quite ironically though, through this repeatеdness of the text or the self-­ replicating narration, this myth has fulfilled the prophecy of “once and future king”—the famous legend about the immortal Arthur sleeping in a cave with his men “ready to awaken when his people are in their hour of need when he will rush forth with his army to defeat the enemy. He has been reborn to the world century after a century from the pen, brush and imagination of numerous writers, artists, poets and politicians” (Blake and Lloyd 2002, p. 8). Through centuries the myth about King Arthur has offered a rich and valued source of inspiration for different forms of art; now, it exists in numerous interpretations. It stepped beyond the boundaries of time and emerged into the modern world and language while retaining the invariant plot and integrating new images, characters, and ideas. It is precisely because of the structures of knowledge stored in the myth that it underwent a series of successful transformations. It was demythologised, modernised, combined with other myths, and even merged with scientific reasoning (Sharapkova et  al. 2019). These transformations usually follow the principle of “openness of myth“(Dentzien 2004, p. 24). Before studying the example of exploiting myth in contemporary political agenda, let us overview some historical examples of manipulating reality by exploiting this myth in various semiotic forms ranging from a text to an artefact with strong symbolic power. It is recognised that Geoffrey of Monmouth’s text “History of the Britons” aimed to justify the Norman conquest and legitimise the new government rather than

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entertainment pure and simple. “Frequent references to the damaging effects of discord” (Gillingham 2000, p. 21) point at the civil war or a period of anarchy after Henry’s I death in 1135 and tensions in the court. The author was primarily concerned with the politics of cultural nationalism as “Arthur’s empire was in some way a pre-figuration of the Norman Empire, that the figure of Arthur was formed in the image of Charlemagne or Alexander, and that in the line of British kings descended from Brutus, Geoffrey was providing the contemporary kings of England with a genealogy older and more distinguished than that of the Frankish rulers descended from Charlemange” (Gillingham 2000, p. 22). It could be debated, though, as to what extent this book influenced the minds of contemporary decision-makers, yet the impact of literature should not be underestimated as it carved out some features of national identity. Here we resonate with the view expressed by Martin and Nakayama, who noticed that “the critical perspective is the attempt to understand identity formation within the contexts of history, economics, politics and discourse” (2000, p. 116). The prime example of an intentional symbolic use of this myth to transform the interpretation of contemporary reality was a nearly miraculous discovery of King Arthur’s grave in Glastonbury. The mythological claim that Arthur is not dead and is waiting for his return to help his people, mainly the Scots, resist the Normans was not the best political asset for Henry II (1133–1189). The need for Henry II to strengthen his prestige, undermined by the assassination of Thomas Beckett, made him pay attention to the claims of the abbey, convincingly supported by historical evidence in (Gransden 1976). On the part of the king, this discovery presumably cut in two directions: first, the corpse found could have stopped the rebellious Celts who kept on opposing the power rooted in beliefs of a living Arthur; second, through historical roots and connection with a historical, real and dead King Arthur Henry’s claims to the throne should have been reinforced. On the part of the abbey, there was the third and rather a pragmatic necessity to rebuild one of the chapels destroyed by the fire through attracting the pilgrims—the invaluable source of income for monasteries and abbeys. Through this lucky coincidence, the tomb was found in 1191, and the exhumation was carried out during the reign of Richard I (1157–1199). Further, the body was further ceremonially reburied during the reign of Edward I “in order to destroy the British separatist element and in order to present King Arthur as a symbol to the entire nation. King Arthur was de-celticized and anglicised” (Göller 1984, p. 60). Thus, the symbolic space of myth got projected into a contemporary reality setting the scene for further built-up of feudalism and English royal power. W. Caxton published “Le Morte D’arthur” by T. Mallory, and this coincided with the end of the lengthy wars of the Roses (1455–1485), partially trying to model a context to unify the English royal court and propose the illustrious hero and an ideal ruler who could unite the English nation (Radulescu 2003). Moreover, being the editor, he changed the animal in Arthur’s dream, particularly, a boar present in the original Winchester manuscript to a bear to make a bold political allusion: “the boar was the badge of King Richard III and the dragon that of Henry Tudor” (Field 1995, p. 37). Arthur was thus indirectly yet easily projected onto victorious Henry.

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It goes without saying that symbols and artefacts play a more critical role in political issues than texts. Yet, the texts written and rewritten create a context for these symbols to mediate their meaning unambiguously. Last but by no means least comes the example of the Round Table we are all familiar with. This is the Winchester Round Table hanging in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle bearing the names of Arthur’s knights and an inscription: “Thys is the rownde table of kyng Arthur” at the centre. This table is characterised as “an expression of political, chivalric, and imperial aims in late medieval and early modern England” (Whitman 2008, p. 35). The table could have been woodcut during the reign of Edward I—a passionate lover of chivalric ideals of old days and the organiser of several tournaments called “the Round Tables”. However, the symbolic painting was done by order of Henry VIII of England (for a more detailed discussion of archaeological debates and the latest historical data, see Biddle 2000). Apart from the place-names and swords of the known knights, the table depicts Henry himself sitting in Arthur’s seat above a Tudor rose, thus blending and incorporating new symbols to the old ones and again rooting the contemporary power in the archaic myth. One of the recent examples not to be dismissed is the interest in Arthurian themes and images in poetry during WWII. The images of demolishing Camelot appeared in London’s bombardment in 1940–1941 (the Blitz), comparing young British pilots to medieval knights fighting with the Nazi dragon with the ‘sword of freedom’. This connection was exploited and revived on purpose, as “have been the work of Churchill, for whom Arthur was an important and authentically historical figure” (Simpson 2003, p. 68). Extensive quotations from Tennison, direct comparisons of the war and Crusades of the Knights of the Round Table, headlines and banners with knightly discourse such as “‘King Arthur’s knights are back again”, “the Knights of the speeding Plane”, “the old heroic ways”. BBC radio, whose role in WWII has been undeniably crucial at the darkest times, broadcasted Churchill’s speeches and the theatrical performance of T.H.  G. White’s “Sword in the Stone” and Henry Purcell’s “Fairest Isle”. The people were thus defending not their lives and homes but the historical heritage, some higher ideals that King Arthur himself fought for. Not magic but active and magnanimous image of a strong leader reflected in poetry of the period as well as in public discourse seemed to be the background stance for these troublesome times, providing some hope for the future. As we can observe, the tendency of processing the mythological plot from the aspirations and needs of modernity has punctuated the myth circulation since the earliest uses of Arthur’s image. There is always a living thread between representing the collective past and construing the collective future through a narrow hole of processed and organised present, making the myth a viable mediator. This allowed for keeping the myth alive and transforming the image of King Arthur having the Celtic roots into the prototype of an ideal ruler irrespective of the origin of this monarch and even of the political system by and large. Later on, in English literature of the nineteenth century, the images of Arthur and Robin Hood worked efficiently to create a glorious imperial history as well as to maintain a legend about the unique traits of the truly British character (Barczewski 2000). These are a few examples of how the myth helped pack the contemporary ideas into the old form to spread them more efficiently.

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Summing up, the myth actualisation could be considered a “barometer” of the processes in Anglo-American society at different periods of its development. The myth mediates abstract ideas pertaining to both abstract concepts and contemporary values to be introduced. Myths are exceptionally charged, with values becoming particularly salient at times of crisis. Myths may mediate the search for and approval of the national hero and his key characteristics, understanding of statehood, power, and leadership. Thus, the historical past and the political course of the country could be discussed through the prism of mythology, offering an excellent model to draw the necessary analogies. We may argue that Arthuriana at large reappears just when the English people need some confirmation of their national self-identification or modify its outdated representation. In other words when they need “to legitimise and underline current self-perceptions of political, colonial, cultural and economic power and identity” (Higham 2002, p. 39). Every time the myth represents a form allowing to fill itself with new content/meaning akin to old bottles filled with new wine. So, the value of the form from the semiotic perspective of the signifier simplifies the process of semiosis and the search for meaning and makes it possible to interpret the signified in the present day, i.e. it becomes an embodiment of new content. The persistent appeal to a particular myth indicates the necessity to actualise its inherent meanings and mediate new ones through the recognisable form. With its numerous sources of information and pluralism of opinions, a single and robust influence of only one myth on the mass consciousness is impossible in the modern world. However, a multi-layered narrative construct could still be modelled, and it could genuinely have an impact not to be dismissed or neglected. In this construct, the mythological layer is activated at the conceptual background or some matrix and the linguistic level—in the form of specific marker units and words belonging to the discourse about King Arthur. Thus, there is always a mutual influence of the human mind on myths and vice versa as the myths’ impact on reality. The latter idea is deeply rooted in the following claim championed by Claude Levi-Strauss, “myths signify the mind that evolves by making use of the world of which it is itself a part. Thus, there is a simultaneous production of myths by the mind and a production, by the myths, of an image of the world which is already inherent in the structure of the mind” (1969, p. 341). To scrutinise this image of the world and get access to the processes going on a conceptual level, we can study the linguistic manifestations: words, collocations, text amounting to the whole new discourse. In the further discussion, I mainly rely on the argument of cognitive-functional trend in linguistic studies that linguistic behaviour “is relatively privileged as a source of information because it is a type of behaviour which explicitly encodes and transmits conceptual information” (Nuyts and Pederson 1997, p. 4). In the following parts, I will show how the myth about King Arthur was appealed to stage by stage and how it is transformed on the way.

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9.3  Brexit and the Press The major focus of the present research is mass media during the Brexit period and particularly those magazines that exploited the allusions to the well-known myth most. We have chosen several central newspapers and magazines to search for these allusions manually; this selection generated a corpus of more than 200 examples. We aimed to show how the myth about King Arthur got gradually actualised in public discourse, mediating various opinions on this issue. The following magazines were selected as major research material: The Guardian, The Times, Independent, BBC, Telegraph. In addition, several other sources were addressed when necessary to draw a more or less comprehensive picture. The material could be roughly divided into four periods: (1) several publications before the referendum on leaving the EU, (2) after the referendum results were announced and during the preparation for the withdrawal in 2017, (3) just before voting for a regulated British withdrawal from the European Union in 2018–2019, (4) after the announcement 2019–2020 (Fig. 9.1). The collected material was analysed within a cognitive-functional paradigm of linguistic knowledge. At each stage, the leading cognitive mechanisms (perspectivization, changing the scanning path, focusing/defocusing, profiling, conceptual metonymy and metaphor, joining, completion, development) (Langacker 1987; Langaсker 2008; Talmy 2003) and linguistic features were singled out. This

Fig. 9.1  The frequency  of the phrase “Holy Grail” in press by years from June 1, 2016, to July 2020

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made it possible to study the process of a particular myth re-actualisation in dynamics. Here we do not divide the newspapers in terms of their position towards Brexit as clearly some took a clear remain stance, while the others—a leave stance. For instance, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, and Economist were characterised by a clear remain stance, while Telegraph, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Sunday Express and Spectator took the leave stance (Maccaferri 2019). It may look like those newspapers that reasoned from a remaining position used the references to the myth much more often, yet no correlation could be claimed for sure. This might be because Brexit as such became what was termed to be a ‘critical juncture’ “in which different historical and contingent discursive nexuses and trajectories have been at play” (Zappettini and Krzyżanowski 2019). It also implies that the same topics, concepts, discourse strategies, and even arguments could be used by both opposing sides with only minor details changed. Junctures are commonly “regarded as ‘critical’ because they set in motion path-dependent processes  – in other words, self-­ reinforcing trajectories  – that become difficult to reverse as they eventually consolidate into one specific dominant institutional setup” (Zappettini and Krzyżanowski 2019, p. 381). Let us briefly overview some of the key points and dates connected with Brexit as much comprehensive work has already been devoted to this topic (see Jackson et  al. 2016; Levy et  al. 2016; Becker et  al. 2017; Koller et  al. 2019; Maccaferri 2019). Brexit as a process based on the referendum results held on June 23, 2016, when 51.9% of the voters supported leaving the European Union, was marked to be a new phase in the so-called European Question. This unpredicted swing of the electoral pendulum triggered a struggle for people’s moods, opinions, and votes as much as the struggle for a balanced final decision. The very step of leaving the EU was described as a breakthrough of anti-globalist tendencies rooted in all positive features of British society: conservatism, traditionalism, imperial ambitions, “splendid isolation” (Harrison 2009), cultural uniqueness and the intrinsic “sense of superiority” (Simmons 2007). Some characterised Brexit as the manifestation of a populist trend (Inglehart and Norris 2016; Gaston and Harrison-Evans 2018). The referendum results seemed to be unexpected, as people demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the general course of the government that seemed to be evident before any idea of a referendum got shape. José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, pointed out several problems a way before the referendum itself: “At a time when so many Europeans are faced with unemployment, uncertainty and growing inequality, a sort of ‘European fatigue’ has set in, coupled with a lack of understanding. Who does what, who decides what, who controls whom and what? And where are we heading to?” (Traynor 2013). Moreover, the critical discourse towards the EU was based on the assumptions that “British identity, British economic orientation and political traditions are not part of Europe’s history and culture” (Maccaferri 2019, p.  4) represent a unique phenomenon to be developed, cherished and respected. Thus, during the 90s, several Eurosceptic myths were born; no matter in many cases they were just wrong, they were still revived later. These myths are so powerful that they are usually

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immune to fact-checking and easily get embedded in some preexisting knowledge structures, a picture of the world. Interestingly, a vague image of the future combined with the lack of confidence provides fertile soil for any mythology to develop, as myths generally offer potent mental models for the convoluted reality to be cognised and recognisable discourses to refer to. Britain and the EU have always had the “special”, “uneasy”, “troubled” or “complex” relationship as political experts used to define them (Koller et  al. 2019). One of the earliest works into media discourse of EU and Britain based on 1971–1992 press, the period of integration, rests on “clusters of dichotomous relationships grouped around a juxtaposition of ‘inside’ vs ‘outside’“ (Hardt-Mautner 1995, p. 182). The archaic opposition of self-non self is the most difficult to overcome and easily lends itself to myth-making. “Over the last two decades, the United Kingdom seemed to have grown increasingly lukewarm towards the EU. During the 2015 general election campaign, internal struggles within David Cameron’s Conservative party led him to promise a referendum on EU membership” (Becker et al. 2017, p. 602). The promise was kept, yet after the referendum, D. Cameron was replaced by T.  May since he resigned following the referendum results. It seemed that his goal was to remain in the EU.  At the same time, Theresa May1 accepted the results “Brexit means Brexit”, and her primary objective was to make Brexit as profitable as possible although considering it largely inexorable. However, the further negotiations progressed, the clearer it became that this task was much more complicated than it had looked before. The main arguments of Pro-Brexit supporters were the long-term benefits that Britain could get from leaving the EU, such as political independence, significant economic growth, and independent migration policy. As some scholars noted, the central arena of Pro- and Anti- Brexit views was the public discourse or rather the plethora of traditional historical discourses recontextualised, renarrated and reevaluated. “This re-narration reproduced historical arguments as well as reinterpreted dated clichés to finally create a new hierarchal discursive order” (Maccaferri 2019, p.  2). The press and online media thus have both a short-term impact on voters’ views and contribute to the long-term changes in public discourse. Historical examples and most archaic myths are more appropriate for these goals than purely rational reasoning from basic concepts.2 1  For the analysis of rhetoric of Theresa May based on systematic functional analysis see (Leung 2018). 2  This is beyond the scope of the present chapter, yet the number of historical articles connecting as archaic historical topics as the Roman Empire with contemporary agenda rose as well including Arthuriana as one of many yet the most potent political myth. The examples of these papers include the following: “Britain’s fight with European law goes back 750 years: The EU is undoing an approach pursued since the days of Henry III” (Spectator, 2016, April, 30); “Jean-Claude Juncker speaks to Britain like a Roman emperor…and David Cameron is responding like a loyal imperial governor” (Spectator, 2016, March, 12); “The fighting spirit of Boudicсa, warrior queen, lives on in Brexit Britain” (Telegraph, 2020, March, 4); “After years of Brexit make-believe, reality is finally closing in on our politicians” (Telegraph, 2019, March, 4). This points at the possibility that Arthuriana discourse was most naturally connected with finding the place and modifying the

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9.4  T  he First Stage of the Myth Actualisation in Media Discourse The first element of this myth to be actively exploited to convey the pivotal concepts of the Brexit process was the metaphor of the Holy Grail recurrent in journalistic writing long before the referendum. Yet, with the referendum due, it started to be exploited in journalism much more often and with distinctive peculiarities. Since metaphor is “experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p. 5), it becomes somewhat helpful in describing the concepts that are not yet fully formed (Johnson 2010). Moreover, metaphor is subject to derivation and creativity (Alekseeva and Mishlanova 2019). During Brexit searching for a balanced decision indeed started to resemble the quest for the impossible. The metaphor implies the quest for a mythical object or an idea that possibly is not yet very attractive. The content of the “Holy Grail” concept is broad, corresponding to extensive narrative heritage: “the legend that tells its enchanting story” (Murphy 2010, p.  4), thus, it easily allows to appeal to this mythological narrative or the broad encyclopedic meaning already stored in this linguistic sign. The latter “relates to the non-­linguistic knowledge representations that words tap into and can draw upon in situated language use” (Evans 2009, p. 4). In modern dictionaries, the characteristic meaning of this culture-specific idiom is noted as a desired but almost unattainable object: (1) something that people want very much, but which is very difficult or impossible to achieve (LDO); (2) A thing which is eagerly pursued or sought after (ODO); (3) something that is extremely difficult to find or get (CDO). According to the “Word Associations Network” dictionary, among the associations connected with the Holy Grail there are as follows: Lancelot, Monty Python, Brotherhood, Quest, Percival, Cauldron, Merlin, Avalon, Chivalry, Legend, Knight Crucifixion, Arthur, Knighthood, Immortality, Keystone, Myth, Spear, Christendom, Gareth, Search, Healed, Mystical, Romance, Bamboo, Unfinished, Dread, Mystic, Medieval, Elusive, Mediaeval, Sacred, Corrupted. Obviously, there are all the necessary connections with the Arthurian legend in the associative field. Let us bear in mind that one of the first associations presented in this set was the one with the famous film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” as this key moment, it will be used by T. May’s opponents later. There is also an interesting association with a keystone—a stone, the crucial element of an arch that indicates the most crucial idea or process when used metaphorically—“the most important part of an idea, belief, or process that influences how it develops” (LDO). It is clearly realised in examples from the British press of the first period—in 2016 and partially in 2017 that will be exemplified further.

attitude towards the roman past closely tied with understanding of imperialism. Two trends though more visible in cinematography could be singles out. The first sees Arthur as a rebellious towards the hegemony of the empire. The second views him and thus England as a true keeper of roman legacy: judicial, cultural, civilizational.

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The concept behind numerous stories about the Holy Grail could be represented as a distinct net of frames based on a SOURCE-PATH-GOAL image schema, from which the whole scenario arises. It is about the person who tries to reach the goal of getting the desired object. According to Fillmore, “the GOAL may be a desired STATE or be conceptualised as an EVENT” (FrameNet), but the GOAL may be equal to THING or PLACE that a person gets to. Thus, the essential part of introducing this metaphor is to map the conceptualisations and representations of the GOAL, namely what state, event, or thing could be considered as such. The other slots of the image schema come to the fore much later. The difficulty as an OBSTACLE or even blockage (Johnson 1987) may appear as a source of shaping the contours of human understanding, and the path is the most important and variable part of the schema, the speaker moves by. As it is typical of many concepts, the material domain could beсome helpful in the intellectual one (Fig. 9.2). During the first stage, the metaphor of the Holy Grail appears in the press shortly before the referendum, i.e. in 2016, as a journalistic cliché rather than a well-thought reference to the whole myth. Yet, it starts to be used in the contexts connected with economy and politics. For the entire period of 2016, this expression is used with positive connotations—it is the pursuit of an ideal, selfless chivalrous service to the country: If getting out of the EU has been his crusade, getting the pound down and manufacturing up is the Holy Grail (Independent 2016, Jan, 23)—that’s how the idea of improving the economic situation is described from the point of view of an economist and businessman John Mills an active supporter of Brexit. Likewise, the political program is compared to a crusade that alludes to chivalric deeds and knightly wars. During the first year following the referendum, the phrase Holy Grail is used to discuss the contemporary processes in society and those being of paramount importance for the well-being of a state. These include such concepts as welfare, free trade, markets, social stability. Each of these is considered an unattainable object, but the whole program of leaving the EU is not compared to the Holy

Fig. 9.2  The frame representation of the Holy Grail in dictionaries

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Grail yet. For example, the idea of state sovereignty: Up to a third of SNP voters— for whom “sovereignty” is the Holy Grail—may thus defy Sturgeon and vote for Brexit on Thursday (The Guardian 2016, Jun. 21). Notably, both the Remain- and Leave- discourse revolved around the key concepts connected with British identity: pound as a part of economic identity is opposed to euro, historical English liberties and constitutional freedoms to being part of European bureaucratic system, immigration referred to as “taking back control”. The general concept of something to attain was gradually formed through a part-­ whole relation: the ideal future cannot be connected with these concepts separately but is a complex of those. Thus, step by step, publication by publication, the conceptualisation of improving life in the country was equated with leaving the EU. Moreover, the primary mechanism here is comparison, the slow structural mapping of two conceptual areas—the quest for the Grail and modern politics (Fig. 9.3). The first cases in our corpus were accompanied by lexical markers indicating that this comparison is intentional, as it usually happens with unconventional or deliberate metaphors: debate have claimed the speech “as being some sort of holy grail” (BBC News 2016, May, 10). It may be explained by the “career of metaphor” proposed by Gentner and Bowdle (2005), claiming the primary role of comparison at the first stages of the metaphor conventionalisation succeeded by categorisation further. The first stage of using this metaphor is establishing a recurrent mapping between the features of the source domain (Holy Grail) and various concepts serving to be the target domains. Statements of the first period are accompanied by modal verbs used to increase the tentativeness in discussing this ideal future: (1) It would be “The Holy Grail of international trade, regulatory barriers (Independent 2016, Jun. 22); (2) It should be the holy grail of public policy, the priority for government and the cause which unites the nation in action (Telegraph 2016, Aug. 1). From the image of the Holy Grail, several associations are born through the following lexemes legend, fable, story etc., indicating Arthurian legend as the Grail—it is a key symbol of the knights of the Round table and their pursuit. Although the meaning of unattainability is hardly realised in the early examples, a unique perfection that is close to a Platonic ideal world: (1) This holy grail of EU legal reform would ensure the protection of citizens against discrimination on the grounds of

Fig. 9.3  The process of forming a singular amalgamated concept of a series of different ones

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religion and belief, disability and age or sexual orientation in employment (Guardian 2017, Dec, 22). Immigration, which has become a trigger for controversy: (2) The holy grail of politics for the next generation must be the quest for a new, more stable settlement between Anywheres and Somewheres—reconciling the two halves of humanity’s political soul (Times 2017, Apr, 3). All problems and aspirations are contextualised within Brexit discourse to form a hierarchical structure and brought together under a single category to be further appealed in discourse as a singular entity. A by-side, yet a vital trend is seen in trying to find some national/historical myths to unite, comfort and probe the leading principles to deal with the crisis in minds as in the article “Brexit Britain is desperate for a decent genesis myth” accompanied with illustrations from a modern re-enactment of the battle of Hastings: In 1136, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his History of the Kings of Britain, which disinterred the King Arthur tales as if they were fact and sent the barely existent monarch on foreign military excursions, invented to provide precedents for the policies of the recently deceased Henry I and to bind the country with a potent national myth (Guardian 2016, Oct, 30). Apparently, the ideological myths, as well as iconic historical figures, were used by both sides indiscriminately, possibly because “the ‘exceptionalism’ of the British political tradition lay at the heart of both, which supported both the need to leave the EU and ‘taking back control’ as well as ‘keeping the ties’ with the continent and reforming the European project” (Maccaferri 2019, p. 10). Summing up, the first period is characterised by perspectivization: the desired object is removed from the observer, and the necessity to search for some object is formed. Then, through an inherently positive concept, the political concepts are further recategorised from the axiological point of view, i.e. preparing the ground for working with the values. Earlier research into corpus linguistics of the ‘Leave campaign’ has revealed that one of the fundamental notions to be played upon was the “European value system as out of sync with British values” (Alkhammash 2020, p. 82). Values are, in fact, “representations of social arrangements” (van Dijk 1998, p.  14) of what is inherently thought to be good or bad, positive or negative, the desired or feared picture of the future. They also contribute to what is considered the collective majority, in other words, what “we believe others stand for”. Moreover, they are used “as a basis for the legitimation of their own interests or goals” (Ibid). Therefore, when the indiscriminate pull of ideas was brought under the singular category and metaphorically called a Holy Grail, it brought the encyclopedic knowledge and positive connotations, thus preparing the ground for conceptualising Brexit itself as one Holy Grail. It also provides the first conceptual knot for recontextualisation, appropriating (Bernstein 1990) the mythological discourse to describe the contemporary situation.

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9.5  T  he Second Step of Myth Actualisation: The Image of King Arthur Coming to the Fore Nostalgia for an old idea of sovereignty (Calhoun 2017) and attempts to revive the “Anglosphere” (Kenny and Pearce 2016, 2018) led to searching for solid and positive images to buttress these concepts from the cultural-sociological point of view. Significantly, the EU’s discourse drastically changed in the last few years from a largely positive stance that “Britain at the heart of Europe” appeared as an optimistic promise in 1991 to disillusionment in its core imperial impact in the early 2000s onwards. After the referendum, this metaphor drastically changed and was considered “a sick, non-functioning or rotten organ of a dying body” (Musolff 2013, 2017). Still, the aspirations remained and required redressing the linguistic repertoire. From the point of view of the cognitive structures underlying many of our linguistic choices, the appearance of the Holy Grail was decisive. It was the bifurcation point to actualise the whole encyclopedic knowledge preserved in the myth. The image schema of a SOURCE-PATH-GOAL inherently presupposes the person who seeks this goal and the myth itself offers this character. Since the Holy Grail is closely connected with Arthurian romances as the treasure sought for, the image of King Arthur starts to appear in the press to make the mythological allusions complete: Where King Arthur had the Holy Grail, the next Prime Minister faces a different task: unicorn hunting (Times 2017, May, 8). Like Arthur, who sent his knights for an adventure to find the Holy Grail, the Prime Minister trying to solve the country’s economic problems faces a complex problem, which probably has no solution, or, to be exact, any material embodiment. The goal is too vague and too complicated that it seems once you make it out, the solution escapes the view. In another context, this problem is described as a Herculean task. Obviously, the myth is not entirely projected onto the present yet, but the prerequisites for combining the two categories are being formed: Prime Minister + the goal = King Arthur + Holy Grail. Subsequently, the images of the Prime Minister and Arthur are merged and form a kind of common mental space according to the principles of blending (Fauconnier 1999). The Arthurian myth is clearly recognised as applying to a discussion about politics as early reactions to Guy Ritchie’s film “The Sword in the Stone” shown in 2017. The journalist in the article “Brexit Britain needs a new national story: step forward Guy Ritchie” is an enthusiastic supporter of this film to be shot during the Brexit times: Not only is it one of Britain’s quintessential myths, but it is the first of a six-film series—SIX - on the Arthurian legend that Ritchie is to gift us (Guardian 2017, March, 17). However, during the second period, the attitude changed: more and more often, the very idea of leaving the EU becomes an unattainable image, a political impasse, remote in time and space: For decades (they) had this goal of us leaving the EU as the holy grail (The Times 2016, Oct, 22). In the corpus of texts, one can note a decrease in the use of the Grail having positive connotations and a corresponding

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increase in its use having negative connotations or being used in context. The focus is on the process, not the goal: make progress towards the Holy Grail. Gradually the situation of a regulated withdrawal is realised to be complicated, sharpening the natural discrepancy between the ideal and reality: This is the true Holy Grail of Brexit: zero-tariff and non-tariff barriers on imports from everywhere (Telegraph 2017, Oct, 6). Moreover, the ideas described as key components of prosperity and well-being a year ago are already questioned—whether they refer to the Grail or just an elusive image: People talk about the “single market” as if it were some kind of Holy Grail (Telegraph 2017, Jan, 9). There are more and more examples that narrow down claims to a single possible scenario, and holy grail is combined here with lexemes like possible, my, putative, elusive, illusive, eluding. The use of the Grail in the plural form indicates the fuzziness of ideals. It marks the impossibility to point at the sole way to resolve contradictions: the pursuit of higher levels of social mobility, one of the holy grails (Telegraph 2017, Jun, 28). The Grail keeps working as a rhetorical device that indicates the impossibility of implementing the leave. “Brexit won’t be the Holy Grail some nationalists think it is…” Mick Fealty wrote as early as 2017 (Sluggerotool 2017). Thus, in journalistic discourse, the focus has gradually shifted from the perfection of the desired object to its inaccessibility or the difficulty of achieving it, which, combined in contexts with negation, has led to negative connotations (Fig. 9.4). It is no longer just the ideal, but the unattainable ideal that is on everyone’s mind and that leads to a waste of time, while real social and economic problems remain unsolved: The apparent resilience of FDI flows shortly after Brexit was an illusion. Achieving the holy grail of Wicksellian3 equilibrium that eludes others (Telegraph 2017, Oct, 15). Even reaching it one way or another is not enough: Formed in 1993, Ukip4 achieved its Holy Grail with the Brexit vote - but its new leader faces a Herculean task to revive it now (Independent 2017, Sep, 29).

Fig. 9.4  A schematic representation of focusing on different parts of the original image-schema 3  Johan Gustaf Knut Wicksell was a Swedish economist of the Stockholm school. His framework is still influential in economic thought. 4  United Kingdom Independence Party is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom with highly skeptical views towards the EU founded in 1993.

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Fig. 9.5  The meme that appeared on the Internet just after announcing the referendum results (Retrieved from “Pulling our has never felt so good”, Knowyourmeme, first published 23.01.2016 at https://knowyourmeme. com/ photos/1139492-­united-­ kingdom-­withdrawal-­from-­ the-­european-­union-­brexit)

Fig. 9.6  The cover of the satirical video and the scene from the original film, where king Arthur defeats the Black Knight chopping off his limbs (Image on the left—retrieved from “Theresa May and the Holy Grail”, ABC News in depth, available at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=7qOyT3ZkUxI. time: 0.1  s; image on the right—retrieved from Gilliam, T. (1975) “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, Python (Monty) Pictures, Michael White Productions, National Film Trustee Company. Time: 16.03  s, available at https://catalog.freelibrary.org/ Record/2575747))

Furthermore, the myth and some other allusions connected with it procced to be used in press sporadically, indicating reactualisation of the whole conceptual structure. The paper “The Double-Edged Sword in the Stone: London’s Fate as a Seat of International Arbitration Post-Brexit” most clearly pointing at the well-known novel by T. H. White. Here Brexit is discussed as a double-edged sword, potentially dangerous and having negative effects on the country’s economy. The people of Britain have their hands on both edges of the Brexit sword, but as they pull it out of the stone, London’s international arbitration market is likely to wind up cut just as deeply as that of its financial sector (Ius Genitumi 2017, Jan, 27). Not only the

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linguistic but also the first multimodal means were used, such as memes portraying Nigel Farage5 pulling out the sword “Exit-Calibur”. The stone is coloured with the EU flag, while the sword is the well-recognisable Union Jack (Fig. 9.5). 2017 featured a satirical video posted on the Internet (Fig. 9.6). It is a cut from Theresa May’s campaign speeches recorded over the video clips from the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” showing her inability to get the majority of the party’s votes in parliament election and prove her political position right. Note that this association was one of the first according to the dictionary of associations. The results of 2017 seemed ambiguous: the conservatives won 319 seats in parliament, while labourists won 261. On the one hand, it was a victory unless one knew the elections were run earlier and aimed to get the absolute majority of votes. The latter seemed an important step in reducing the influence of the opposition on the Brexit talks in Brussels. The problem was that before the early elections, the conservatives had 330 votes, with 326 necessary to form a government. Such a victory was, in fact, akin to a crushing defeat. Theresa May herself started to be described as a weak Prime Minister. Most reacted positively to this video stressing that there was no need for a parody when the negotiations for Britain leaving the EU resembled a farce or a “quest for the absurd”, as the original film implied or “the tragi-comedy of errors” as the researcers further called it (Jessop 2017). Konrad Rekas further plays upon two important cultural references of the film: “So, in general – Brits had wanted the Holy Grail, but met only The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog” (Geopolitica 2018). The white killer rabbit from Caerbannog guarding the cave is not dangerous and seems to be a cute white creature until it pounces and kills several of Arthur’s knights in one jump, gnawing their armour (with a sound “like that of opening a tin can”) and biting the neck of everyone who dares to approach the cave. Another parallel is drawn with a group of strange knights who say “Ni!”—The Knights Who Say “Ni!”. In the film, they frighten King Arthur’s knights, not letting them pass. In press, “Ni!” is changed to “No!”: The Knights Who Say “NO!” No Brexit, No Deal, No Profits (Geopolitica 2018). All attempts to find the deal that would satisfy both parties prevented her from dealing with a meaningful domestic agenda, where all those problems that had led to a leave vote were still very much present. From this moment on, Theresa May’s name is used with the definition wounded, which directly points to the image of King Arthur in some legends associated with the Fisher King, the guardian of the Holy Grail in legends. “It is hard to overestimate the level of exasperation in Brussels with Britain and its wounded prime minister, Theresa May” (New York Times). He is wounded in the leg and is not able to move, so he is doomed to fish and wait for the help of someone who will find the Holy Grail. Moreover, the press repeats the words “Theresa May is not a leader”, indicating a break in the conceptual connection between her and Arthur. After she merges with the image of Arthur, there is dissociation, division.

 Nigel Paul Farage is a British politician and a broadcaster serving as leader and a spokesman of the Brexit campaign.

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What is more, in the already formed mental space, May’s complete separation from Arthurian legend is no longer possible, and the focus of attention shifts from King Arthur himself to the Black Knight. This is again a character from the movie “Monty Python”, who did not let the knights pass over the bridge, fought them and more often—killed his opponents; Arthur fights him, first cutting off one of his hands and then the other. But the Black Knight persists and does not admit defeat. Only when Arthur cuts off both of his legs does he agree to a “draw”. In the same way, May has lost the support of the majority. In popular culture, the image of the Black Knight means a special persistence to the detriment of himself even when the defeat is apparent. After all, before the fight, Arthur proposed becoming a knight of the Round Table, joining the majority. “A recent Radio 4 satire had a sketch in which Mrs May was the gallant knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, fighting on as her opponent hacked off her arms and her legs” (Times 2018, Dec, 23). Attempts to discuss the legal settlement of Brexit are compared to the loss of limbs. “Her effort to push through the withdrawal agreement painfully negotiated with the European Union has been crushed in Parliament two times, like losing both arms. Now she wants to try again, and then possibly a fourth time” (New York Times 2019, March 15). This stubbornness is viewed rather negatively: Like the dismembered Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, she shrugs off such blows as mere flesh wounds and carries on. It is getting self-parodic (Independent 2018, Dec,10). At this stage, cross-domain mapping is already completed, and no additional markers of specific metaphorical context are required; the perception of the text works on the already defined categorisation. Thus, the roles in the winner-loser situation are redistributed, yielding significant political consequences. The period before the referendum and the years that followed was characterised by Americanization of the public debate rhetoric, including “a greater focus on the party leader and candidate personality” (Anstead 2016, p.  509). Thus, this shift forecasted her leaving her post as first ironically then seriously May was no longer conceptualised as a strong leader. After that, analogies with the Holy Grail in the sense of an unattainable ideal appeared in the press more and more often, and Teresa May as King Arthur, although weak and ironic, but still the ruler of the country and a positive image—has been completely supplanted. Her battle for the Grail seems lost: “Brexit is Theresa May’s Holy Grail. Her entire period in charge has been dominated by (and will be remembered as) the struggle to find the right kind of exit from the EU” (UK Uncensored 2018, Nov, 16). Note that the context in which the Grail is mentioned also changes— these are not verbs of search (quest, search, long for, look for), but verbs and nouns of military vocabulary (struggle, battle, strike, Brexit war): “Brexit: A staring match of one against 27” (BBC 2019, Jan, 30). Therefore, the idea of reaching an agreement is proposed to be postponed, and Teresa May—to leave the post of the Prime Minister: “Leave Theresa sink with her Holy Grail – Brexit” (Guardian 2018, Nov, 22). In this example, one can probably find unconscious allusions to leaving the leadership of the country—after his death, Arthur was sent to the island of Avalon. The number of examples of the use of the Holy Grail in negative constructions

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Fig. 9.7  A schematic representation of major cognitive mechanisms evident during the second stage

keeps growing: “It’s not the Holy Grail that was promised, but it might be enough to pass muster” (UK Uncensored 2018, Nov, 16). Thus, we observe the first attempts to axiologically reevaluate and repurpose the already established categorisation to mediate the necessary concepts in a blurry political context (Fig. 9.7). Summing up, the second period is characterised by a more detailed and dynamic work with the myth and exploiting all the other concepts connected with it. The myth now exists not in the form of a single allusion but the whole conceptual matrix is actualised, uniting all the possible references and making the discourse conceptually coherent. The shift in forming the mental spaces is clearly towards myth and its characteristics superimposed on interpreting the reality rather than vice versa— finding the particular elements, in reality, resembling myth. Since Brexit is categorised as the Holy Grail, it allows completing the story with necessary details. Namely, the image of King Arthur as a leader of the country in difficult times is elaborated, and the references to the myth were made complete. Two other recognisable cultural concepts connected with the cinematic interpretation of the well-­ known myth: The Knights Who Say “Ni!” and The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. This, as well as comparing Theresa May with an ironic King Arthur and then with the Black Knight, shifts the evaluation of searching for the Holy Grail of Brexit seen as a positive endeavour. The conceptual structure, the myth offers, allows wrapping the factual information into the highly condensed multifactorial blocks where these facts start to ‘make sense’. In other words, only then, those structures are considered either as valuable, reliable, and credible or irrelevant, unreliable, and doubtful.

9.6  T  he Third Stage of Myth Actualisation: Sheer Disillusionment in the Quest Forming the image of unreal, illusory, and unattainable Holy Grail makes it possible to take the next step—to describe the very withdrawal from the EU as an event fundamentally impossible and potentially negative: “More than 19 months after May started her pursuit of this elusive Brexit deal, she has found something. But the vast

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majority of MPs, Europhiles and Brexiteers alike, agree what she has found doesn’t look anything like the Holy Grail” (UK Uncensored 2018, Nov, 18). At this stage, religious images also get connected with the leave discourse, and they coexist with Arthurian allusions in the texts: “The EU can evoke the doomsday scenario of a trade crash. with the holy grail of “mutual recognition“, while insisting on British red lines over” (Telegraph 2018, Jun 7). The final step should be to abandon the quest for the Grail and make decisions that will help harmonise the situation here and now and not in the mythical future. Tony Blair points out that the quest for Brexit Holy Grail (2018) should be abandoned. A year later, he predicts that the Grail will never be found: “We have literally wasted almost three years on a futile search for a Brexit solution. We have chased the Holy Grail Brexit, the one which will unite the nation. It will never be found” (BBC 2019, March, 22). There are already severe concerns in 2019: “And it risks turning Brexit into a true holy grail. Just remember (as is revealed to Monty Python’s King Arthur), the grail is only to be found in “the Castle of Auuggggggh”” (Times 2019, Jan, 20). The Castle of “Auuggggggh” is a reference to the already mentioned film “Monty Python”, where in a cave the knights find the inscription supposedly left by Joseph of Arimathea telling where the Holy Grail can be found. The problem is that the name of the castle resembles a dying breath or rather the last scratch of a dying person and cannot serve as any real place. The alleged Castle of “Auuggggggh”, where Arthur and one of his knights sail in the film, is occupied by the French, meets them with bullying, dumps garbage on them, and clearly shows that they will not be let in whatever they are looking for. Arthur gathers an army of knights to take the castle by force, but at the end of the video, he is arrested for the murder of the famous historian Frank. Then the film ends, and the characters never find the Holy Grail. In this context, the question is raised again—is it worth looking for? Is it safe to search for unattainable, perfect ideas? Is there an idea that can become a political Holy Grail that will calm the warring parties? “But what will it take to find the political equivalent of the Holy Grail, the idea which can win enough support from across the House to get it over the line?” (Telegraph 2019, March, 3). The print media discourse in early 2019 is characterised by denying the existence of the Holy Grail and the possibility of realising this plot, which would help change the whole world: “the Holy Grail of their ideal Brexit—even if no one has yet conclusively shown that it actually exists” (Guardian 2019, May, 15). There are warnings about idealising reality too much: “Painful intrusion of reality” (Ibid). Reasoning about whether the Black Knight really had a chance to survive if he acted differently is highly sceptical: “could give the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail a run for survival” (Telegraph 2019, March, 18). Overall, the number of negative contexts rise (Fig. 9.8). However, the myth that has already been actualised in full still accurately reflects the situation of the crisis (crisis, mess, chaos, conundrum). A conceptual metaphor of war prevailed in the political discourse of the fourth period, and it is important from a discursive point of view as “It is not just how a crisis event is narrated, but how an event is narrated as a crisis” (Bennett 2019, p. 449). The discourse of viewing some situation through a crisis lens presupposes working with negative imagery

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Fig. 9.8  The ratio of positively and negatively coloured contexts in the press in 2016–2020 based on contextual analysis

and appealing to the most crucial values pushing the recipients to act and choose the party actively. The discourse of crisis brings all topics and symbolic objects of reference together, making it a juncture and allowing to get them “contested, negotiated, reformulated and reorganised” (Krzyżanowski et al. 2009, p. 5). Or, as it was demonstrated in sociology, a crisis is equally “a condition of rupture and breakdown (a condensation of contradictions to produce a ruptural unity)” as well as “a moment of decisive intervention, a moment of transformation” (Hay 1996, p. 254). The discourse of crisis is not just a picture but a powerful way to change the politics as Hay demonstrated on the example of the rise of Thatcherism and the “winter of discontent” of 1979: “the identification of the state as an object of re-regulation through narratives of the crisis was the very condition of its structural transformation” (Hay 1996, p. 256). In the case of Brexit, both sides modelled the crisis in one of the other way using nearly the same linguistic repertoire; the only difference lied in positioning it either in the past and resent or in the future as earlier research has shown: “For ‘Leave’ participants the crisis was already present and required action to solve the crisis in form of voting to leave. Conversely, for Remain the crisis would be forthcoming unless the UK stayed within the EU” (Bennett 2019, p. 12). The idea of the quest for the Grail is pushed out of the public discourse, and the image of T. May ceases to be associated with a leader who can lead the country out of the crisis. All this suggests that the place of Arthur, the central element of the myth, becomes vacant. After all, the situation of disorder, economic crisis, and a sense of danger from the outside is the perfect ground for completing the myth of the defender of British lands. The conceptual structure of myth does not tolerate this emptiness: the empty blocks of information require filling. In so doing, the

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Fig. 9.9  The cover of the Economist, 2018 (retrieved from Economist, 2018, № 1. The online version available at: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/09/27/the-quest-to-remake-britishpolitics)

trajectory of finding the true leader is imposed, and discussions about the necessity for a new leader are a red thread in the press of 2018–2019. There is the combination of indirect references through words belonging to a typical description of Arthurian legend and visual images—artefacts necessary for king Arthur: the sword of Excalibur and the Round Table. The Economist puts the image of the sword in stone on the cover (see Fig. 9.9), and the article “The quest to remake politics” occupies the front page. The article begins with an almost classic stylisation of the heroic epic beginning: “Beneath the chaos of the Brexit talks, big ideas are forming that will shape the next decade” (Economist 2018, Sep, 18). The article uses the opposition of the past and the future, where it is necessary to show courage and determination to win the “battle of ideas”: “Britain is at last getting the battle of ideas that the referendum result demanded” (Ibid). The text deliberately creates multiplicity, the ability to interpret external events through the prism of mythological parallels. “These ideas could mark a dramatic break with the past. But whereas an insurgent Labour has united behind a growing list of detailed plans, the Tories’ thoughts are ill-defined, and the party far from agreed on which to pursue” (Ibid). During this period, some Internet posts state that king Arthur should return and wake up from his dream, having seen what is happening in modern England. A short fiction article about Arthur’s awakening says that he was wakened up by all this “crap” around Brexit. However, he expected to continue to sleep for at least another

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Fig. 9.10  A schematic representation of scheme development

thousand years: “There I was, having a nice kip,” he said, “when this bloody Brexit crap went and woke me up. I was expecting at least another thousand years” (Spoof 2018, Nov, 18). The number of these direct comparisons decreases over time. More often, the readers are allowed to think of a comparison and a possible way out of the crisis on their own. The desire for an easy and almost magical way out of this situation is ironic and implausible. Those who seek it are compared to the pilgrim knights: “Some magic new solution that might - maybe, possibly - provide a sudden surprise solution to Brexit’s conundrums, in the way exhausted pilgrims might fall jubilantly on the Holy grail proclaiming, at last, that its jewels are beyond compare and a world changing treasure is now in their heroic clutches” (BBC 2019, Jan, 20). In this polysemantic and polysymbolic reality, myth plays the role not only of a traditional cognitive pattern that simplifies the understanding of reality but also of a way to transform this reality. After all, the stage of comparison has already passed, and reality has received some categorisation. Indeed, if there is a sword in the stone, the dynamic image schema should be realised, namely searching for a new legitimate ruler who could pull out this sword or, in other words, find a solution to the current crisis. An unformed, highly vague idea of a new leader will most likely lead to the search for a leader who has the necessary qualities. Thus, political mythology can become an essential tool for the consolidation of society(Fig. 9.10). Moreover, this idea becomes both a rhetorical tool and a cognitive mechanism allowing to mediate “the need for a new leader” Theresa May will fall on her Brexit-­ lite sword within a year  - and Boris Johnson will swoop in (Independent 2019, July 16). The process evident during this period is defocusing the initial meaning of the ideal and abandoning the search for any kind of the Holy Grail and thus Brexit as it was conceptualised earlier. The authors focus on the difficulties of the route and the impossibility to reach the goal. A common mental space is formed via combining mythological representations and reality.

9.7  Going Beyond the Mass Media: The Films and the Press The hypothetical situation with a new leader to be found was realised in popular culture, so the most interesting example is the film “The Kid Who Would Be King”, released in January 2019 (Fig. 9.11). This film takes the myth to the present world

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Fig. 9.11  The poster and the scene of pulling the sword in the film “The Kid who would be king” (retrieved from Cornish, J. (2019) “The Kid who would be king”, twentieth Century Fox, Working Title Films, Big Talk Pictures, TSG Entertainment. Time: 11, 50  s, available at https://catalog. freelibrary.org/Record/2443784)

and depicts the life of a 12-year-old boy who is bullied at school. One day he has to run away from his schoolmates, and the camera follows him against the background of newsstands (of course, there are newspapers, on the front pages of which war, gloom, crisis are emblazoned in red) to an abandoned construction site hidden by a poster “Start your story!”. Here, in a pile of armatures, he finds a sword. But along with the sword, the problems come as the insidious sorceress Morgana who has been biding her time waiting for a chance to impose her will on the people of Britain. So now the schoolboy Arthur and his unexpected companion, the magician Merlin, will have to struggle and thus fulfil their destiny—save the country from enslavement and fragmentation. The official description of the film carries all the necessary elements of the myth: mythical sword, leader, a band of knights, unite his friends and enemies into a band of knights, legendary, destiny. The task of young Alex—the new King Arthur, not by noble birth, but by vocation, is to make enemies his allies to form the order of knights and save the country. The words about forming the order of knights, the need for responsibility for the decisions made, and the quest for a true leader are repeatedly used in the film. “With the future at stake, Alex must become the great leader he never dreamed he could be”. Declared as a film for children with an ironic reinterpretation of the most important mythological elements (such as the appearance of Excalibur in the bathroom or using “Google Translate” to translate the Latin inscription on it, square versus round table) and having an undoubted educational potential (you must not lie to your parents or hurt the weak) the film was unambiguously perceived by the adult audience as a political message. The following comments appear in press: “A Lovely Spin on ‘King Arthur’ for the Brexit Age; Brexit fun for all the family; King Arthur meets Brexit”. Some newspapers published detailed articles on the topic, confirming the already accomplished conceptual transition from the ironic “Monty Python” to a more serious perception of the national myth: “By putting Excalibur in the hands of a gawky

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schoolkid, Cornish’s film offers a lighter-hearted alternative both to epic cinematic follies and delusions of national grandeur. Joking it may partly be, yet with its allegiances to Britain’s future generation, the film becomes another politically charged return to this most potent national myth” (Guardian 2019, Feb, 11). Moreover, the British themselves are well aware that it is the myth about King Arthur that can be opposed to the disunity of Brexit. At the very beginning of 2019, the following question is suddenly brought up on the “Quora” website: “Legend says King Arthur will return in Britain’s hour of need, so he should be turning up any day now. What do you predict will be his plan for dealing with Brexit?” In other words, how would King Arthur cope with Brexit if he would? Among the answers, there are also those supporting the idea of addressing Arthurian legend: “I think that Arthurian cycle is a perfect example of an anti-Brexit myth”. Others are a bit more sceptical, but they offer a round-table conversation between those who want to leave, those who prefer to stay, and those who do not care: “So we’d probably laugh at him for believing fake news, but perhaps symbolically the current equivalent would be trying questing after a relationship with the EU that would please Leavers, Remainers and Don’t Cares. Probably involving a round-table”. Finally, there is such an unambiguous answer that says a lot about the political mood of the citizens: “We keenly await his return! What this fable really means is that”cometh the time, cometh the man“. We need a STRONG, positive leader” (Fig. 9.12) .

Fig. 9.12  Discussion about King Arthur’s return in social networks (retrieved from Jada M @ jminkler99, available at https://www.pinterest.ru/pin/669488300829297900/ (2019))

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A similar discourse is explicit in “Brexit is a war between reason and faith, so we’ll treat it as one”, where the author ironically reflects on her feelings about Brexit: The footbridge between the fact-storing bit of my brain and its anxiety centres has collapsed. King Arthur—save us! (Guardian 2019, Aug, 19). During the third stage, not the Holy Grail but another powerful symbol profiled—Excalibur: King Arthur’s sword, an artefact of the legitimacy of power. The concepts of both King Arthur as a true leader not by blood but chosen by the virtues are elaborated, bringing this closer to modern political thought and belief in the true British democracy that was one of the cornerstones in Brexit discourse through 2017–2018. The film most clearly demarcates the line between the leaderless Brexit and the guest for the true leader to deal with it, the necessity for a new leader is modelled. The texts abound in oppositions between past and present. The use of visual images rather than just words is a characteristic of this stage.

9.8  The Fourth Stage: The End of the Brexit Era The final period yielded only a few examples to state the general tendencies. Most importantly, Boris Johnson was at first modelled to map with the image of the true king or the true leader. However, it is rather difficult to state whether it was conscious work with construing this image or some follow-up unconscious associations. The official press does not develop the modelling any further, yet we find two possibly ironic mappings on the Internet. First, at Quora, there is a question posted “Is Boris Johnson a national hero of Great Britain?” with a number of answers ranging from awe to hatred. One of the answers is somewhat metaphorical, aligning his image and role with the ones of King Arthur: Yes, among true British men and women, Boris Johnson is a national hero — the greatest since the fabled King Arthur. Boris Johnson, like King Arthur, has battled tirelessly against the invaders who threaten the independence of Britain. Like King Arthur’s Gawain, he has discovered the secret of what women truly want. Like King Arthur, he appeals successfully to the people, creating a nation where a naked woman could ride without interference from Bristol to Birmingham. Like King Arthur, he fought a giant, the European Union, and subdued it by virtue of his enormous personality. And like King Arthur, he was betrayed by one he trusted (despite counter-accusations), Michael Gove, his Morgan le Faye. Boris. Our national champion—and hero. (Quora 2019, Jan, 29).

The second is again multimodal and exploiting allusions to the film of Monty Python. In a short ironical video, the images of Boris Johnson and the protesting workers are combined with the dialogue of King Arthur and peasants living in what they called an anarcho-syndicalist commune. The scene in the film is mocking the monarchy, while in this audio-visual blend, it was supposed to mock the Prime Minister. Still, the most important idea is the conceptual possibility to map these images: the mythological and the real: ARTHUR: I am your king! WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

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ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings. WOMAN: Well, ‘ow did you become king then? ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king! DENNIS: Listen — strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. (http://www.montypython.net/ scripts/HG-­peascene.php) Quite predictably, the references to Arthuriana in general prevail. The discourse focuses on regaining national identity and especially positioning the culturally marked references in political discourse in an oak-panelled pub that dates back to the time of King Arthur. “We’re a free country at last,” says William Grindecobbe (Times 2020, July 19). The revelation period started, and newspapers still work, resorting to the introduced images: “None of the above matters because we have regained the Holy Grail – our nation’s sacred sovereignty” (New Statesman 2021, Jan. 25). Those who voted for staying in the EU, though used the allusion differently, implicitly questioning the well-being of the country and its economic future after the withdrawal agreement was and came into force on 31 January 2020 (Fig. 9.13). The use of the Holy grail is not as abundant as it was, but there are some examples within the already established system. Yet it is no longer connected with Brexit at large: Less Exodus, more Holy Grail: Boris Johnson mocked for U-turn on Brexit deal (Independent 2019, March, 27); all services that delivers the holy grail of both deeper trade and democratic accountability (Times 2020, Jan, 18). Again, all positive and desired political trends are dubbed to be it: promoting growth/ political strength/ true British democracy. So it is pretty predictable that the discourse returned to square one—using this very metaphor to find some stable concepts in the ruins of previous discourse constructs, it is rich in positive connotations. Media discourse applied to political issues “is as much about rhetoric, emotion arousal and interactional influence as about factual information” (Musolff 2017). This turn is also seen in coming back to Roman discourse. For example, in January 2021, the cover of Economist portrayed some man wearing the garments of a Roman soldier standing on a small island alone and handling a shield with a Union

Fig. 9.13  The meme appearing in March 2020 (retrieved from “Post Brexit King Arthur”, available at https://catalog.freelibrary.org/Record/2443784)

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Fig. 9.14  The cover of the Economist, 2021 (retrieved from Economist, 2021, №2 . The online version available at https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/02/britain-­has-­lost-the-eu-canit-­find-­a-­role)

Jack depicted (Fig. 9.14). The article is entitled “Britain’s place in the world”, where the country is described as lonesome, which thinking “in recent decades has often been clouded by nostalgia for lost empire and great-power status”. Interestingly, the post-Brexit era, when all major decisions are taken and cannot be reversed, does not need the myth to be actualised or fed with publications. When the ideal or what was thought to be it is achieved, there is no need for irrational thought or any mythological model to glue the facts together. The myth has fulfilled its function and returns to the subconscious abode. The myth in politics has become the prime ideological tool to indirectly drive the perception of contemporary reality through the preexisting structures of knowledge, mental models—they are ways of grasping complex entities, getting to know the obscure things. The transformed and camouflaged myths work as a complex multi-­ levelled matrix still existing in the background of seemingly rational argumentations. They come and go, get actualised and vanish, but they are always present, waiting for the time to wake up.

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9.9  Discussion and Conclusion The Arthurian myth has been the operational model of national ideology for centuries. It determines the Anglo-Saxon national consciousness as well as the formation of national ideology and is shown to be easily filled with new content even today. It is involved in forming and spreading critical cultural aspects, and it is indestructible as it is rooted in the deepest aspects of human consciousness. At the same time, the Arthurian legend is important not only as a story in itself but requires scrutiny as a marker of the crisis. The conceptual structure provided by this myth draws the potential ways out of any entity narrated as a crisis. The myth about King Arthur provides rich material for studying the functioning of cognitive mechanisms in discourse and mediating some senses. Pertaining to the culture as a semiotic system, myth is a viable tool to shape our lives. Vygotsky noted: “Culture creates nothing; it only alters natural data in conformity with human goals” (Vygotsky 1960:200). Brexit and the political discourse of this period have been thoroughly studied in terms of the language used. One of the first significant outcomes was the set of conceptual metaphors facilitating the mediation of factual information. The most prominent, recurrent source concepts were: fighting/war, journey, natural disaster, divorce, gamble, and body/heart (Musolff 2017). However, these metaphors are recurrent in other spheres, as well, and have a potentially limited impact on the readers. The myth consisting of a net of interrelated concepts ensures a long and a more profound impact on discourse and thus the readers. It makes the discursive coherent or mythologises it, yet staying flexible to allow for creative reformulation. Myths are organic parts of our lives representing the mental structures that shape our thinking. In the modern world, they do not disappear but are gradually transformed into something else. Turning attention to myth in a modern society with blurry ideals, complex and often unpredictable changes, and technological progress becomes a model or rather an illusion of clarity. Thus, the myth performs cognitive functions of processing the information, mediating specific knowledge and subsequently transforming reality. The ready-made matrix constructions are superimposed on the complex material of reality. They have a great potential to change moods through the building of new connections between form and content. The transformational function of myth becomes one of the key ones, while cognitive mechanisms can simplify categorisation and determine the linguistic features of the myth’s reactualization in time. Here we analysed how the myth about King Arthur was consistently implemented in media discourse against the background of the political crisis - Brexit. As the analysis has shown, the actualisation of such a complex myth can occur through harnessing the ready-made concepts with a given set of characteristics necessary for temporal categories or structures of knowledge to be formed ad hoc. This allows placing complex information that is yet not fully comprehended into a certain temporary concept with a clear structure and well-defined boundaries. Moreover, the myth provides a series of interconnected concepts being the nods in the multifunctional mythological structure. Thus, a familiar myth can serve as a matrix for

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subsequent conceptual mediation and “secondary representation“in various types of discourse. In the modern world, the myth still plays the role of a cognitive tool that simplifies the primary understanding of reality, serving a kind of ‘conceptual matrix‘that makes it possible to interpret reality and even transform it through several steps. The first step is to compare and draw the necessary analogies between reality and the peripheral elements of the myth, get them introduced into the discourse. That was performed through using the metaphor of the Holy Grail during the first stage. At the second stage, it becomes possible to use these concepts as tools for categorising reality and work with axiological recategorisation. At the third stage, there is a reassessment of both reality and several basic concepts of the myth that form a coherent picture. For example, if you compare the search for a particular idea with the search for the Holy Grail, the image of a hero, who should leave for his chivalric adventure, is inevitably constructed. Similarly, if the image of a “sword in stone” appears, then discussing the scenario of finding a new, legitimate ruler who can pull out this sword and find a solution to the current crisis is initiated. The fourth stage is the culmination of myth actualisation, and it focuses on using multimodal means. All the elements of myth are used yet are understood ironically. The myth develops and transforms to fulfil its functions through a set of cognitive mechanisms, being different for each stage. The analysis revealed several basic cognitive mechanisms that allow the myth of King Arthur to be actualised against the background of Brexit. The most significant are the integration of mental spaces, axiological reevaluation and completion. Therefore, actualising mythology can become the most important tool for consolidating society and modelling possible actions in the future. The myth provides the necessary scaffold for filling the vacant slots in forming and updating the picture of the world. This process was termed interpellation, extensively studied in the field of studying political media: “interpellation lies in the inherently imaginative process of decoding through which we, the readers, inject ourselves into the narrative structure loosely framed by a media discourse” (Hay 1996, p. 262). In light of recent development that the UK has left the EU, the findings of the present study shed instrumental light and provide linguistic insights into how various types of discourse could be mythologised and what other factors contribute to successful narration and recontextualising the key cultural concepts. The myth about King Arthur is easily filled with new relevant content to this day. The appeal to myth in Anglo-Saxon society takes place against the background of political transformations, socio-economic instability, and reevaluating ideals. In this context, comprehending reality through the usual myth becomes the illusion of comprehensibility. So, a popular cultural myth is a “conceptual matrix” that can selectively be superimposed on certain aspects of reality that require comprehension. Therefore, myths have a valuable potential to change the mood of a society. The challenges it faces may be different. However, society’s ‘reaction mechanisms’ to these crises are limited, and the appeal to national mythology is only one, but, we believe, the most important of them. Therefore, myth was the earliest form of mediating, processing, and transmitting knowledge; it still is and possibly will be.

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Chapter 10

Metaphors of the Troubles Barbara Gabriella Renzi

Abstract  This chapter is intended for mediators and educators who identify pernicious metaphors in conversation, not just in personal conversations but in the general language used by large demographics. Metaphors are not just ornaments of language, they structure the world around us. They provide us with glasses to look at the world. They colour the lenses through which we view reality. Thus, dwelling on metaphors and analysing them helps us to wear the right glasses that do not distort reality. Working on metaphors, collecting and analysing them, seeing which cognitive possibilities they open up or limit would be an excellent educational tool, which could lead to a wider and more realistic worldview that considers the multiplicity inherent in each person, including whomever we consider the ‘Other.’ This more realistic view of the Other and of the situation has the potential to re-open perspectives and doors to dialogue that have been limited through internalising limiting metaphors. Metaphors collected in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the years before Brexit serve to illustrate this point, which is amplified by Luigi Cancrini’s theory of mind, with particular reference to his conception of borderline personality as the activation of defence mechanisms and mediation in particularly stressful situations. Keywords  Metaphor · Language · Troubles · Concept · Cognitive metaphor · Conflict · Conceptual system · Mediators · Type Hierarchy

10.1  Introduction This article is intended for mediators and educators in the sector who identify pernicious metaphors in conversation, not just in personal conversations but in the general language used by large demographics. Metaphors are not just ornaments of

B. G. Renzi (*) Cologne Technical University, Cologne, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_10

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language, they structure the world around us. They provide us with glasses to look at the world. They colour the lenses through which we view reality. As such, dwelling on metaphors and analysing them helps us to wear the right glasses that do not distort reality. Working on metaphors, collecting and analysing them, and seeing which cognitive possibilities they open up or limit would be an excellent educational process that could lead to a wider and more realistic worldview that considers the multiplicity inherent in each person, including whomever we consider the ‘Other.’ This more realistic view of the Other has the potential to re-open perspectives and doors to dialogue that have previously been closed through internalising limiting metaphors. For the present research, various metaphors that were collected in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the years before Brexit serve to illustrate this point, which is amplified by Luigi Cancrini’s theory of mind, with particular reference to his conception of borderline personality as the activation of defence mechanisms in particularly stressful situations.

10.2  Methodology The data were collected through an ethnolinguistic approach, while they were analysed through the use of dictionaries and the type hierarchy methodology. The results reported here are derived from ethnographic work conducted in Northern Ireland from 2012 to 2014. Contact was made with various organisations during a 15-year period during therapy certification completion. Data for this analysis were also gathered through volunteer work in a charity called the Public Initiative for the Prevention of Suicide and Self Harm (PIPS). Additional research was conducted at Saint Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Belfast and (as a tutor of languages and philosophy) at Queen’s University Belfast. At Queen’s, work was carried out with students of a wide age range, most of whom were first-generation university attendees (2007). Presbyterian and Catholic Church mom and tot groups were also frequented in East Belfast (the churches opted to remain anonymous). Additionally, meetings of a friendship club organised by a Presbyterian Church in East Belfast were attended at the Globe Café. People who belonged to paramilitary organisations were also surveyed. The context of this research was explained prior to the interviews. Furthermore, some extremely accurate and deep knowledge of society in Northern Ireland was garnered through interactions with psychotherapy colleagues, which proved very useful. Ethnographic work is based in linguistics. Ethnolinguistics combines ethnology and linguistics in an interdisciplinary field of study that analyses how language influences social life. The present research focuses on the utterances that people spoke, centring its attention on the metaphors adopted with reference to ‘The Troubles’ and ‘the Other’ (people belonging to different communities or a different social class).

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In brief, the Troubles is the local name for the Northern Ireland conflict, which began in the late 1960s and officially ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement. However, the local population maintain that peace never happened and that they have only a ‘heralded peace’, which means, according to the speakers, that it is something said aloud but far from having been authentically reached. The two main camps were and still are the Unionist Loyalists on one side and the Nationalist Republicans on the other. The former group, mainly formed by Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK. The latter group, mainly composed of Catholics, wanted to end partition and rejoin the Republic of Ireland. The Troubles started in 1968 during a campaign to end discrimination against the Catholic community. As a result of the ensuing violence, British troops were deployed to calm the situation, but the conflict continued for another 30 years. The paramilitary groups involved were the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), British state security forces and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

10.3  Metaphors Metaphors have been at the heart of linguistic and philosophical debates for centuries. Tropes of rhetoric par excellence did not fail to arouse diatribes on their definition even in antiquity or in the following centuries. We owe the emphasis on the centrality of metaphors in human thought to George Lakoff. His book, written in collaboration with the philosopher Mark Johnson in 1980, was titled Metaphors We Live By and argued that metaphors have more than a purely communicative role. They are not a phenomenon of mere poetic embellishment and therefore are not only the prerogative of literature. Metaphors are a cognitive event before they are a linguistic one. They are the mode by which we human beings structure our concepts and, therefore, reality. Our conceptual system, in whose terms we think and act, has a fundamentally metaphorical nature. The so-called conceptual metaphor is a mode of thought that achieves a correspondence, or mapping, between two conceptual domains, where one domain (an abstract one) is understood in terms of another (a concrete one). Lakoff and Johnson observe that metaphors are widespread in everyday language. This observation constitutes an important point that needs to be clarified: what is the conceptual system that regulates our thinking made of? Lakoff insists on saying that the place of metaphor is not language at all but the way in which we conceptualise an abstract concept by merging two conceptual domains in order to generate a third, richer and more elaborate meaning. There are ‘source domains’, which come from everyday life and represent concrete experiences that explain abstract and intangible targets, such as emotions, desires, religion, time, life, death, etc. Life, death, and time are among the most important concepts for human beings, and an understanding thereof is constructed through an abundance of metaphors. This is not mere chance.

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The metaphors in the present article are used as cognitive tools; thanks to them, we can understand and experience one thing in terms of another. Therefore, they structure the way people look at reality, define a phenomenon and, consequently, influence how they react to it. This structure opens up dispositions and possibilities; however, metaphors also preclude opportunities and prospects: The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p. 8). When a scholar looks at cognitive metaphors, s/he can do it in two ways. The first perspective is associated with power and who regulates social norms. A metaphor expert can try to grasp who is responsible for certain metaphors and why they are used by trying to comprehend their hidden scope. In other words, s/he tries to understand the reasons why power has chosen a particular metaphor and what it wants to achieve. This research does not utilise this method but instead uses the second approach, which entails seeking to understand how specific metaphors, in this case those related to the conflict in Northern Ireland, might structure reality. Discussions on the linguistic and cognitive status of metaphors are not new. The German scholar Elisabeth Wehling (one of Lakoff’s students) recently conducted research on metaphors and political discourse by concentrating on ‘disease’ and ‘disgust’ metaphors that influence political views (Wehling 2015). In 2014, two other German scholars analysed the concept of economic crisis (Wengler and Ziem 2014). According to these two scholars, a methodologically accurate analysis can promote an understanding of how competing discourses and interpretations may frame our perception of political operations in such a complex matter as economic crises. On a similar topic, in the 2013 paper “The financial crisis as a tsunami”, Stephan Pühringer and Katrin Hirte analyse the role of economists in German-­ language magazines and newspapers with regard to the use of metaphors for the financial crisis that began in 2007/08 (Pühringer and Hirte 2013). They conclude that the lack of paradigm shifts in economic convictions after the crisis can be related to the use of specific metaphors by German-speaking economists. In particular, it is important to note that this conclusion is due to metaphors cementing practices and obstructing change. Metaphors have the potential to structure our perception in such a way that we miss opportunities which, in some cases, might be a necessary path to follow to avoid crises. In 2008, in the article “The Metaphor of Terror: Terrorism Studies and the Constructivist Turn”, Rainer Hülsse and Alexander Spencer analysed the metaphorical construction of Al-Qaeda in the German popular press in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington (2001), Madrid (2004), and London (2005). They analysed articles in The Sun newspaper between 2001 and 2005 and noticed a shift in the metaphors employed:

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For example, understanding terrorism as a war calls for a military reaction, while the constitution of it as a ‘crime’ necessitates a judicial response. Classical predications of ‘othering’ found the metaphors ‘uncivilised’ [and] ‘evil’ imply the tightening of borders and immigration to keep the foreign ‘other’ out, while the concepts of ‘evil’ and ‘disease’ indicate the impossibility of engagement and negotiations with terrorists. (Hülsse and Spencer 2008, p. 19). Hülsse and Spencer noticed a shift from ‘war’-related to ‘crime’-related rhetoric, inducing readers to see terrorists as criminals rather than part of military organisations, thus transforming the threat of Al-Qaeda from an external one to an internal one. In 2011, in his article “Bild dir deine Meinung”, Spencer analysed the metaphors used to describe terrorism in some German newspapers, focusing in particular on the adjectives “unzivilisiert” and “böse” and the noun “Krankenheit” (Spencer 2011).1 He reached the conclusion that metaphors have the capability to “construct” the world we live in, not simply describe it, as was commonly thought. In particular, he stresses in a later article how an understanding of metaphors can give insights into why certain policies have a better chance of getting finalised than others (Spencer 2012). As already briefly stated, this research is about how people talk about the Troubles, the Othered community, or how the middle class speaks about the working class. I also list a particular metaphor that some members of the paramilitary groups use to define themselves when speaking about their past actions. The findings of this research concur with the general view of the limited effects of the peace accords and negativity towards positive change. In fact, it appears that many people view the Troubles as a war, such as in this quote from a working-class point of view: “The Troubles were a war and we were soldiers. We should be respected for our patriotism” (first informant). Wars are armed conflicts between societies and are characterised by extreme aggression and mortality, but they also come to an end and are followed by a period of peace, in which there is a lack of conflict and freedom from the fear of violence. The military reference constructs a specific perspective which sees what happened not as a normal state of affairs but something out of the ordinary, as something that had a beginning and an end. People think that, during a war, funds and efforts should be allocated towards helping their own side win, and when the war ends, everything should return to the normal, pre-war state of affairs. Looking at the Troubles as a war opens up the perspective of peace with which all wars terminate. Hearing the metaphor of ‘war’ pronounced on various occasions and by many people from both sides of the conflict opens up the possibility of the absence of hostility, not just the chance of a time of compromise, thoughtful listening and mutual understanding. This indicates that Northern Ireland is potentially ripe for peace and a prosperous future; that is, it would be if other metaphors did not emerge 1  In 2014, he published a book on the same topic (Spencer 2014) in which he reached similar conclusions; that is, the media influence the way we think about terrorism and affect the way in which we look at counter-terrorism policies.

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to frame the reality in an opposing way. However, before proceeding with an analysis of additional metaphors, it is important to look at other possible consequences that a war metaphor might imply. When a society is at ‘war’, criticism of this ‘war’ and its elements can be seen as unpatriotic. This may partially explain why important conflict information is still withheld in post-1998 Northern Ireland and why many secrets obstruct the resolution of unsolved cases of death and destruction. Furthermore, there is a strongly held belief in the Loyalist community that they have lost the war; this ties in with the war metaphor, where there are beginnings and endings, winners and losers. There are other reasons why the Loyalist community think they have lost the war that find their basis in the sense of the fragility of the community itself. A common belief is that the working-class poor have both given and lost the most while additionally having so many fewer possibilities to advance socially or economically than their counterparts. Lastly, the war metaphor frames reality to such an extent that the people who took part in violence consider themselves soldiers and think they should be respected as people who defended their country. As with military veterans (regularly honoured in public ceremonies), former combatants in the Troubles believe they should be honoured and helped to find their place in the post-war society. From this perspective, they do not believe themselves to be criminals or deviants and, as such, should not be punished. They believe that they do not need any judicial response but that their actions should be judged from a perceived ‘military perspective.’ Combatants were not, nor were they recognised as, military combatants. They are merely literal and structural mimics of soldiery, so strong is the war metaphor in constructing their reality: “the Troubles were a ‘long war’ few thought would ever end and I was a soldier [...] to protect myself and my family” (direct verbal quote from an informant). Not everybody takes this stance. From a middle-class perspective, especially for those who did not take part in the violence, what happened during the Troubles is often seen as terrorism. In fact, those who took part in the violence or belonged to paramilitary organisations might be seen as terrorists both by their own community and by the other community. The metaphor of terrorism may be further specified by drawing attention to how it resembles categories outlined by Lakoff in his article “Metaphors of Terror” (2001). This new metaphorical perspective frames the Troubles as something ordinary, like a constant phenomenon in society, rather than a war. Terrorism is seen in Northern Ireland as a crime: “there are still a few groups, formed by terrorists and criminals, who cannot or will not adapt to the peace process” (words from a second informant). Combatants here are not soldiers, so they are taking part in an illegitimate enterprise; they terrorise and are terrorists. They are seen as deviants who break the rules and must be punished. In this framework, a judicial response is needed rather than a military one. Engaging in terrorism is something understood as an unlawful act that must be punished by the state. It is criminal and goes against the law. These actions are harmful not only to the perpetrators themselves but to society in toto. However, if there is not a war, and terrorism is purely a violent crime, there

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is no chance of a truce or of peace, which are the outcomes of ending a war. It is difficult to imagine how this perspective can open up possibilities for a peaceful resolution to the situation in Northern Ireland. A second way in which combatants are framed, juxtaposed with identifying them with terrorism, is through the expression ‘evil’. This brings further polarisation to the two camps. The connotation is that the two share nothing in common. [...] evil is a palpable thing, a force in the world. To stand up to evil you have to be morally strong. If you’re weak, you let evil triumph, so that weakness is a form of evil in itself, as is promoting weakness. Evil is inherent, an essential trait, that determines how you will act in the world. Evil people do evil things. No further explanation is necessary. There can be no social causes of evil, no religious rationale for evil, no reasons or arguments for evil. The enemy of evil is good. If our enemy is evil, we are inherently good. Good is our essential nature and what we do in the battle against evil is good. Good and evil are locked in a battle, which is conceptualized metaphorically as a physical fight in which the stronger wins. (Lakoff 2001)

In the case of a simple war metaphor, there is still the possibility of neutrality or mutuality, but with this the two opponents are opposites, classified as good or evil. Evil, by definition, is the absence or opposite of good. It is a force of nature that is synonymous with being morally wrong, causing injury and harm. There are no social or psychological causes for evil people’s actions. They are connotated with being barbarous, inferior, uncivilised, and inhuman. The ultimate evil one is Satan. From a Christian point of view, which is significant in a place like Northern Ireland, evil governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin. If we look at Psalm 51:4, evil is anything that contradicts the holy nature of God and came with the rebellion of Satan. So, when unpacking metaphors of terrorists as evil, we frame one side, the terrorists, as Satan, beast-like and inhuman. It is not possible to reason with Satan; the grounds of his actions are in his evilness. Generally, the two possible actions taken to cope with evil are either staying far from it or fighting it with all the strength and weapons one possesses with the aim of eliminating it. Most with a religious mindset would agree that killing monsters or demons can only be a good action. Once we identify foreigners in the framework of being evil and being substantially different from those who inhabit the good camp, we justify the killing of them as a noble and heroic act, accomplished by soldiers in a spiritual kind of warfare: Nothing is more important than the battle of good against evil, and if some innocent noncombatants get in the way and get hurt, it is a shame, but it is to be expected and nothing can be done about it. Indeed, performing lesser evils in the name of good is justified—“lesser” evils like curtailing individual liberties, sanctioning political assassinations, overthrowing governments, torture, hiring criminals, and “collateral damage.” (Lakoff 2001). Referring to combatants as criminals and terrorists allows the introduction of binarist frameworks that perpetually have ‘us’ fighting ‘them’. These frameworks have fluid definitions of ‘terrorists’ and ‘criminals’, expanding to the point where all Catholics/Protestants are ‘terrorists’ or ‘the enemy’ and all state actors become ‘oppressors’, with no reflection of the multiplicity of political issues that make up

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the conflict. The use of a good vs. evil metaphor brings more polarisation, a dichotomy, which solidifies the process of separation and segregation. A similar metaphor cannot be useful in a period of reconciliation when it is important to look at the ‘Other’ as a fellow human being with whom it is possible to converse and compromise. When a position is based on a religious perspective and somebody is labelled as evil, no further explanation is needed or compromise required. From this perspective, if our enemies are evil, we are inherently good and do not require self-­ reflection. Locked in the millenarian battle between good and evil, we are justified in performing lesser evils in the name of good and God. This fundamentally blurs the lines of morality. All of this generalising is detrimental to any processes of reconciliation and to passing from a negative peace to a positive peace in the context of Northern Ireland. The evil metaphor causes people to look at the world through the eyes of a different metaphor: the security/container one. It is typical for walls and barriers to be wanted by people in some areas, particularly working-class areas, to secure borders in order to keep evildoers out. This is reflected in the words of Lakoff: Then there is the basic security metaphor, Security As Containment—keeping the evildoers out. Secure our borders, keep them and their weapons out of our airports, have marshals on the planes. Most security experts say that there is no sure way to keep terrorists out or to deny them the use of some weapon or other; a determined well-financed terrorist organization can penetrate any security system. Or they can choose other targets, say oil tankers. (Lakoff 2001). The last metaphor analysed here is the one that conjoins with the previous metaphors and frames terrorism as a disease. In Northern Ireland, terrorists are attributed with mental health disorders. They are seen as potentially having hallucinations, delusions, or psychosis. They are also often pictured as “irresponsible nuts” with whom you cannot reason. In this metaphorical framework, their perspectives are abnormal and violate societal norms, and as such, they can be seen as a danger to themselves and others. Many believe it is not possible to speak or reach an agreement with somebody who is in a deranged state of mind. In conflict resolution, there is a need to resolve group conflicts through communication and engaging in negotiation, but this metaphor closes up the possibility of reconciliation or the restoration of friendly relations. Sometimes terrorists are not just framed as insane but psychopathic. Psychopathology is a personality disorder. Psychopaths have impaired empathy and remorse who use cruelty to gain power and have exploitive tendencies; they are egoistic, mean, bold and without impulse control. When combatants or terrorists are framed in this way, the possibility of peace talks or any meaningful exchange of ideas is further obstructed. A common perception among laypersons is that you do not interact with psychopaths but instead stay far away from them to avoid being harmed. Since this metaphor frames the opposition as subhuman, it is far less likely to encourage the use of diplomacy. It also does not discourage the perpetration of violence against a group of people framed as defective and with whom it is supposedly impossible to reason or dialogue.

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10.4  Metaphors and Psychiatry Categories and Biases A very common characteristic of the mind that works at the borderline level is the tendency to make extreme judgments about oneself and others, and this is due to the use of the split. It is possible to rediscover this same functioning in all human beings; in fact, all children between 15 and 21 months go through a phase similar to that of borderline functioning, which leads them to consider the mother in a dichotomous way: good in the moments in which they are present and feed them, thus arousing feelings of joy and gratification, and bad when they are absent, generating feelings of hatred and anger. This phase comes to an end at the age of around 3 years when the child manages to integrate the split parts; however, the entire process continues over time up to its highest levels in adulthood. What Luigi Cancrini emphasises as being important is that the tendency to regress towards the borderline mode of operation is always possible, especially in situations of stress and tension (Cancrini 2006). This is more likely to happen during major life events such as mourning, existential crises, or falling in love. This regression is possible in both more or less healthy people and more or less mature people. Analysing the theories of Cancrini, it is possible to state that borderline functioning represents a stage in the psychic development of each person. Regression to this functioning mode depends on overcoming activation thresholds, which are different for each individual, and whose value depends on the experiences of childhood. A low activation threshold is characteristic of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), while it is high in mature and reliable subjects. However, it is important to highlight the fact that this threshold fluctuates continuously, based on the various problems that characterise the life of each person. Subjects with BPD have no middle ground; they subscribe to an ‘all or nothing’ mentality, between which they oscillate rapidly. This is done between an idealisation and a devaluation of the Other. Furthermore, they can divide the human race into ‘totally good’ and ‘totally bad’ groupings or categorisations. The mindset generally begins with the idea that the Other, a partner or a friend, is perfect, completely and constantly protective, reliable, available, and good. But an error, a criticism or a lack of attention is enough for the other to be suddenly catalogued in the opposite way as threatening, deceptive, dishonest, or malevolent. In many cases, the two images of the Other, ‘good’ and ‘bad’, are present simultaneously in the mind of the borderline subject, generating further chaos. Some of the manifestations of the internalised metaphors described throughout this paper show the subject having a perspective of the Other in black and white terms, superimposable to a borderline approach. If metaphors influence the way we see, which is what the cognitive theory of language argues, then they might help to direct a whole sector of the population towards a borderline approach to life with negative consequences.

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10.5  Metaphors and Type Hierarchy Metaphors can be analysed using a visual aid. A diagram, for instance, can make logical connections among the concepts embedded in a metaphor clear. We can use dictionary and thesaurus references as well as collaborative dialogue to assess if the resulting diagram is accurate. The diagram will expand beyond the subjective to the intersubjective after it has been discussed with a group of individuals. The diagram below (Fig. 10.1) was constructed using various dictionaries and interviews with people who lived in Belfast who had met me for similar projects. They were asked whether they would say the diagram was reasonably accurate as an intersubjective deconstruction of the metaphor itself. The diagram is formed by types and subtypes, concepts linked together that show the structure of the metaphor. A simple metaphor opens up a much more complex conceptual network that structures reality itself. The explanation and the analysis of the metaphor must be carried out with knowledge of the culture in which the metaphor is used. Since the metaphor has been used in a place where religion has a key position, we need to realise how the concepts are imbued with a religious vision of the world, which might change depending on whether the user is Protestant or Catholic.

Fig. 10.1  Intersubjective deconstruction of the metaphor ‘evil’

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Let us explore the metaphor “the other is evil.” Evil encompasses the concepts of Satan, sin, immorality, cruelty and the inhumane, which are the subtypes. Satan must be fought as well as immorality and cruelty. Inhumanity itself encompasses other concepts such as beastliness, brutality, and alienness, within which foreignness is embedded. They are thus faced with a black-and-white way of seeing the Other, whose humanity is dismantled. Among other things, the Other, through the lens of this metaphor, becomes a foreigner who must be driven away from the land in which s/he is located. Sins are very serious, and those who commit them must pay a price. We mobilise ourselves for a battle of inexhaustible violence, which needs all of our strength to destroy an attacking beast. Through this metaphor, we are part of an apocalyptic scenario, not a disagreement between people of differing opinions or traditions. We are people who possess different levels or modes of power but who are still people, with all the flaws and merits of humanity entailed therein.

10.6  Metaphors and Mediators The results of this research may be useful for mediators who organise workshops to reach peace as well as other educators or trainers who take a stance against violence. Advocacy should be done to support the importance of deconstructing cognitive metaphors in post-conflict societies (or ones emerging from conflict) and its inclusion in education curriculums. In fact, in the first case, reaching a positive peace might still be an objective, and in the second, it will only recently have been obtained. In the global context, where it is now common for tragic terrorist attacks to make the news, propagating knowledge of how metaphors frame events and their ability to structure reality can be useful – if not essential – in deconstructing conditioning by metaphors through the media. Since metaphors structure our reality, an understanding of how they do it can help us to be more aware of our choices and how they are being externally conditioned. They influence our reactions, such as our choice of some policies and our rejection of others. Their mode of construction (of which we are not often aware) can influence our way of defining a phenomenon as important as terrorism, synchronously constructing dispositions that preclude possibilities. Given the media is a popular mode of transferring metaphors, further research can look at samples of newspaper and magazine articles published within relevant timeframes and locations. The selection criteria for the specific newspapers might include circulation and scope. Newspapers that are local or regional should not be excluded, given that they will inform affected/combatant communities. Those that reflect national public agendas might not be favoured but should be analysed as well.

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10.7  Conclusion This article has attempted to examine a structuring of reality, which follows from the use of certain metaphors from various perspectives. This has been done in order to notice what possibilities there are for peace. Of course, metaphors do not cause peace or war or generate any kind of policy, but they do lay a conceptual foundation for them by opening up or limiting space for opportunities. This article has helped us to comprehend the importance of rendering explicit the language of war and has offered an interpretation emerging from conflict.

References Cancrini L (2006) L’oceano borderline. Racconti di viaggi. Cortina Raffaello, Milan Hülsse R, Spencer A (2008) The metaphor of terror: terrorism studies and the constructivist turn. Secur Dialogue 39(6):571–592 Lakoff G (2001) Metaphors of Terror. https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/daysafter/911lakoff.html Lakoff G, Johnson M (1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago University Press, London Pühringer S, Hirte K (2013) The financial crisis as a tsunami – discourse profiles of economists in the financial crisis. ICAE Working Paper Series No. 14 Spencer A (2011) Bild dir deine Meinung: Die metaphorische Konstruktion des Terrorismus in den Medien. Z Int Beziehungen 18(1):47–76 Spencer A (2012) The social construction of terrorism: media, metaphors and policy implications. J Int Relat Dev 15(3):393–419 Spencer A (2014) The tabloid terrorist: the predicative construction of ‘new terrorism’ in the media. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Wehling E (2015) Moral disgust at its best: the important role of low-level mappings and structural parallelism in political disgust and disease metaphors. In: Ervas F, Gola E (eds) Metaphors we live twice: a communicative approach beyond the conceptual view. John Benjamins, Amsterdam Wengler M, Ziem A (2014) Wie über Krisen geredet wird: einige Ergebnisse eines diskursgeschichtlichen Forschungsprojektes. Z Lit Linguist 171:52–74

Chapter 11

Terminology for Cognitive Transdiscursive Mediation in American Football Ekaterina Isaeva

and Russ Crawford

Abstract The chapter provides more evidence to our belief that conceptual ­metaphor is a powerful tool to facilitate intercultural communication. Used appropriately, a metaphor creates a breeding ground of mutual understanding, making communication more efficient. In this chapter, we are determined to prove our idea that in the course of intercultural communication with an American interlocutor, it is worthwhile appealing to strong national bonds with American football. Earlier, we discussed the idea expressed in (Gannon, Pilai 2016, Understanding Global Cultures. Metaphorical Journeys Through 34 Nations, Clusters of Nations, Continents, and Diversity, 7) that “metaphors allow outsiders to understand what members of a culture consider important, which can then be used by others to understand the essential features of the society. It is no coincidence that they choose football to describe American culture” (Crawford 2016, 25). In this chapter, we analyze corpora data to illustrate the variety of ways that football terminology serves as a mediation tool for understanding the game by either non-profs or non-natives. First, we refer to the entries found in WordNet, the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and the Corpus of Historical American English to prove the evidence for the existence of terms whose meanings enjoy general English—football or football—general English shift of meaning, i.e. appeal to the general English sense for their interpretation in the framework of the football context in the former case, or transmit the specific football sense to express the speaker’s idea in other than American football settings. Finally, following the analysis results, we evaluate the viability of the American football terminology for cross-­ domain knowledge mediation.

E. Isaeva Perm State University, Perm, Russia R. Crawford (*) Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 E. Isaeva (ed.), Specialized Knowledge Mediation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95104-7_11

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Keywords  American Football · Football Discourse · Metaphor · Terminology · Transdiscursive Communication · Transdiscursive Knowledge Communication

11.1  Introduction The most visible sporting spectacle in the United States is the Super Bowl—the championship game of the National Football League. In addition to the more than one-hundred million Americans who watch the game, there is also a global audience of perhaps thirty to 40 million more (Both 2015). Men, and women, from more than seventy nations, play the game, including fifteen teams in Russia. Many players outside the U.S. echo the thoughts of Eddie Diop, a French football player, who wished to “get a piece of the American Dream” by playing (Eddie Diop 2012). This motivated us to set up cognitive linguistic research of the American football discourse. We start with studying football terminology, which is essential for professional communication and accumulates specific knowledge about football. At the same time bearing in mind that American football is an integral part of U.S. life, we believe that there should not be any borders in communication between football professionals, fans, and laypeople. For this reason, we raise the question of mediation in communication between these social strata being part of the American football domain of communication. The chapter provides more evidence to our belief that conceptual metaphor is a powerful tool to facilitate transdiscursive communication. Used appropriately, the metaphor creates a breeding ground of mutual understanding, making communication more efficient. Michael Gannon and Rajnandini Pillai, in Understanding Global Cultures (2016), make the argument that metaphors allow outsiders to understand what members of a culture consider necessary. Earlier, we discussed the idea expressed in (Gannon and Pillai 2016) that “metaphors allow outsiders to understand what members of a culture consider important, which can then be used by others to understand the essential features of the society. It is no coincidence that they choose football to describe American culture” (Crawford 2016a, b, p. 25). We aim to find the appropriate way to understand American football through culture, language, and background knowledge. We assume that they construct a cognitive foundation for so-called penetration into the football subculture.

11.1.1  Mediation in Sports Discourse To understand American football, one needs to be either an American, for “football and America seem inseparable” (Crawford 2016a, b, p.  25), or an expert in the game. For a layman and outsider of American culture, it may be problematic enough to conceive what is happening on the field. From the cognitive-discursive linguistics’ perspective, belong to different functional discourses, which “correspond to

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genres of professional communication, i. e. scientific, popular, and lay” (Isaeva 2019) (for more information on types of discourse see (Alekseeva and Mishlanova 2002)). Being part of different discourses means not having common experience, not sharing collective knowledge. This must cause a mismatch of mental knowledge, discrepancy of ontologies and, as a result, misunderstanding. However, this is not the case when it concerns American football, which is historically a folk game.

11.1.2  C  ognitive Background of the History of American Football American football evolved in the United States most directly from the English game of rugby but also had antecedents in campus free-for-alls such as Bloody Monday at Harvard University (Bunk 2014). Other institutions of higher learning also had similar informal battles between classes as well. Ohio Northern University had such skirmishes between engineering and pharmacy students. The Harvard contest, played between first-year students and sophomore teams, took place on the first Monday of the term and was something of a no-holds-barred chance for students to visit violence on one another, but included a ball that included a ball gave the exercise the patina of sport. The events were cancelled by faculty in the 1860s, but students resurrected the struggle in 1871. While many faculty members considered these “games” to be little more than hazing, the idea of Muscular Christianity gave these violent encounters a theoretical justification. The English author Thomas Hughes provided the impetus for this idea when he wrote Tom Brown’s School Days in 1857. While attending Rugby School, his eponymous hero played the sport that earned its name there, and his athletic experiences helped him grow into a fine young man. Likewise, muscular Christianity argued that Christians should be robust in their faith and bodies, lest more vigorous cultures overtake their Western Civilization. Hughes visited Harvard in 1870 and spoke to students about his ideas, which perhaps led to the resumption of Bloody Mondays (Hughes 1895). In that environment, the first college football game took place in Rutgers, New Jersey, when Rutgers University played against Princeton University. The first contest, played on 6 November 1869, was more similar to what would be termed “soccer” in the United States today. Rugby rules were still being codified at that time, and the game featured some of the violence that would mark the modern version of American football. However, the sport decisively branched off from its rugby origins when Walter Camp of Yale University began writing new rules for the game. He created the line of scrimmage, which would be the most significant deviation from the English game. This transformed American football from a relatively fluid game to a more static contest. Subsequent rule changes were largely evolutions that followed from that creative leap.

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The charge that the game was too violent has dogged the sport from the early days. In 1894, Harvard played Yale in their annual game, and the contest featured several injuries. When accounts of the game appeared in the press, however, a less unusual game became known as the Hampden Park Blood Bath, and widely inaccurate reporting, which included rumors that some players had been near death, caused an uproar that threatened the game (Crawford). Those who saw football as dangerous once again attacked the sport in 1905, when eighteen players died playing the game. Perhaps the most crucial death was that of Eugene Byrne of The U.S.  Military Academy at West Point, New  York. Because of the proximity to New York City, the nation’s media capital, his death made national headlines. This crisis led drew concern from the highest levels, including a meeting between U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and delegates from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton that began reform efforts that led to creating the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). These reform efforts seemingly satisfied the majority of the nation that football should continue, although deaths from the sport exceeded the 1905 toll in 1909 but were not the cause for a renewed crisis (Watterson 2000). Despite the danger involved in playing football, an increasing number of Americans became fans of the sport. Football’s visibility increased dramatically when the U.S. entered the Great War (1914–1918) in 1917. The U.S. military used sports such as football to keep their soldiers in fighting shape and sponsored teams at many training camps. The Allied Expeditionary Force carried footballs to France, along with their rifles and bayonets. The games continued “over there”, aided by the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), an organization founded to promote the principles of Muscular Christianity. After the war ended, the victorious Allied forces held the Inter-Allied Games in 1919. In addition to soccer and rugby, American forces held an intramural football championship. According to the after-­ action report submitted by Major George Wythe, some 743,696 servicemen played in the championship, and a reported 3,745,738 had watched a game. This exposed millions of American men to this formerly somewhat novel game. After the war, attendance at college football games increased dramatically (Crawford). With football firmly established in the national consciousness, the game challenged baseball as the most popular sport in America. In 1920, a group of team owners gathered in Canton, Ohio, to create the organization that would later change its name to the National Football League (NFL). The league’s visibility increased in 1925 when University of Illinois football star Red Grange signed a contract to play for the NFL’s Chicago Bears. With the advent of televised games, football, whose line of scrimmage fit neatly into early television screens, continued to grow in popularity. The watershed moment came in 1958 when the Baltimore Colts defeated the New  York Giants 23–17  in overtime. The nonstop excitement of football, when compared to baseball, finally began to show up in opinion polls, and football became the nation’s number one sport (MacCambridge 2008). Football remains the top American sport, both at the collegiate and the professional level. The concussion crisis that began in 2011, when several former players sued the NFL, led to a decline in the number of young boys playing the sport.

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Despite fears about the danger and violence of football, an increasing number of girls and women are playing the sport (Crawford 2017). During the pandemic of 2020, some collegiate conferences, including the Big 10, have cancelled or postponed their seasons, while others plan to continue playing football. In most states, high school football has already begun as of this writing, and the NFL planned to start in September 2020. Like most things at this moment in history, whether the games and seasons will continue is uncertain. It is a testament to the importance of football in American culture that decisions by college conferences such as the Big 10 to cancel or postpone their season have become a “political football”—see below. President Donald Trump has loudly tweeted that football should continue. In contrast, Joe Biden, his opponent in the presidential race, has released an advertisement in which he argued that “Trump put America on the sidelines” along with aerial images of empty stadiums (Travis 2020). American football has thrived through wars, social justice protests, pandemics, and even presidential elections. How well it will survive this current situation remains to be seen, but the sport remains an essential metaphor that can help one understand American culture. The game development, its conceptualization by society, and terminology formation are interdependent. We assume that football terminology is metaphorical, for they “come with conceptualizations of experience” (Muller 2016, p. 35). Herewith, the American football terminology as part of the English language “can be regarded as a repository of meanings stored in the form of linguistic signs shared by members of a culture. This lends language a historical role in stabilizing and preserving a culture” (Kövecses 2019), empowers it the ability to “influence learning, reasoning and understanding” (Muller 2016, p. 35). Besides metaphor, we believe that metonymy, which implies cognitive mappings within the same domain, must also be a frequent phenomenon in football terminology because the logic of so-called folk game evolution presupposes the operation of the principle of linguistic economy applied to cognition. H. Spencer studied this principle in terms of language as “an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought” (Spencer 1852), “stressing the importance of reducing the mental burden on the addressee’s part in the interpretation of an utterance the speaker is conveying to him/her” (Kobayashi 2015, p. 51). Metonymy and metaphor work as cognitive and linguistic tools in discourse and language for specific purposes. They allow for a motivated usage of the same words to designate different concepts possessing cognitive connections. After Z. Kövecses, we differentiate three types of connections: 1. through connection, i.e., the source entity provides access to the target entity; 2. as if connection, i.e., one conceptual entity is taken as if it were another entity; 3. is connections, i.e., often found in G. Faucinnier’s mental spaces, used to make identifications between conceptual entities in different mental spaces; this means, an entity in one mental space is identified with an entity in another mental space (Kövecses 2019). The first connection is identified with metonymy, which expresses contiguity and highlights particular aspects of an entity within the same domain; in other words,

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“one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity within the same idealized cognitive model” (Radden and Kövecses 1999). The rest of the given connections refer to metaphor, which shows the similarity of two entities in different domains. With further research, we intend to study the mediation mechanism of these cognitive-­linguistic phenomena in the American football terminology to find out whether they help reduce misunderstanding between professionals and dilettantes. Additionally, we seek to prove our feasible theory discussed earlier (Crawford 2016a; b) that the football metaphor is recognized as the key to some cultural aspects through “joint meaning making” (Kövecses 2019).

11.2  L  inguistic Study of Conceptualization of American Football In WordNet, American football is defined as “a game played by two teams of 11 players on a rectangular field 100 yards long; teams try to get possession of the ball and advance it across the opponents’ goal line in a series of (running or passing) plays” (WordNet 2020). The term belongs to the category Football/Football game, “any of various games played with a ball (round or oval) in which two teams try to kick or carry or propel the ball into each other’s goal” (WordNet), which is given in WordNet as a direct hypernym. As inherited hypernyms WordNet states as follows: field game