Geographical terminology in the medical metaphor mirror

Luiza V. Nadeina and Elena A. Prineslik
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Luiza V. Nadeina: National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University
Elena A. Prineslik: Siberian State Medical University

Russian Social and Humanitarian Studies, 2026, vol. 18, issue 1, 217–238

Abstract: Background. One cannot call the development of a science effective if its conceptual apparatus doesn’t possess strict scientific terminology. Being the main linguistic component of any professional language, special terminology plays a major role in providing names for objects, processes, and phenomena that appear in various spheres of human activity and in new areas of knowledge. It is known that medicine possesses one of the richest and broadest terminologies, because medical terminology has its roots in an ancient past, namely Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. There are hundreds of thousands of terms in the modern language of medicine, and the corpus of medical terminology continues to grow rapidly. Purpose. The article attempts to explore the phenomenon of terminology metaphorism and to show that the metaphor serves as a basis for transferring the name of terms from one scientific field (geography) to another (medicine). Materials and methods. The study employs cognitive and component analysis methods, as well as the method of continuous sampling; 400 units were selected from medical encyclopedic dictionaries. Results. The results showed that the terms of geographical subdivisions (geomorphology and hydrology) are the source of metaphorical term formation and the basis for replenishment in the anatomical term system. The authors concluded that the transfer of meaning can be carried out on the basis of emerging associative connections between different objects. This connection is observed between anatomical objects and objects from the field of geography, and the metaphorical transfer is based on the similarity of their forms, dimensions, and functions.

Keywords: physical geography; medicine; anatomy; metaphor; term; metaphorization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cxm:russhs:18:1:2026:217-238

DOI: 10.12731/3033-5981-2026-18-1-563

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