The money is a liquid metaphor in economic terminology – A contrastive analysis of English, Serbian and Romanian* [articol]

Abstract

In this paper we deal with the MONEY IS A LIQUID metaphor as linguistically instantiated in economic terminology in English, Serbian and Romanian from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, as propounded by cognitive linguists (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Kövecses 2002; etc.). The main aim of this cross-cognitive and cross-linguistic analysis is to establish whether the three languages share the same conceptualisations of some important financial concepts based on the LIQUID metaphor, or alternatively, whether they exhibit any crosscultural differences. Since the mind is embodied and our bodily experience with liquids (water in particular) is universal, we expect to find little difference across the three languages.