Terminological metaphors and the nomadism of specialised terms. Some observations on intralinguistic and interlinguistic variation

The aim of this chapter is to describe various forms and functions of metaphors in specialized texts and discourses. Far from being simple catachresis, metaphorical terms show an extraordinary vitality: they reveal their heuristic potential as “metaphorical swarms” (Prandi 2012) originating from shared conceptual metaphors, or as creative conflict metaphors (Brown 2003; Gibbs 2008), that have given birth to new scientific theories (Hesse 1988). We can find examples of consistent metaphorical concepts which have given rise to a group of metaphorical terms, such as the analogy between blood circulation and running water systems (Oliveira 2009), or conflict-based creative metaphors, as in Darwin’s natural selection. Such metaphors lend to the framing and spreading of scientific knowledge (Prandi & Rossi 2012). In this contribution, we will first analyze three metaphorical English terms created with the modifier junk, and we will afterwards examine the way they were translated into French and Italian. In doing so, we will highlight different processes involved in the interlinguistic transfer of metaphorical terms (Humbley 2006a).