Metaphor and Mills. Figurative Language in Business and Economics

Honesto Herrera-Soler and Michael White (Eds.), Metaphor and Mills. Figurative language in business and economics. Berlin/ Boston: Mouton de Gruyter, 2012. Pp. 329. ISBN 978-3-11-027296-3.The book Metaphor and Mills. Figurative language in business and economics, edited by Honesto Herrera-Soler and Michael White (2012) is an important contribution to the study of economic metaphor as it exploits different facets of conceptual metaphors and it covers all aspects related to the study of metaphors in business and economic contexts: the translatability of metaphors, the teachability of conceptual metaphors, the frequency and density of conceptual metaphors in business texts, the aesthetic function of the metaphor and the role played by metaphors. There are many approaches to economic metaphors in business English texts. Herrera Soler and Michael White bring out novel interpretations of metaphors, metaphors in business genre and its subgenres (project management, corporate communication) are studied from different angles.The book is divided into three sections: Section 1 - Metaphor in economic theory and in economics as an academic discipline, Section 2- Cultural filters in contrastive studies, Section 3 - Metaphor in economy and business in practice. Each section comprises four contributions totalling 12 articles written by well-known specialists. The book is not clustered around categories of conceptual metaphors shaped in a business environment, it interprets the economic metaphors from an organic perspective. The book brings together different points of view in the study of metaphors: metaphors in translation, metaphor and terminology, diachrony, pedagogical implications of metaphor, metaphors and banking discourse. The book focuses on business/ economics metaphors exploited from different perspectives: as a result of the translation process, metaphors seen from a diachronic perspective, as a result of networking, as a means of adorning communication, figurative meanings with aesthetic function. The articles have in common the methods adopted for conducting the research. In almost all articles the method used for collecting and interpreting data resorts to corpora.The authors of the 12 contributions originate from different countries, bringing intercultural glimpses into the study of metaphors. The different entailments arising between metaphor, politics and culture are mentioned, the political and cultural implications are drawn on in all articles. Politics and culture shape have different impact on economic metaphors. The economic metaphor is influenced by the political transformations a country is going through. The editors highlight the importance of resorting to metaphor in business English class drawing on the pedagogical implications of business metaphors as a tool during the process of instruction. Despite mentioning the role of business metaphors in the language class no article from the book addresses the topic of the teachability of business English metaphors.In chapter one From barter to coin: Shifting cognitive frames in classical Greek economy Paloma Tejada Caller and Antonio Guzman Guerra start from the assumption that linguistic research is a useful tool in discovering and revealing different stages of a country`s language and behaviour from social, cultural and mental perspectives. The authors believe that lexical transformations go hand in hand with the development of the country and its enrichment. Every change and development in the cultural, economic and political evolution of money (the way in which money is perceived, the concept of profits, the idea of wealth) is lexically reflected. At their turn lexical transformations were captured by means of metonymy and metaphors. Based on the results of their investigation, the authors attempt to reconstruct cognitive models associated with the concept of exchange. Dwelling further into these aspects we can see how ancient Greeks perceived money, their emotional perception of money, their social life and the role money played in shaping daily life. …