Specificity of Clinical Terms, Formed through Metaphorization of Mythological and Literary Imagery

Authors:

Pages: 37-49
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/TWDM4163

Abstract:

Based on Old Greek and Latin, clinical terminology has been developing for thousands of years, which has led to imagery infiltrations in term names from different eras. Clinical terms, formed through metaphorization, are distinguished according to various criteria: method of formation, scope of the metaphor, detectability of the metaphor, type of the lexical units, used for secondary nomination. Different types of terms have a different mechanism of metaphoric transferal, as well as presence and strength of the metaphor. This study focuses on eponymous metaphors, constructed on the basis of mythological and literary imagery, combining two methods of nomination – eponymous and metaphoric. This study identifies the two main types of terms in this group – mythological eponymous metaphors and literary eponymous metaphors. We discuss the similarities and differences between metaphors and eponymous metaphors, on the one hand, and between ordinary eponyms and mythological or literary eponyms, on the other. The different ways of constructing the mythological and literary eponymous terms are examined and their specific mechanism of metaphorical transferal is explored. The methods of creating the outer form of the terms are established – either by an eponymous construction or by means of adding affixes. A distinction is also made on the basis of their inner form, which defines them as metaphors with obvious imagery and metaphors with hidden imagery. The study of the metaphorically formed terms in medical and, in particular, in clinical terminology has an informative, cognitive, and didactic meaning in the general discourse of the academic medical education.

Keywords:

clinical terminology, metaphorization, mythological and literary imagery.

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