Chapter Nine
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average speaker of English. What is more, taking into account the fact that
these lexemes are morphologically complex, from the linguistic point of
view, one can speak here of metaphorically-based borrowing.
Last but not least, the third subgroup of aviation vocabulary includes
official names of planes, which not infrequently, are names of birds.^8 This
is the case in both military as well as in civil aviation. Albatross, Pelican,
Nighthawk, Raven, Skyhawk, Eagle, Fighting Falcon, Blackhawk are but a
few examples of numerous bird names used as official names of planes.^9
Conclusion
The analysis above, far from being exhaustive, confirms the claim made
by Faber (2012: 6) who says that “Cognitive Linguistics is an attractive
linguistic paradigm for the analysis of specialized language and the
terminological units that characterize it”. More specifically, on the basis of
a preliminary survey of texts focusing on different aspects of aviation, it
has been shown that, taking into account such variables as specialist vs
non-specialist users of particular lexical items, as well as official vs.
unofficial context of their use, the aviation-related lexemes fall into three
broad groups. Adopting the cognitivist view of categories, it was assumed
here that some lexemes belong to the core of the category of aviation LSP,
whereas others are, to a different extent, removed from the core and
belong to the peripheries of aviation LSP. A number of words in the
peripheries of the category of aviation LSP are used by both professionals
and non-professionals, and they are, in fact, the only means in English
allowing users to make reference to a given denotatum, e.g. wing. This
assumption, according to which the peripheries of LSP vocabulary include
words used by both professionals and non-professionals, modifies the
traditional definition of LSP vocabulary, as being in opposition to LGP
vocabulary.
Most importantly, lexemes motivated by the conceptual metaphor
PLANES ARE BIRDS were found in two out of three subgroups
distinguished for aviation vocabulary. Judging from the data in the
lexicographic sources analyzed, the metaphor PLANES ARE BIRDS
seems non-existent within the core vocabulary of aviation English, i.e.
(^8) It has to be noted, however, that bird names given to planes are only one of the
naming patterns, and, at least in English, by no means the most popular.
(^9) In some cases, there is no agreement among lexicographers as well as those who
present lists of planes’ names on the Internet whether the given name of an aircraft
should be considered its official name or a slang nickname, as is, for example, the
case with Blackbird – Lockheed SR-71.