언론 담화에서 경제 불황 묘사 의학 용어의비유적 사용에 대한 은유 이론적 분석

Abstract

Metaphor Theory (MT) has been widely adopted to characterize figurative meanings of lexical items. This research attempts to characterize figurative uses of medical terms for describing economic recessions in Korean media discourse in terms of MT. Economy rules every aspect of human life, and thus the government takes every possible action to keep the economy growing. Korea has suffered from economic recessions, and a number of medical terms are used to describe bad economic situations in media discourse. After providing an overview of medical terms and prior research, this research examines and classifies medical terms which are used figuratively in newspaper articles. Examination of the data shows that the following metaphors are at work in the figurative uses of medical terms for the description of bad economic situations: (i) ECONOMY IS A HUMAN BODY, (ii) BAD ECONOMIC SITUATIONS ARE PATIENTS, (iii) RECESSIONS ARE DISEASES, (iv) GOVERNMENT’S POLICIES/MEASURES ARE TREATMENTS, (v) A FINANCIAL FLOW IS A BLOOD CIRCULATION, and so on. In sum, this research shows that MT is a useful tool for understanding and characterizing metaphorically extended meanings of medical terms in media discourse on economy.