Abstract

MUNOZ DAGUA, Clarena. The role of lexical metaphore in science divulgation. Tabula Rasa [online]. 2010, n.13, pp.273-292. ISSN 1794-2489.

Scientific divulgation can be defined as discourse activity, whose main objective is to communicate some knowledge previously produced in scientific contexts to a non-expert massive audience. One of the difficulties science divulgators need to overcome is to explain specific concepts from a given discipline in a language simple and understandable for their interlocutors, and, in that process, lexical metaphor becomes an effective didactic mechanism. Therefore, this paper analyses and interprets some functions of metaphor in divulgation. In order to do that, Goatly's assumptions (1997) are taken up. Within the bounds of System Functional Linguistics (SFL), Goatly brings into focus the functional variety of metaphors in the construction of different textual typologies. As our corpus of work, we take examples from four divulgation texts so as to examine the resource where it is actualized by the writer and, thus, to show the reasons underlying rethorical uses.

Keywords : lexical metaphor; scientific divulgation; roles of metaphor; functional variety.

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