Cultural-specific metaphoric models of term formation in Russian, English and Chinese languages (based on “Desulphurization of oils and oil products” term system)

In the aspect of professional communication, the challenge to a comparative description of special vocabulary is currently due to the strengthening of international relations because of the accelerated development of young and promising oil industries. The consequence of this growth is the need for high-quality technical translation, which actualizes the study of culturally specific metaphorical models for the formation of terms. Thus, the analysis of terms in the field of “Desulfurization of oils and oil products” is relevant not only for terminography, international communication, scientific and technical translation in this area but also for revealing the significance of the terminology's connections with the national picture of the world and cultural aspects. Oil refining and, in particular, desulphurization of oils and oil products remains unexplored from the point of view of cultural linguistics and cognitive terminology. In connection with the indicated gap, this study is aimed at solving the problem associated with a comparative description of culturally specific metaphorical models in Russian, English, and Chinese on the material of the term system “Desulphurization of oils and oil products”. The analysis technique is multi-stage. At the first stage, the definitional analysis was used to determine the meaning of the term and to determine semantic groups. Next is a quantitative analysis to organize the data. At the second stage, the analysis of the internal form made it possible to determine: 1) the feature underlying the nomination in the formation of terminological meaning, the degree of its metaphor; 2) to which model the terminological metaphor can be attributed. At the next stage, frame analysis allowed us to obtain data for comparative analysis. A comparative analysis of the semantic parameters of the metaphor in relation to the Russian, English and Chinese languages was based on a synthesis of the cultural and cognitive experience of a person who, with the help of a metaphor, reflects the established deep connections between objects, phenomena, properties and relationships at the level of figurative nomination. A cognitive description of the term involves the interpretation of data obtained by linguistic methods. The analysis shows the quantitative mismatch of metaphorical models in the three studied languages. This discrepancy is actualized by various images in a metaphorical conceptualization due to different pictures of the world and cultural concepts of Russian, English-speaking peoples and Chinese. The presence of a large number of asymmetric (15 terms out of 65), partially symmetrical (12 terms out of 65), non-metaphorical terms (15 terms out of 65), and a small number of matching metaphorical models (6 out of 28 models) in the three languages studied are significant differences in national scientific pictures of the world, which in turn are formed under the influence of the specifics of the worldview of the nation.

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