Metaphorical Expressions In English And Romanian Financial Discourse: A Comparative Analysis

This article discusses comparatively the metaphors used in English and Romanian financial language, by employing conceptual metaphor theory as a main instrument of analysis. As shown in the literature on the topic, the conceptualization of financial markets is based on two important metaphors, each of them encompassing a variety of specific metaphorical concepts: the market as the natural world of living beings (animals and plants) and the market as the physical world of inanimate objects. In order to ascertain the presence of these two metaphors in English and Romanian, I use specialized dictionaries and examples from financial newspapers in the two languages. The results of the analysis indicate that, while the animate and inanimate metaphors can be found at a general level in both English and Romanian, their particular linguistic manifestations in each language show some differences. In detail, English has a higher preference for figurative language and idioms than Romanian, which sometimes translates metaphorical expressions by means of literal, non-metaphorical words and phrases. An awareness of these differences is particularly important, since they can constitute areas of difficulty for learners of Business English, leading to incorrect translations and an artificial, non-native sounding style that can hinder communication in professional contexts.