Green Technology: Color Metaphor in Professional Discourse

Abstract

The transition to the paradigm of sustainable development and safe production has provoked an exponential increase in the number of scientific papers on the topic of green technology. This article deals with the linguacognitive approach to the metaphor of green technology and the modeling potential of this color metaphor. The research was based on ten scientific articles on green technology published in 2011–2020 in different countries. The analysis involved traditional linguistic methods in combination with a discursive-cognitive approach, as well as a corpus and contextual analysis supplemented by statistical and bibliometric methods. The author identified the conceptual core of the green technology discourse and organized the conceptual domain into a framework structure. The cognitive approach facilitated the identification of non-semantic elements of meaning, e.g. emotional and sensory reactions, psychological associations, positive attitude, etc., i.e. the total aura of meanings around the color green which are superimposed on the professional context and determine the vector of its interpretation. The article introduces this metaphorical model as a lexical manifestation of professional discourse of sustainable production and development.

Keywords

• metaphor
• conceptual metaphor
• color metaphor
• cognitive modeling
• frame analysis
• corpus analysis
• green technology
• environment protection