mgr Gabriela Pikor

  ORCID: 0000-0002-2790-1787

The topic of my dissertation is: „Conceptual metaphor in Polish and German medical discourse in the field of oncology”

The main area of my research is specialist languages and the conceptual metaphors present therein. Due to the topic of my Master's thesis, I have thus far paid particular attention to the language of law, especially that of laws and regulations in force. My research to date has been conducted within both the Polish and German language areas. Owing to the fact that I am a German translator by profession, I have a keen interest in issues related to the translation of specialised languages, especially the equivalence of metaphorical expressions in the aforementioned language pair. When researching specialised languages in terms of metaphorical expressions, I rely on the cognitive theory of metaphor.

The aim of the theoretical part of my dissertation is to show the development of the concept of metaphor over the years and to present medical language as an example of a specialised language. In turn, the principal focus of the research to be carried out within the framework of this dissertation is to analyse the conceptual metaphors present in Polish and German medical discourse in the field of oncology. In addition, I also intend to conduct research on the conceptualisation of the terms “metaphor” and “specialist language” by medical language users and their awareness of the use of conceptual metaphors.

The model of analysis utilised in the research is based on the cognitive theory of metaphor developed by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson. The research involves both quantitative and qualitative analysis of popular science texts in Polish and German in the field of oncology in respect to conceptual metaphors present within. For the second part, an appropriate interview scenario will be prepared in order to research the conceptualisation of the above-mentioned concepts by medical language users.

I believe that the results of the present study will contribute to the improvement of the state of knowledge concerning conceptual metaphors in specialised discourses, especially in medical discourse, and could be utilised in further research within cognitive linguistics. In addition, from a practical point of view, this research should contribute to the knowledge of the mental processes responsible for the understanding and usage of medical terms and expressions, thus facilitating communication between doctors (and other medical staff) and their patients. Furthermore, the contrastive analysis of metaphors in the Polish-German language pair may have a significant impact on the work of medical translators streamlining the process of translating medical texts, especially medical terminology, which often proves challenging.