Types of metaphors in economic discourse (based on the representation of enterprise activities in Russian, English, German, and French)

Abstract

This paper is written within the framework of a cognitive study of the economic discourse metaphor used to objectify various types of activities of an enterprise and its environment. The research aims to identify the semantic and pragmatic features characterizing the linguistic and axiological implementation of metaphorical representation of the internal structure of a modern economic company and its relationships with the external business world. The work analyzes the types of metaphors, highlights the features of lexical units that are actualized during the transfer of meanings, and demonstrates evaluative connotations. The scientific novelty of the research lies in systematizing metaphors of such an important segment of economic discourse as entrepreneurial activity and providing their typology based on Russian, English, German, and French, revealing the common and specific features in the conceptualization of relationships and characteristics of a modern company. As a result, the dominant metaphorical models in the representations of an economic enterprise, their axiological and cultural characteristics are shown, the types of metaphors in the “Economics” subject area corresponding to the functional aspect of metaphors are listed.