THE TERM COMBINATION AND THE METAPHOR IN THE OFFICIAL BUSINESS DOCUMENT: COGNITIVE ASPECT

Abstract

In this paper, the military term combinations and military metaphors in the official documents are identified and analyzed by the methods of corpus and cognitive linguistics. The comparative approach was pursued to show their common usage in the unified official document of NATO. The purpose of the study is to recommend the methodology for statistical and automated identification of term combinations in the parallel corpus of the official texts and to recommend the methods of cognitive linguistics such as the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (hereinafter – CMT) and the Conceptual Blending Theory (hereinafter – CBT) for the analysis of the military metaphor in the parallel corpus of official texts. The ultimate aim of the study is to analyze NATO’s military terminology and understand the military conceptual metaphor in official business documents to demonstrate a deep understanding of military-political discourse. The removal of the highly specialized terminology from NATO’s official business documents is conditioned by the presence of language units with the semantic structure indicating military, political and humanitarian features that distinguish NATO from other organizations. In our research, the sampling of nominative units used to denote the military concept of NATO as an international organization evidenced a wide reproduction of the accurate and definite content that deprives its components of the semantic ambiguity. At the same time, the speech expression is fixed in texts from positions of observation of the language that allows us to identify the dynamics of language changes in general and on the general scale in particular. The analytical method of observation in the context of our research envisages the collection of scientific information and identification of linguistic characteristics of NATO’s official business terminology. In particular, we separated a number of two-, three- and four-component phrases from OBD. The sampling included the following phrases used to denote: 1) nuclear-powered rocket weapons system: nuclear cruise missile submarine; wire guarded missile; nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine; rocket-assisted projectile; 2) radio-electronic and other technical tools: artillery radar complex; beam rider guidance; uninterruptible – power supply; laser range finder; ambush detection device; on-board electronic computer system; 3) reorganization of ground forces and senior management units: paramilitary mining rescue unit; logistics operations center; emergency unit; 4) change of some fundamental provisions (doctrines) in tactics and operational art: nuclear detonation detection; electronic countermeasures; protection of safety information. Thus, the semantic dominance of the highly specialized terminology in NATO’s official business documents is confirmed by a large sampling based on features identified as a result of monitoring of their extralingual indicators. The research value of the sampling consists in the fact that the selected terminological phrases lead to an improvement of their understanding and the effective practical application of the research. We also used the statistical and automated methods of a NATO term combination separation from the collocation to not hinder the presentation and perception of the corpus of UN parallel texts. The quantitative expression of results of the corpus analysis of the NATO’s term combination and the commonly used phrase encourages to choose the optimal way to single out a referent of a certain military sphere, and in such event its nomination corresponds to the official business document assigned to this term combination. As the research showed, the mechanism of use of CBT for the analysis of the cognitive model of a metaphor with the author’s conceptualization demonstrates condensed intra-domain properties. By singling out four spaces, we traced their mutual designing that indicates a shorter distance between the domains than originally expected. In comparison, the military term combinations in these fragments are used to provide specific information about the military, such as the shoestring budget and the cavalry regiment. On the other hand, the military metaphors are used to convey complex ideas and comparisons, such as the sitting duck and tank battalion. Both the military term combinations and metaphors contribute to the overall effectiveness of the language used to describe NATO’s land forces and their challenges. Conclusion. The study was focused on the identification and analysis of the term combination and metaphor in the official document by the methods of corpus and cognitive linguistics to confirm their common usage in the unified official document of NATO. We tried to justify the hypothesis according to which these subjects have common features in the lexical form and the military lexical meaning. The first of the two linguistic analyses was aimed at giving the global perspective on the most frequent term combinations and comparing them with the most commonly used word combinations in the parallel corpus of the official texts to identify the coefficient of their informational value. Statistical and automated methods of the linguistic analysis confirmed the high reproducibility of the NATO’s term combination in the parallel corpus of the official texts. Taking into consideration the results, the field-specific military term combinations serve as a joining link that will provide the unity of the content plan and its expression [Solano, 2013, p. 167–180] as had been stated before. On the other hand, the second analysis was created to illustrate the cognitive model of the metaphor through the military expression. As the conducted study found, the mechanism of the usage of the TCB for the analysis of the cognitive model metaphor showed short intradomain properties. This identification helped to determine four spaces where we traced their mutual projection which showed the shorter distance between the domains than had been expected at the beginning of the study. At the final phase of the study we focused on the identification of the field-specific term combination and military metaphor in the official document under the title “NATO’s Land Forces: Losing Ground”. Though the term combination and metaphor are different categories, their common usage in the official document shows the similarity which can create a common category, the military metaphor in the official terminology of NATO. As far as specific results are concerned, the following conclusions can be drawn referring to the official business document dealing with training mission in Afghanistan (2019): 1) The similarity between the term combination and metaphor is found in the chain of semantic dependence between the terms in the fragment of the official document. The meaning of the language units (the term combination, the metaphor) colors the fragment content with the military and identification sense. 2) The difference between the military term combination and the military metaphor lies in the usage of them in text. On the one hand, military term combinations used in the text convey meaning related to military operations rely on technical language to convey specific information, while on the other hand, military metaphors use imagery and comparisons to convey abstract concepts in a more relatable way.