The conformation of metaphors in oil terminology motivated by the human-world relationship: the semantic fields of clothing, family, and colors

Abstract

This text aims to analyze the metaphors motivated by the human-world relationship in the semantic fields of clothing, family, and colors in oil terminology. It is based on the cognitive bias of metaphor by Lakoff and Johnson (2015), and based on the communicative and sociocognitive prism of Terminology by Cabré (1999) and Temmerman (2000), respectively. The only terminographic work in Portuguese about oil, entitled Dicionário do petróleo em língua portuguesa: exploração e produção de petróleo e gás (Dictionary of Oil in Portuguese: Oil Exploration and Production), was used as data source. Based on the analyses, it was possible to observe that the metaphors in oil terminology are motivated by the human-world relationship, grounded in everyday experiences, particularly in the semantic fields of clothing, family, and colors. Thus, it is understood that metaphor is not only linked to a stylistic device, as advocated by the classical view, but it is part of a mental process in which one concept is structured based on another, drawing from everyday experiences.