https://ijmri.de/index.php/jmsi
volume 4, issue 3, 2025
9
THEORY OF METAPHOR AND VISUAL-EXPRESSIVE MEANS AS AN INTEGRAL
COMPONENT OF THE LANGUAGE
Gafurova Nigora Sa’dullayevna
Karshi State technological university
Annotation:
This article examines the visual and expressive means of language, focusing on the
concept of metaphor and its application across various scientific and artistic fields. It explores
the linguistic, philosophical, and cognitive aspects of metaphor, distinguishing between artistic
and linguistic metaphors. The role of metaphor in technical terminology and the process of
terminologization are also discussed. The classification of metaphors by different scholars is
analyzed, highlighting the formation of terminological metaphors based on visual or functional
similarity. Examples of common words transitioning into technical terms illustrate the impact of
metaphorical transfer in language development.
Keywords:
Metaphor, expressive means, linguistic style, artistic metaphor, linguistic metaphor,
terminologization, terminological metaphors, semantic change
.
Under the visual and expressive means of language are understood such techniques, with the
help of which the visual appearance of the phenomenon is reproduced in the imagination and
which are designed for sensory and emotional perception. The most important place among such
expressive and pictorial means of language is occupied by tropes-turns of speech in which a
word or expression is used in a figurative sense. The style of the language defines a whole series
of tropes that have received specific names. Based on the ratio of the direct and figurative
meanings of the word, tropes are distinguished in which the ratio is based on similarity; trails
where the ratio is based on contrast and trails where the ratio is based on contiguity. Among the
means of artistic expression, the most important place is occupied by the metaphor, which
represents the first type of tropes (the ratio of similarity).
The Great Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary (BRES) gives the following definition of metaphor:
"Metaphor — from the Greek metaphor-transference) - the transfer of the properties of one
object (phenomenon) to another on the basis of a feature that is common or similar for both
comparable members" [BRES, 2005, p.939].
"Metaphor — both an artistic image and a scientific concept-serves as a form of generalized
reflection and cognition of reality, created on the basis of imaginative thinking, which is an
organic unity of sensory-contemplative and rational-abstract forms of cognition" [Gak, Telia,
Wolf et al., 1988, p.134].
Metaphor went beyond the interests of linguistics and became the subject of research at the level
of the philosophical concept of cognition of the surrounding reality [Gusev, 1984, p. 53].
Metaphor is given an organizing role in cognitive practice and emphasizes the active
participation of metaphor in the language of scientific and philosophical theories [Gusev, 1984, p.
11]. On the basis of the language experience of speakers, subject-logical connections are formed
in the language, which initiate the transfer of semantic meanings underlying the metaphor [Telia,
1977, p. 192-193].
At the level of linguistics, various syntactic constructions containing both single words and word
combinations and whole sentences bearing a metaphorical image are studied; the latter are called
expanded metaphors. In the historical perspective, the gradual expansion of the element of study
can be traced-from the phrase that carries a metaphorical meaning to the contextual environment
https://ijmri.de/index.php/jmsi
volume 4, issue 3, 2025
10
that determines the metaphorical tonality [Potebnya,1905(1976); Katsnelson,1965;
Basilaya,1971; Mednikova,1974; Telia,1981; Bessarabova,1987; Kartashova,2009; Zanina,2013;
Alekseeva,2013; Borisova,2016].
The basic concept in the system of visual and expressive means of language is the concept of
lexical meaning. The past years of linguistic research have led linguists to interpret lexical
meaning as a complex concept, which includes, first, the denotative content with its semantic
center (core) and periphery, and, second, the connotative environment. However, not all linguists
attribute additional semantic meanings, called connotations, to the lexical meaning and, thus,
deduce the connotative environment beyond the latter. We can say that the concept of
connotation includes a whole range of associations: stylistic, pragmatic, expressive, evaluative
[Shakhovsky, 1982, p. 33]. In the semantic core, however, the dominant and unchanging feature
that is included in the dictionary definition is concentrated, and in the periphery — secondary
features. It is important to note that a metaphorical expression can include any meaning that is
remote from the denotative center.
Analyzing the deep roots of existing and emerging metaphors, we can say that human thinking
cannot stay on the straight path of rigid separation of objects of the surrounding world, it
(thinking) is inherent in the creative process of comparing objects and building associative
connections based on the identified similarities and, at the next step, creating vivid images by
mentally endowing some objects with the characteristics of others [Koralova,1985; Kuliev,1987;
Oparina,2000; Razinkina,2005; Skorokhodova,2006].
Over the years of studying the visual and expressive means of language, linguists have offered
various options for classifying metaphors. First of all, the emphasis was placed on the watershed
between artistic metaphors, which are individual inventions of the authors of works of art and are
aimed at creating bright expressive images, and linguistic metaphors, which have long been fixed
in the language and have become an integral part of it. Language metaphors are characterized by
reproducibility in speech and anonymity of the source of occurrence, while artistic metaphors
usually do not go beyond the scope of a single work or the works of the author of these
metaphors. For language metaphors, it is typical to use them in speech without any awareness of
the allegorical nature of these words [Kotyurova,2009; Garipova,2015].
According to the dictionary of linguistic terms, metaphors are divided into:
- lost imagery;
- preserved imagery in the language;
- author's, individual-stylistic metaphors
[Zherebilo, 2010, p. 192]
Efforts to further classify — separately within the framework of artistic and linguistic
metaphors-have encountered difficulties in typologizing the former, which is a consequence of
their spontaneously subjective nature, and have highlighted possible ways to typologize the latter.
[Rubtsova, 2002; Skorokhodova, 2006; Newmark, 2008; Shikalov, 2010]. N. D. Arutyunova
suggests that among language metaphors, metaphors that carry a figurative image (it is proposed
to call them figurative metaphors); metaphors that have lost a figurative image (it is proposed to
call them nominative metaphors); metaphors that allow us to interpret a new object of research
on the basis of fairly well-known analogies (it is proposed to call them cognitive metaphors)
[Arutyunova, 1978, p. 340].
The Great Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary (BRES) gives the following definition of the term:
"A term (from the Latin terminus-border, limit) is a word or a combination of words denoting a
special concept used in science, technology, and art" [BRES, 2005, p. 1560].
In the light of our work on the spread of metaphor in the field of technical terminology, it is
interesting to turn to the views of the founders of Russian linguistics on the essence of terms. In
one of the first works devoted to the analysis of terminology, A. A. Reformatsky focused on the
fact that although the meaning of the term may vary in different scientific and technical fields,
but within each of them the term has an unambiguity that does not depend on the context — in
https://ijmri.de/index.php/jmsi
volume 4, issue 3, 2025
11
contrast to non-term words, which are characterized by the removal of ambiguity precisely due
to the context. As an example of the use of one term with different interpretations in different
fields of knowledge, different interpretations of the term function in mathematics and physiology,
and the term reduction in economics and phonetics are given [Reformatsky, 1959, p. 9]. In the
same work, it is noted that the term lies outside of expression, modality and aesthetic qualities,
while for words of common vocabulary, it is typical to have additional meanings associated with
aesthetic characteristics, modality, expressiveness. It is emphasized that such a phenomenon as a
modality, which expresses the attitude of the author of the statement to the latter, is completely
leveled in the field of terminology. To an even lesser extent, the author continues, the category of
aesthetics based on preference and comparability is compatible with the terminological sphere.
Expressing the general opinion of linguists, we can say that the term carries the name of the
concept, and these names are assigned by people who are in constant interaction with the objects
of the surrounding reality. According to V. M. Leychik, "the term is the reification of the
abstraction of an object of a special sphere in the form of a lexical unit of a natural language"
[Leychik, 2009, p. 22].
Among the sources that "feed" the terminological arsenals of special fields of science and
technology, we can name, first of all, the vocabulary of the commonly used style. It is the neutral
vocabulary that is the resource base for generating terms by means of metaphorical transfer of
names based on visual or functional similarity with the "signified" of the lexical unit-source. In
this case, it is logical to say that such terms in the stylistic aspect are metaphors and, accordingly,
to define them by the phrase "terms-metaphors" or "terminological metaphors" [Borisova, 1997;
Novodranova, 2005; Volgina, 2013; Buyanova,2016].
Words of ordinary language, such as apron, dome, knee, acquired the status of terms after they
"migrated" to the technical sphere and received constant use in the latter to refer to specific
concepts: apron (lathe), dome (blast furnace), elbow (pipeline). These examples demonstrate the
fact that there are many lexemes in the language, used both in the common sense and as terms.
This state of affairs has prompted linguists to talk about terminologization, as a phenomenon of
the transition of a lexical unit from the commonly used status to the status of a term.
References:
1.
Great Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary (BRES) (2005). Metaphor. Moscow: Great
Russian Encyclopedia.
2.
Gak, V. G., Telia, V. N., Wolf, E. M., et al. (1988). Metaphor as an Artistic and Scientific
Concept. Moscow: Nauka.
3.
Gusev, V. V. (1984). Metaphor in Cognitive Practice. Moscow: Progress.
4.
Telia, V. N. (1977). The Role of Metaphor in Language Experience. Moscow: Nauka.
5.
Potebnya, A. A. (1905/1976). Thought and Language. Moscow: Nauka.
6.
Katsnelson, S. D. (1965). Typology of Metaphor in Linguistics. Leningrad: Nauka.
7.
Basilaya, A. A. (1971). The Function of Metaphor in Speech. Moscow: Nauka.
8.
Mednikova, E. M. (1974). Metaphor in the Context of Language Evolution. Leningrad:
Nauka.
