METAPHORIZATION OF CATEGORIES OF DISEASE FROM A PERSPECTIVE OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

Abstract

The primary way of presenting phenomena which are elusive for the senses, the mechanisms of which exceed our direct cognitive abilities (e.g. viruses, bacteria, infection, treatment) and those that require abstract thinking is through a process of metaphorization. Before the bacteriological breakthrough, diseases could be conceptualized by means of metaphors of the imbalance of the internal system; of punishment, flaw, and sin; of mechanical defects; or by means of personalisation or reification. After Louis Pasteur, the war metaphor was developed and, with technological development, also the mechanistic metaphor, and then the bioinformatics metaphor. On the other hand, today we can see that, as we with become more aware of this process, there is also a need for a new way of their metaphorization to respond to new diseases, especially chronic and incurable ones. In this paper I will try to indicate and briefly discuss various metaphors of disease; however, the bulk of the attention will be dedicated to metaphors linking disease with war, as they are most popular in the contemporary culture.

Keywords

• health
• disease
• metaphorization
• cognitive linguistics