METAPHOR AND SECONDARY
TERM FORMATION
John Humbley
C.I.E.L., Université Paris 7
The thrust of the following paper is the idea that the metaphorical
process can provide ideal conditions for translating certain terms that already
have a metaphorical basis in their source language, provided that the metaphor
in question is shared by both language communities. In this regard, the
metaphorical process can be ideal for secondary term formation. Metonymy
can play a similar facilitating role, but for the purposes of this paper we are
keeping to metaphor. But what is secondary term formation ? Whereas the
meaning of metaphor is largely consensual, at least in general terms, that of
secondary term formation remains an insider term for those familiar with the
works of Juan Carlos Sager, who developed this concept. By secondary term
formation, Sager is alluding to the way concepts conceived and named in one
language are named in another language. “Secondary term formation occurs
when a new term is created for a known concept […] as a result of knowledge
transfer to another linguistic community” (Sager 1990 : 80). In the modern
world, where English dominates scientific and technical research, this means
the way English-language terms are transposed into other languages. Since the
dominance of English in this respect seems to be gaining ground, the
importance of secondary term formation may be expected to increase. As the
quotation above indicates, Sager does not equate secondary term formation
with translation, though clearly there are some parallels in the process. The
reason may be that secondary term formation may well involve
reconceptualisation of the original, though by the same token it may be
argued that translation also involves reconceptualisation. Sager seems to
exclude conceptualisation from the secondary term formation process,
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claiming that this has been achieved in the primary term formation process
(“..there is always the precedent of an existent term with its own motivation”,
Sager 1990 : 80), though this may well be an altogether too schematic way of
regarding what actually happens.
The metaphor in terminology represents a particular form of
conceptualisation which if shared may well facilitate secondary term formation
(cf. Schlanger, 1991). In the examples which follow, we suggest that this is
indeed the case.
One condition of successful secondary term formation by metaphor is
that the source metaphor be shared by the two language communities
involved. If there is no shared cultural or linguistic background, the metaphor
may well constitute an obstacle for secondary term formation. This would
seem to be the case where metaphors are derived from popular culture, and
heavily dependent on language (plays on words or other figures of speech).
One case in point is the computer technology term of bootstrap. The
metaphor is embodied in the expression “ to lift/hoist yourself up by your
own bootstraps ”, meaning to get ahead using one’s own resources. The
metaphor consists of using this image to suggest the action of a program
which starts another program by itself. This image has not been reproduced in
either of the two other languages of our survey, French or German, simply
because no similar metaphor exists in popular speech, and, as a result, the
English word is used, though modified in both cases: in French we have the
abbreviation boot et booter, and in German Boot (including in many noun
compounds) and the verb booten. The metaphor is lost and the term is
unmotivated.
It may be a foregone conclusion therefore that this sort of metaphor,
based on traditional figures of speech, will resist secondary term formation.
What is perhaps more surprising is the fact that more objective sources of
metaphor can also resist the sort of transposition which we are suggesting is
generally widespread. The much quoted example of genetic splicing is very
much a case in point. The use of metaphor not simply in naming but as a
discovery tool in research has been examined in detail by Rita Temmerman
(2000), but in spite of the explanatory potential of the splicing metaphor in
English, neither French nor German have used it in their secondary term
formation, and both retain the English word, again in various disguises.
Temmerman does not broach this issue, perhaps because the answer can be
little more than idle speculation, but two other possible reasons can be given.
One is that the French or German geneticists did in fact understand the
metaphor, but did not transpose it into their language as it was felt
inappropriate as a technical term. Temmerman assumes that the early
American geneticists were home movie buffs, and that they used the image of
splicing film – i.e. cutting out bits of the film and sticking the ends back
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together - to imagine what they were doing with a gene sequence. Now it may
be that American scientists are quite willing to mix work and play to the
extent of adopting such recreative terms in their scientific work, whereas
European scientists – to the extent they knew anything about home movies found this inappropriate, and preferred using the less explicit English word,
without any frivolous overtones. The other hypothesis is that the French or
German scientists did not in fact know the English word splice at all and
simply retained it as an opaque term. This attitude was inadvertently reinforced
in France when the Ministerial terminology commission proposed épissure as
an equivalent, giving quite the wrong metaphor : the process is claimed to be
like splicing a film (montage) rather than splicing a rope (épissure),
effectively dooming this suggestion to failure.
Those metaphors which come from parent technologies are generally
better incorporated into both primary and secondary term formation. This is
one of the ideas behind Louis Guilbert’s major study on the development of
the vocabulary of air travel (Guilbert 1965). Another example of the same
period is the terminology of sound reproduction, which uses a few metaphors
which assume that the new technology is simply an expansion of an old
technology : thus recording is actually writing sound (we use a phonograph
[or sound-writer], which uses a stylus to record… a record…[records before
1877 were all written]) or photographing it (we reproduce sounds as we
reproduce light). In previous research we have shown that these same
constitutive metaphors were developed independently in French and in English
with only minor variation (Humbley 1994), suggesting that translating is not
necessarily involved.
We shall leave aside the more open question of the use of experiential
metaphors, as developed by Lakoff (1987) and illustrated by Kathryn English
(1997, 1998) in the fields of science and technology, to concentrate on another
type of metaphor which is most effective in secondary term formation : that
where the source field is a science (though not an ‘ancestor’ science) and the
target is a completely different science and where the metaphor is constitutive
rather than didactic, a distinction we shall go into later.92 The case in point is
that of computer viruses. Here we have a metaphor whose source field is
biology and whose target is information technology. It can be assumed that
the source metaphor is generally though perhaps hardly precisely known to
educated people from any language community, and certainly in those
92 Van Besien et Pelsmakers (1988 : 143) distinguish between constitutive and
didactic metaphors ; for Temmerman (2000 : 208) didactic metaphors are
associated with popular science. This distinction is taken up again by Boyd (1993)
and Knudsen (2003) ; Knudsen suggests that the distinction between the two is
less clear-cut than initially imagined, as the same metaphors may be used in both
contexts, though their mode of usage is quite different.
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languages which concern us here.
Various writers, mainly in the IT field, have sought to detail the points
of convergence which makes this particular metaphor particularly apposite.
We have adapted below a table of comparisons by the French IT specialist
Jérôme Damelincourt, which illustrates eleven similarities.
Virus in biology
A micro organism containing its
own genetic heritage..
Only attacks certain cells.
Reproduces by replicating its
genetic code in other cells
Modifies the inherited code of the
infected cell.
May be triggered immediately or
after an incubation period.
Can transform itself, thus becoming
more resistant to the immune
system.
May disappear from the host cell
after proliferating.
Infected cells produce other viruses.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
All viruses do not cause incurable
diseases.
The more cells are infected, the
more the body is weakened.
The body is able to defend itself
against many viruses.
10
11
Computer Virus
A program containing a self
replicating routine.
Only attacks certain programs
Reproduces by replicating its virus
code in other programs.
Modifies a program so as to perform
tasks which it was not designed for..
May be triggered immediately or
after an incubation period..
Can transform itself, thus become
more difficult to detect and destroy.
May disappear from the host
program after proliferating.
Infected programs infect healthy
programs.
Does not always cause damage
The more programs are infected, the
more the system is weakened.
There are many ways to protect
against computer viruses.
Adapted from : Jérôme DAMELINCOURT : Les virus : une nouvelle
forme de vie http://www.futura-sciences.com/ decouvrir /d/dossier28-3.php
These parallels are used by both journalists and experts in
communicating to lay people these new and complex phenomena, as the
following extract from Der Spiegel illustrates well.
COMPUT E R
Virenjagd mit digitalen Antikörpern
Was ist der Unterschied zwischen einem PC, den bösartige Viren überfallen,
und einem Menschen, der Schnupfen bekommt? Kein sehr bedeutender, meint
Stephanie Forrest, Computerforscherin an der Universität von New Mexico.
Sie arbeitet an einem künstlichen Immunsystem für Computernetze, das
selbständig Eindringlinge erkennt und vernichtet. Dabei hat sie sich bis ins
Detail die Biologie zum Vorbild genommen: Der Körper erzeugt spezielle
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weiße Blutkörperchen, die angriffslustigen Lymphozyten, in großer Menge
und stets neuen Variationen. Aber nur diejenigen gelangen in den
Blutkreislauf, bei denen sich erweist, dass sie auf keine der körpereigenen
Substanzen losgehen. Nur Fremdkörper sollen ihnen zum Opfer fallen.
Ähnlich funktioniert Forrests Immunabwehr für den Computer: Zufällig
erzeugte Zeichenketten, so genannte
Detektoren,
schwärmen
in
großen Mengen im Netz aus. Diese digitalen Antikörper werden unablässig
verglichen mit den kleinen Datenpaketen, die zu Abermilliarden im Netz
zirkulieren – das sind die gesunden, die netzeigenen Substanzen. Ein
Detektor, der zu viele Ähnlichkeiten mit den legitimen Datenpaketen
aufweist, wird sofort vernichtet. Detektoren hingegen, die zwei Tage
überlebt haben, sind zulässigen Bits so unähnlich, dass sie fremde
Invasoren erkennen könnten. Unter den überlebenden Detektoren geht die
Selektion dann weiter: Diejenigen, die mehrmals Viren aufgespürt
haben, werden unsterblich – so wie sich die Immunabwehr des Körpers ihre
Erfolge merkt. Erste Versuche, so Forrest, haben ergeben, dass dieses
Immunsystem deutlich treffsicherer wirkt als herkömmliche Methoden der
Virusabwehr.
Spiegel 2000/ 8: 256
This is an example of very conscious mapping, and the metaphors
produced along the way are thus clearly of the didactic type. Some are also
used in the constitutive metaphor, though perhaps not all. It is highly likely
that the original interview took place in English and that the metaphors have
been translated literally in all cases.
We have sought to verify this claim by using a corpus made up of a
selection of documents drawn from the web in English, then in French and
German, on the history and forms of computer viruses. It contains, for each of
the three languages, one or more histories of the discovery of computer
viruses (English and German are better represented here) and texts taken out of
on-line computer magazines on viruses and how to get rid of them,
supplemented with similar texts by manufacturers or by user self-help groups.
From the point of view of corpus linguistics, these texts can at best be
considered as a pilot study : 15 000 words for English and as much for French
and German combined ; more seriously, the English language texts have
generally more authority than those of French and German, where user selfhelp groups are more predominantly represented. For a pilot study, it may be
considered that this is legitimate, as the aim is to find examples of the
equivalents of the English metaphors used in the two other languages, and no
use of statistics is attempted in this mini-corpus. This is complemented by
the use of the web as a mega-corpus to confirm the leads found in the minicorpus.
We have then compared the metaphoric terms from the English-language
micro-corpus with the introduction to viruses in the Merck Manual, giving a
similar sort of list than that proposed by Damelincourt, though more
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language orientated - i.e. we have noted more pervasive use of metaphoric
verbs (replicate, spread, infect, contaminate, mutate, trigger…) and some
adjectives (healthy) and adverbial phrases (in the wild) connected to the
constitutive virus metaphor.
Virus metaphor as attested in a micro corpus
S o u r c e a r e a b i o l o g i c a l v i r u s 93
Some adenovirus types infect only the intestinal
tract,…
Transfer of virus by healthy persons.
The virus replicates in the respiratory tract
Rhinoviruses are spread […] via contaminated
secretions
a single virus is responsible during outbreaks in
relatively closed populations
Mutations of HA and NA within a type of influenza
virus are known
Epidemics […]caused by influenza A (H3N2)
viruses….
[…] pandemic caused by a new influenza A serotype…
During the 48 h incubation period, the virus r
The SARS virus may originate from, and widely exist,
in the wild. Sci-Tech China,
http://test.china.org.cn/english/scitech/65987.htm
Target area:
Computer virus
A virus
infects/contaminates X
(program/file…)
Healthy file
A virus replicates
A virus spreads
A virus infects a
population
A virus mutates/undergoes
mutation
A virus triggers an
epidemic/pandemic
A virus has an incubation
period
A virus… in the wild
The status of these expressions as metaphors from the field of biology is
therefore not only demonstrated, but it turns out that the virus metaphor is
more fully developed in language than the IT expert suggested.
So much then for the metaphor in English. Can it now said to be
seamlessly transposed into French and German ? This may well be expected,
as the Spiegel interview suggests, and indeed some linguists have assumed
that the unfurling of this metaphor occurred spontaneously and
simultaneously in these languages, a topic which came under discussion at the
LSP workshop at the 15th congress of linguists in Québec 1995. Louis
Guespin maintained that lexical creativity in French could explain the
emergence of this metaphor and that there was no need to look for an English
model. We shall therefore attempt to bring some circumstantial evidence to
bear in order to demonstrate that we do indeed have a case of secondary term
formation in both languages and not independent creation. To do this, a small
93 http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/section13/chapter162/162b.htm
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diachronic excursion is required investigating the origins of the metaphor in
the three languages concerned. Terminology is as closely linked to the history
of science as it is to linguistics, and diachronic terminology has received
much interest latterly.
The history of the discovery of computer viruses is well documented,
and, in English, we are fortunate enough to have the direct testimony of those
actually involved in the discovery itself. This is the case of Robert M. Slade,
whose account suggests that the development of the computer virus metaphor
was a long and complex process, but that it did occur in an American (or at
least an English-speaking) context. One of the first viruses turns out to be the
worm, so named in a complex combination of metaphor and metonymy, as
Slade indicates below.
“ Attempts to trace the "path" of damage or operation would show "random"
patterns of memory locations. Plotting these on a printout map of the memory
looks very much like the design of holes in "worm-eaten" wood: irregular
curving traces which begin and end suddenly. The model became known as a
"wormhole" pattern, and the rogue programs became known as "worms". In an
early network of computers a similar program, the infamous "Xerox worm",
not only broke the bounds within its own computer, but spread from one
computer to another. This has led to the use of the term "worm" to differentiate
a viral program that spreads over networks from other types. The term is
sometimes also used for viral programs which spread by some method other
than attachment to, or association with, program files. ” Slade 1992
http://www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/~janda/sladehis.html
It is claimed that the metaphor of the computer virus was coined in
198194 though in private conversation. The definition of the computer virus
goes back to 1986 and Fred Cohen’s thesis "a program that can 'infect' other
programs by modifying them to include a ... version of itself" (Slade 1992)
points to the biological origin, not only in the use of the word virus itself,
but by the verb infect, which may well have had a triggering effect. 1986 was
the year that the first PC virus was produced, in Pakistan. It was called the
Brain virus, though the first element of the name is no metaphor, simply a
case of metonymy, as Brain was the name of the company where the virus
was produced. The second important virus produced was the Lehigh virus
(discovered at Lehigh University, USA in 1987), defined as a "memory
resident file infector", with, once again, emphasis put on its potential for
infection. By 1988 the first anti-virus programs were being not only written
but also marketed, and mainstream English-language media Business Week,
94 Der eigentliche Begriff des "Computervirus" wurde 1981 von Professor
Adleman eingeführt. Er rief den Begriff ins Leben, als er sich mit dem Doktoranden
Fred Cohen unterhielt. http://www.hu-berlin.de/bsi/viren/kap1/kap1_1.htm
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Newsweek, Fortune, PC Magazine and Time ran features on the computer
virus95. For those interested in first attestations, computer virus could be
reckoned on being used among specialists from 1981 and in general English
as from 1988, a remarkably quick uptake.
One remarkable feature of these accounts by the pioneers themselves is
the lack of acknowledgment of using a biological metaphor at all. This
silence is one indication that we are not dealing here with a didactic metaphor,
one designed to help laypeople understand, but an implicit means of
understanding what was going on and communicating this to peers.
Constitutive metaphors may be regarded as typical term candidates, since they
embody in language essential information96, whereas didactic metaphors are
less primary, representing different ways of suggesting specialized information
to the lay reader. In both cases, however, the metaphorical process leads to
mapping, and the application of this mapping can lead to term candidates.
The evidence from French and German is more sketchy, though less so
in German than in French. One indication suggests that Louis Guespin may
have been right about independent metaphor creation (and thus primary and
not secondary term formation), though in German, not in French. It appears
that IT student Jürgen Kraus wrote a dissertation in 1980 on “ Self-replicating
programs ”, which explicitly drew a parallel between these programs and
biological viruses97. The paper went unnoticed, however, and languished on
the shelves of Dortmund university.
The first computer virus turned up in Germany as early as January 1986,
infecting the mainframe computer of the Free University of Berlin, thus at the
same time as viruses were produced in English-speaking countries.
As for French, the various histories available98 clearly mark the
95 The History of Computer Viruses - A Timeline http://exn.ca/Nerds/ 2000050455.cfm
96 “ Theory-constitutive metaphors are generally considered to be the most
genuine scientific metaphors, because they form a unique part of scientific
reasoning and conceptualization. Conseuqently these metaphors are impossible to
paraphrase, since they represent the only way of talking about a particuler
phenomenon or activity ”. Knudsen 2003 : 1249
97 “ 1980 verfaßte Jürgen Kraus am Fachbereich Informatik der Universität
Dortmund eine Diplomarbeit mit dem Titel "Selbstreproduktion bei Programmen".
In dieser Arbeit wurde zum ersten Mal auf die Möglichkeit hingewiesen, daß sich
bestimmte Programme ähnlich wie biologische Viren verhalten können. ”
http://www.hu-berlin.de/bsi/viren/kap1/kap1_1.htm
98 Payer, Georges (1997) “ L'incroyable histoire des virus informatique ” FerréePinguet de septembre 1997 http://www.ifrance.com/protectirc/virushistoire.htm
Un siécle d'histoire de virus, Zataz magazine, http://www.zataz.com/ zatazv7
/chrono3.htm ;
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chronological development as taking place in English-speaking countries99,
and it is claimed that in France, computer viruses were not taken seriously
until as late as 1989 with the Datacrime scare.
Evidence does therefore generally point to an English-language origin for
the computer virus metaphor, though it is less compelling for German than it
is for French. The Kraus episode illustrates the possible closeness of
conceptualisation and reconceptualisation, and therefore tends to blur the
distinction between primary and secondary term formation. Nevertheless, we
shall consider that sufficient evidence has been provided to indicate that we do
indeed have a clear case of terminology adaptation in both French and German,
and can thus proceed to the analysis of the mini-corpus.
The following table summarizes the main elements of the scenario of
the computer virus as a spreader of disease, concentrating on the verb forms
identified in the initial comparison with the biological viruses.
Elements of the scenario of the virus as a spreader of disease
English
French
German
A virus
Un virus infecte/contamine Ein Virus infiziert X (eine
infects/contaminate X (program/logiciel…)
Datei…
s X (program/file…)
Mit einem Virus verseucht
Healthy file
Fichier sain
Gesunde Datei
A virus replicates
Un virus se réplique/la
Ein virus repliziert sich
réplication d’un virus
selbst
A virus spreads
Un virus se répand (dans
Ein Virus verbreitet sich
une population) / se
(uber)
propage/se transmet
A virus
Un virus subit des
Eine Mutation des virus….der
mutates/undergoes
mutations
Virus mutiert bei jeder
mutation
Infektion
http://www.internetfun4u.de/viri.htm
A virus triggers an
Un virus déclenche une
Viren können eine Epidemie
epidemic/pandemic épidémie/pandémie
auslösen/Pandemie
A virus has an
Un virus peut se déclencher Die durchschnittliche
incubation period
après un temps
Inkubationsszeit bei einem
d’incubation
vernetzten PC beträgt
zwischen 20 und 30 Minuten
Virus ! http://www.chez.com/popyk/ppvirus/RAPPORT.HTM
99 Si les U.S.A. mesurent l'ampleur du phénomène dès le début des années 1988, la
France, comme la plupart des pays européens, ne prend véritablement
connaissance de l'existence des virus informatiques que lors de l'alerte Datacrime
(virus Hollandais du vendredi 13 octobre 1989, qui fut rapidement anéanti).
www.chez.com/popyk/ppvirus/RAPPORT.HTM
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A virus… in the
wild
Un virus… dans la nature
Die in freier Wildbahn
vorkommen
The verbs used are those of infection and spreading of disease, which we
saw were fundamental in defining computer viruses in the first place. They
can be converted to noun forms as well, in all three languages, though the
actual usage of verb or noun forms varies from one language to another : in
French we find more attestations of mutation with a support verb than in
English, where to mutate is commonly used. But the general transposition of
the metaphor is complete, aided no doubt by the presence of the Latin-derived
virus in all three languages, and a generally cognate vocabulary for the verbs.
We have included a couple of derived metaphors as well, just to indicate
how pervasive the transposition is. The first is the incubation period, which
Darmelincourt mentions specifically, and which is regularly used in both
French and German, and the image of the virus escaping from the laboratory
and living “ outside ”, in the wild (Slade uses just this expression) which
also finds a direct equivalent in our two languages of comparison.
Other metaphors used in conjunction with computer viruses
On reading Slade’s account of the history of computer viruses, seen from
the inside, one cannot help being struck by other metaphors developed in the
process; many already current in the field (memory, noise, etc.), others visibly
new, some of which have found their way into the language and are thus
involved in secondary term formation, whereas others remain in discourse and
are generally unknown in other speech communities. Some of these transient
metaphors paved the way for the virus metaphor (a program “broke the
bounds”, “rogue” programs). Many betray the common transfer of human
qualities to the machine, which is typical of technical fields, and certainly
found pervasively in IT speak, and not just in English. Other metaphors seem
isolated (e.g. “painting” a screen with the facsimile of a log-in), and that of
the rabbit, another image of rapid reproduction. Grevy (2002) lists literally
hundreds of metaphors in popularized IT publications, and Meyer et al (1997)
indicate many in the more restricted field of the Internet, so it is no surprise
that a wide variety of metaphors are used. But the other major metaphor field
which obvious provided much of the motivation as well as the language
material to do it is the war game scenario.
The aim of many of the early inventors of viruses was to crack the
security of a system just to show that they could do it (Slade uses pranks to
describe this behavior when it is inoffensive: “ Pranks are very much a part of
the computer culture ”.). They can rapidly turn offensive however, which is
where most of the war game metaphors come into play. One crossover
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metaphor here is that of the Trojan horse, in Slade’s terms “The Trojan Horse
was the gift with betrayal inside; so a trojan horse program is an apparently
valuable package with a hidden, and negative, agenda. ” Now the Trojan horse
belongs to European history, so there is no surprise to find that it figures in
both German (Trojanisches Pferd) and in French (cheval de Troie). The Trojan
horse was also the first so-called stealth virus, though this metaphor has
proved a little more difficult to transpose, originating in American defense
policies of the Reagan era. In French, the adjectif furtif was used in the
military field and thereafter in computer viruses as well. In German, the
situation was more complicated, all the more so as the military usage was
usually rendered by a direct borrowing from English. This is often the case
with computer viruses as well, though secondary term formation has been
essayed with varying degrees of acceptance Tarnkappeviren is used, linking
back to Germanic mythology and to the camouflage metaphor associated with
the stealth virus, and regularly rendered in German by the verb tarnen.
A cross-over to the biological virus is provided by the verb to attack,
already used metaphorically in biology and exploited in both registers in the
computer field. This is rendered in French by the cognate attaquer, and in
German by angreifen.
Elements of the war game scenario
Trojan horse
Cheval de Troies
A virus attacks X
Un virus attaque
(files)
Virus may use
Utilise des
camouflage
techniques de
camouflage
A virus may use
Un virus peut être
stealth
furtif
Trojanisches Pferd
Virenangriff/Viren greifen Dateien
an
Virus tarnen/Tarnhelm, Tarnkappe
Stealthviren (Tarnkappenviren)
P OINTS FOR DISCUSSION
As Carlo Grevy (1999, 2002) suggests, the transposition of metaphors
into different language communities is more complex than is often assumed.
The revue of primary term formation by metaphor in English in the field of
computer viruses does confirm a certain number of regularities. Metaphors
taken from shared cultural sources do indeed facilitate secondary term
formation. The difficulty in pinpointing this term formation resides both in
the original conceptualization and in the correct identification of the fields
concerned. It appears in the case of the computer virus, that the metaphor was
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taken not from an ancestor technique, as in the case of sound reproduction, but
from another, popularized field, that of biology. As has been pointed out, the
analogy between computer and biological viruses is striking, yet diverges on
several points, both conceptual and linguistic. It also becomes clear from
reading the history of the discovery of these viruses that the IT specialists
concerned had no particular knowledge of biology – the idea of the virus may
well have been suggested by the use of the verb to infect. It should be recalled
that the early 1980s was the time when the AIDS virus was identified, and
very much in the news at the time, so part of the IT specialists’ daily
environment. The use of the verb infect, as we have suggested in the words of
Kathryn English (personal communication), the verb triggered the metaphor,
but the noun anchored it. Analogical mapping could then take place. Once the
metaphor was established however, it was easy to transfer for secondary term
formation, since the biological vocabulary was immediately accessible in the
two target languages.
The importance of verbs in this terminology should also be underlined.
Until recently, terms were thought of as nouns or noun groups, though much
work has been done on verbs as terms. In the case of the shared metaphor, the
whole scenario is taken over into the adapting language community, so that
once the virus metaphor is accepted, all the verb forms that go with it are
adopted with great regularity (attack, infect, contaminate, trigger,spread…). It
could be argued that only the source metaphor – that of the virus and its role
in infection has effectively been transferred, and that the verbs associated with
this are simply those used in the target language community in the source
metaphor; thus giving some credence to Guespin’s argument. The result is
notwithstanding new terms in all the languages: the definition of attack,
infect, contaminate, trigger,spread… in IT is different from that in biology,
even though analogies are obvious. In addition, specific forms can be pointed
to which do not exist in the source field in the target language and which are
probably developed from the English language model, given the situation of
diglossia in which French (or German) IT specialists live, such as
infecteur100/Infektor.
The other source field, that of war games has also proved fertile in
secondary term formation, though less systematically so, especially in
German, perhaps for the same reasons invoked for the lack of success of the
100 “ Le terme "infecteur lent" fait référence aux virus qui, s'ils sont activés en
mémoire, n'infectent des fichiers que s'ils sont modifiés (ou créés).
http://www.ontrack.fr/virusinfo/tutorial.asp ; infecteur semble synonyme de
virus .
Der Infektorteil ist der elementarste Bestandteil eines Computervirus.
http://www.tecchannel.de/software/213/0.html
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A. SABER - Métaphore et culture des militaires américains
splicing metaphor in genetic engineering : games may not be considered
proper sources for terms in some European scientific or technical circles;
Be this as it may, there is still much research which could be usefully
carried out in the field, notably a full scale investigation of how the virus was
named in English then in other languages, taking Rita Temmerman’s survey
of genetic engineering as a model, though examining the reception of the
metaphor in other language communities. One lead which should be followed
up in Fred Cohen’s writing is the relationship between to infect and virus, to
determine which suggested the other. It seems that the constitutive metaphor
may be subject to some cultural differences, even in shared field.
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