Novel Metaphor and Scientific Discourse Come to Terms: A Case Study of Metaphorical Prototerms in Biology

Novel metaphorical expressions have been understudied in traditional approaches to terminology because they normally behave as sporadic units incapable of structuring whole discourse events. To show that this is not always the case, this paper presents a case study of novel BIOECONOMICS metaphors in an academic marine biology research article (Landa 1998). They were analysed following two paradigms: (i) the Career of Metaphor Theory (Bowdle and Gentner 2005), a solid framework for the description of novel metaphor in usage; and (ii) the text-linguistics approach to term description (Collet 2004), which suggests a set of criteria for term definition that challenges the prescriptive tenets of monolithic terminology models. The analysis of unexpected metaphors and similes identified in the text suggests that these units should be regarded as proto-terms experienced as deliberate rhetorical and conceptual devices. On a pragmatic level, the metaphors are shown to be part and parcel of the writer’s discursive strategy to communicate specialised knowledge to her peers and further science. On a conceptual level, the metaphors are found to be essential building blocks and structuring elements of the mental model of the article.