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The Use of Metaphors and Epithets in Business Articles
Nr. | Sadaļas nosaukums | Lpp. |
1. | Introduction | 4 |
2. | Theoretical part | 6 |
3. | Practical part | 8 |
Metaphors | 8 | |
Epithets | 9 | |
4. | Questionnaire analysis | 11 |
5. | Summary | 12 |
6. | References | 13 |
7. | Appendixes 1. Questionnaire | 13 |
Stylistic devise is the use of any technique, in order to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling to the literal or written1. There are various stylistic devises that perform different functions in the written or spoken texts; however all of them influence readers’ subconsciousness on one or other level, creating colourful images and new views on the particular subject.
The main stylistic devises we going to focus on are metaphor and epithet. Metaphor belongs to the so-called rhetorical devises. Rhetorical devise or resource of language is a special technique that an author uses to convey to the reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him towards considering a topic from the different perspective2 .
In order to understand the main function of rhetorical devises we need to know the definition of metaphor itself. Traditionally, metaphor is defined as a figure of speech that introduces comparison between phenomena not normally associated with each other. From this traditional approach to the definition of metaphor we can conclude that metaphor expresses the unfamiliar through the familiar. Metaphors are used in order to create an emotional response in the target audience, to show obvious things from entirely different perspective and become a peculiar guide to the essence of written text, to the basis of total comprehension.
However, two famous linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their work Metaphors We Live By published in 1980 introduced an entirely new approach to the idea of metaphor comprehension. The developed theory became known all over the world as the cognitive view of metaphor.
According to this theory, the metaphor is defined as “a device for seeing something in terms of something else” the notions of linguistic and conceptual metaphors have been used to distinguish between text-surface metaphors and the underlying “metaphorical concepts” which partially build up our conceptual system3 .…
The feature that we are focusing on in this paper is the use of metaphors and epithets in business related articles. The reason for this particular choice is quite simple, as basically a substantial part of all research in the field of Business English focused on the practical facet of comprehending business texts, giving all attention to specific lexis of the language. The sector for research of linguistic characteristics of Business English remained quite narrow, however stylistic devises used in business articles influence a lot on readers’ comprehension of business texts.