1. MONEY metaphors in British and Romanian Business Journalese
Teodora Popescu
University of Alba Iulia, Romania
16-68 June 2017, Alba Iulia

2. Introduction Main research project:
Universals and variants of English and Romanian business metaphors. A corpus-based conceptual mapping of contemporary journalese ( , University of Alba Iulia, Romania)
The main tenet is that cognitive metaphors are instantiations of cultural categories manifested in the language spoken by the community that shares a common set of characteristics within a given cultural matrix.
A grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-RU-TE

3. business-metaphors.ro

4. Introduction
The issue of business metaphor has attracted a lot of attention lately, by specialists from a large array of fields, in particular marketing professionals, and linguists (cognitive linguists and psycholinguists).

5. Literature review
Models of culture in relation to linguistic structures (Holland & Quinn 1987, Geertz 1973, Kachru & Kahane 1995; Palmer 1996; Jackendoff 2007).
The study of the mental lexicon revealing the interrelations between cognition, knowledge organisation and communication (Aitchison 1994; Wierzbicka 1992, 1997, Libben et al ).
Cognitive metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson1980, Lakoff & Turner 1989, Goatly 1997)
Metaphorical universality and variation (Kovecses 2005, 2010, 2014).
Geert Hofstede’s anthropological theory of cultural categories (1991), among others.

6. Literature review
Beyond the static organisation of words in dictionaries, the mental lexicon of a language reveals the interrelatedness between cognition, knowledge organization and communication. (Aitchison 1994, Geertz 1973, Jackendoff 2007, Kachru & Kahane 1995, Wierzbicka 1992)
Going further into analysing the relationship between language and culture, it is acknowledged that culture is intrinsically interspersed with linguistic structures.
According to Geertz, culture “denotes a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (1973: 89).

7. Literature review
Kövecses (2005: 64) argued that the cognitive view of metaphor can simultaneously account for both universality and diversity in metaphorical thought.
He has proved that certain conceptual metaphors (for anger, time, event structure, and the self) are potentially universal or can be near-universal. He identified these as being “simple” or “primary” metaphors and/or complex metaphors based on universal human experiences.

8. Charteris-Black (2004) Conceptual keys Conceptual metaphors Keywords
THE ECONOMY IS HUMAN
(anthropomorphic and animate - personification)
e.g. MARKET TRADING IS A STATE OF MENTAL HEALTH
MARKET TRADING IS PHYSICAL CONFLICT
MARKET TRADING IS A STATE OF PHYSICAL HEALTH
-vulnerable, jitters, depress, etc.
-health, recovery, paralysis
-protect, battle, defend, rally, retreat, etc.
ECONOMIC PROBLEMS ARE NATURAL DISASTERS
(depersonification)
e.g. DOWNWARD MARKET CHANGES ARE DISASTERS
THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE MARKET IS BEHAVIOUR OF GAS, etc.
-collapse, damage, havoc, punctured, etc.
-bubble, burst, volatile, etc.
MARKET CHANGES ARE PHYSICAL MOVEMENTS
(reification)
e.g. MARKET CHANGES ARE WAYS OF MOVING ON THE GROUND
MARKET CHANGES ARE WAYS OF MOVING IN THE WATER
-tumble, topple, stumble, lurch, etc.
-plunge, float, the storm, etc.

9. Research methodology
The research hypothesis at the basis of this paper is that there are identifiable ways in which metaphors are ascribable to cultural differences in the Romanian and British languages, and these linguistic expressions are a reflection of cultural and social realities.
Our analysis is based on two corpora (British and Romanian), consisting of articles from general audience and financial broadsheets, written during
The newspapers used for this study are: The Economist, The Guardian, The New York Times and The Telegraph for the English corpus; and Adevãrul, Jurnalul Naţional, Cotidianul, Capital, and Ziarul Financiar for the Romanian corpus.

10. Research methodology
Identification of metaphor entails identification of “ideational meaning”, by which one has to establish whether metaphors can be identified in a text and if there is some “tension between a literal source domain and a metaphorical target domain” (Charteris-Black 2004: 35).

11. Research methodology
According to Stefanowitsch (2006) there exist three main strategies for extracting linguistic expressions (as cited in Chapeton 2010):
a) The first strategy is based on searching for source domain vocabulary. This entails selecting a potential source domain and then searching for individual lexical items from this domain using concordancers.
b) The second one resorts to searching for target domain vocabulary. An analysis based exclusively on these two methods will only identify a subset of metaphorical expressions, namely those which contain specific vocabulary belonging to the source or target domain.
c) The third strategy used in the extraction of metaphorical expressions is manual coding. The drawback to this method is that it limits the potential size of the corpus, as the researcher has to carefully read throughout the whole corpus. Moreover, this strategy involves manual annotation, a very time-consuming and painstaking process.

12. Research methodology
= a combined method for the identification of metaphorical linguistic expressions, based on keywords belonging to the target domain and a manual search inside the corpus, starting from headwords from the target domain and manual search throughout the corpus.
The methods employed were: quantitative analysis, based on statistical data starting from headwords and collocations frequently identified in the corpus and qualitative analysis, in which we analysed the metaphors found from the perspective of universality and cultural variation.

13. Results and interpretation
Cultural conceptualisations are found in linguistic conceptualisations, and what is more, there are universal concepts that all humans share, while there exist cultural determinations which would in turn shape behaviours and communication patterns.
A preliminary investigation was carried out into money-related proverbs, in order to identify a larger conceptualization of money across different cultures as it was construed along time, and acquire an understanding of people’s attitudes to and spending behaviours.

14. WEALTH is built on WEALTH
“money makes money”,
“Pfennig ist Pfennig’s Bruder” (Germ.),
“il denaro e fratello del denaro (Ital.),
“dinero llama dinero” (Span.),
“ban la ban trage” (Rom.), (Transl.) “money comes to money”.
“banul face banii”. (Transl.) “money makes money”.

15. MONEY is MISFORTUNE
“banul e ochiul dracului” (Rom.), (Transl.) “money is the devil’s eye.”
“când ai bani, ai și dușmani”, (Transl.) “when you have money, you also have enemies”.
“an abundance of money ruins youth”,
“banii n-aduc fericirea”, (Transl.) money doesn’t bring you happiness.
“money doesn’t buy you happiness”,
“money is the root of all evil”.

16. MONEY is POWER metaphor (by extension, MONEY is CORRUPTION)
“nimic nu e ca sănătatea și banii”,
“puterea la om sînt anii, și aripile lui banii”,
“banul te bagă la râu, banul te scoate”;
“banii îți câștigă prieteni”,
“the rich knows not who is his friend”,
“omul făr’ de bani e ca pasărea fără aripi; cînd dă să zboare, cade jos și moare”,
“banul deschide ușile fără chei”,

17. MONEY is POWER metaphor (by extension, MONEY is CORRUPTION)
“a golden key can open any door”,
“dacă ai bani, ai și tată și mamă”,
“cu bani și ochi negri găsești”,
“money makes a man”,
“pentru bani ia și pe fata dracului”,
“fie ca o naibă, numai bani să aibă”,
“banul și pe nerod îl face iubit”,

18. MONEY is POWER metaphor (by extension, MONEY is CORRUPTION)
“când bogatul vorbește, lumea amuțește”,
“money talks”,
“money makes the mare to go”,
“the rich can pay a ransom for their lives, but the poor won’t even get threatened”,
“the rich man has his ice in the summer and the poor man gets his in the winter”,
“You cannot serve God and Mammon”

19. MONEY is KNOWLEDGE
“banii te învață ce să faci”, (Transl.) money teaches you what to do.
“banul te învață a vorbi, și hainele a merge”, (Transl.) money teaches you how to speak and clothes how to walk.
“banul ușor face planul” (Transl.) money makes a plan easy.

20. EASY MONEY is SHORT-LIVED
“averea zgârcitului se duce de mâna risipitorului”, (Transl.) a stingy man’s fortune is squandered away by his profligate son.
“ban găsit, ban vrăjit”, (Transl.) found money, bewitched money.
“riches have wings”;

21. THRIFT is a VIRTUE
“take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves”,
“a penny saved is a penny earned”,
“save for a rainy day”,
“adună bani albi pentru zile negre”, (Transl.) “save white money for black days”.
“banul muncit nu se prăpădește (Transl.) “you don’t waste the money you worked for”

22. SQUANERING is a SIN “a fool and his money are soon parted”,
“banul e rotund, lesne se rostogoleste”, (Transl.) coins are round, they roll easily.
“că feciorul de bani gata, risipește cu găleata”, (Transl.) daddy’s boy will waste away, meaning that the children of rich people do not understand the true value of money earned through hard work, and will easily squander their parents’ fortune.
“fiece nebun știe să cîștige bani, dar nu știe să-i păstreze”, (Transl.) every fool cam make money, but they cannot keep it.
“economul cumpără vara sanie și iarna car” (Transl.) a thrifty man buys his sleigh in the summer and his cart in winter.

23. MONEY is a RESOURCE
This conceptual metaphor is far more relevant for the business landscape than TIME is MONEY or TIME is a RESOURCE metaphors (especially in the Romanian language, this conceptualisation of time is money is rather borrowed from the English language, given the influence of international trade and intercultural exchanges). This seems but natural, considering that money can be spent, saved, borrowed, allocated, (mis)used, set aside, lost, eked out, doled out, etc. The same conceptual metaphor can be found in the Romanian corpus as well, in almost the same proportion. The verbs used are pretty much similar in the two languages.

24. MONEY is FOOD
Traditionally, in the English language money is referred to as dough or bread, which mean primarily foodstuff. The analogy may be understood if we think of food as resource that a body/an organism needs in order to live/survive, and we consider money as a resource for an economy, for example, or a company/bank, or for people’s welfare in general. In the Romanian language, a similar conceptualisation is found. In the DEX dictionary, the fourth meaning of pâine (bread) is that of job: A pune (or a băga) în pâine (pe cineva) = get somebody a job. A fi în pâine (or a mânca o pâine) = have a job. A scoate (or a da afară) din pâine = fire somebody, get somebody out of a job.
(Transl.) put (or get somebody) in the bread;
(Transl.) be in the bread (or eat a loaf of bread); get somebody out of (or throw out of) the bread.

25. MONEY is a LIQUID
The money is liquid metaphor is also a pervading one in the English language. The very name currency actually derives from the Latin verb ‘currere’, i.e. to run. Expressions such as liquid assets, liquidity, liquidation, cashflow, inflow, or outflow are deeply engrained in the business vocabulary and hardly anyone perceives them as being metaphorical at all. The verbs used with money are also verbs related to moving a liquid, e.g. to pump, to inject, drain out, squeeze (a stoarce, Rom.), spill (a vărsa).

26. MONEY is SOLID
Just like a liquid can turn into a solid, so can money in people’s conceptualisations. Not surprisingly, when assets are no longer liquid, i.e. there is no more money available, they become ‘frozen’, not being able ‘to move’ anymore. A clear distinction between the two meanings can be noticed in example 27), in which clearly the ‘liquid’ acquires positive undertones, being the preferable option for financiers:
For them, too, the cost of moving and storing large stocks of cash is prohibitive; the obvious alternative; (EC, 2015)
In the above example, the metaphor of money being a moving object is also present, since only solid masses can be transported.

27. MONEY is a MOVING OBJECT
Especially money perceived as solid, and physically weighing can be seen as situated in space, and having the ability to move, or be moved. The Romanian corpus displayed more instances of this conceptualisation than the British one. This might make us think of the Romanian adages: “Umblă ca banu ăl rău” or “Banului rău, pungă să nu-i faci”, meaning that dishonest (stolen) money should never stay in one place, so that people can lose track of it.
(Transl.) He travels like bad money.
(Transl.) Don’t put bad money in your purse.

28. The VALUE of MONEY is UNSTABLE
In the Romanian corpus there were far more numerous instances of this conceptualization, which accounts for the Romanians’ higher Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), as theorised by Hofstede (
Romania scores 90 on this dimension and thus has a very high preference for avoiding uncertainty. Countries exhibiting high Uncertainty Avoidance maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour and are intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas. In these cultures there is an emotional need for rules (even if the rules never seem to work) time is money, people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard, precision and punctuality are the norm, innovation may be resisted, security is an important element in individual motivation.

29. The VALUE of MONEY is UNSTABLE
However, from the above statement, only half seems to be true to the Romanian society, the reference to a high uncertainty avoidance, the fact that people in such countries are more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The second part of the statement, referring to precision and punctuality as being the norm, is not true to Romanians, who tend to have a rather polychronic approach, being prone to a different understanding of time. Romanians are known for their relaxed attitude to deadlines, and this happy-go-lucky disposition allows for an academic quarter past every appointment, Security is indeed an important element in individual motivation.

30. MONEY is SECURITY
In close connection with the previous conceptualisation, the possession of money, a regular income, or some savings represent security and stability, which would ward off financial fluctuations on the market.

31. SQUANDERING is a SIN
In the British corpus I found 30 instances of money-laundering, whereas in the Romanian corpus ‘spălare de bani’ occurs only 13 times, actually being a calque, a translation from English into Romanian. It usually appeared in connection with ‘evaziune fiscală’ (Engl. tax evasion). However, there were far more numerous instances of ‘squandering is a sin’ in the Romanian corpus, with a larger lexical field related to wasting/squandering money, which in turn would account for the Romanian culture being based on the cult of property, the cult of the money well spent (children are inculcated with thrifty behaviours – see the above metaphor ‘bani albi pentru zile negre’). Nevertheless, the observation is clear that the misuse of money is heavily sanctioned by people worldwide.

32. INVESTMENTS are CONTAINERS for MONEY
This metaphor was first identified by Lakoff et al. (1991) in the Master Metaphor List, drawing on the interrelatedness of such mappings as money and liquid, containers and investments (by extension, bank accounts, funds, bonds, or debentures are still investments).

33. BUSINESSES are CONTAINERS for MONEY
Since one normally invests in a business in order to set it up, develop and expand, it is normal that businesses are in turn considered containers for money.
It had invested in 10 companies, nine of which were film rights companies that all made losses. (FT, 2015)
Banks especially are subject to such a conceptualisation, as companies that deal in the money business, through a metonymical process.

34. Conclusions
All in all, conceptualisations of companies in both English and Romanian are rather similar, considering the process of business globalisation in general, which indicates that these are primary metaphors, originating in our experience and understanding of the world.
However, there exist cultural variations, embodied in various linguistic expressions of the same conceptual metaphor, or different meaning broadening of the same words.

35. Conclusions
Money is a (valuable) resource, money is food, money is a liquid, money is solid, money is a moving object, the value of money is unstable, money is security, squandering is a sun, investments are containers for money are the most important metaphors that were identified in both corpora, which accounts for the fact that these are in general ‘primary’ metaphors, born out of our experience of the world.
Nevertheless, there exist cultural variations, embodied in various linguistic expressions of the same conceptual metaphor, or different meaning broadening of the same words.

36. Conclusions
Romanians’ need for security and stability would account for their preoccupation with the waste of time and squandering of money, which explains the larger number of instantiations of this metaphorical concept – squandering is a sin. Such would be a higher concern of the British people for a wiser and more judicious distribution of time and financial resources, whereas Romanians would be more concerned with the waste of money.
In an almost equal proportion, both cultures view money as a resource and understand the face value of it in terms of a commodity.

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