Chapter Nine
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but, importantly, apart from communication among specialists, they
appear in communication between specialists and non-specialists, as well
as among non-specialists. They are part of the lexical repertoire, at least
passive, of an average speaker of English. To start with, according to the
OED, in every-day communications among non-specialists the lexeme
bird is used as a denotation for “a plane.” As emerging from the E-P SSL,
the same metaphorically motivated sense-thread of the lexeme bird
appears in aviation slang, that is in informal communication among
professionals.
Additionally, within the third group of aviation vocabulary, the
background working of the conceptual metaphor PLANES ARE BIRDS
can be detected in terms referring to some basic components of an aircraft,
such as wing(s), tail, and beak. In more detail, in aviation LSP the lexeme
wing denotes, according to DoAT, “the part of a heavier-than-air aircraft
that produces aerodynamic lift to support the aircraft in the air against the
force of gravity,” whereas in its context-free, LGP use, it refers to “each of
the organs of flight of any flying animal, such as a bird, bat, or insect.”
This is also the historically primary sense-thread present in English since
the 12th c. Similarly, the lexeme tail which in its LGP sense-thread denotes
“the posterior extremity of an animal, in position opposite to the head”
(OED) is used in English aviation LSP with reference to the “rear part of
the aircraft” (DA). It has to be observed here that even though a tail is a
body part of a number of animals, it seems reasonable to assume that in
aviation LSP the similarity to the tail of a bird served as the source of the
metaphorical widening of meaning. Likewise, the lexeme beak meaning
primarily “the horny termination of the jaws of a bird” (OED), has found
its way into aviation vocabulary, as it is used with reference to “the front
section of an airplane.” Notably, the aircraft related sense-thread of this
lexeme is not attested either in the specialized sources consulted or in the
OED. A random Google search for the phrase beak of a plane results,
however, in numerous pictures showing the protruding, front part of
different types of aircraft. This might suggest that the aviation-related
denotation is relatively new. Technically, the front part of the aircraft is
referred to as a nose, being also a case of metaphorical widening of
meaning, but not originating in the source domain BIRDS.
Clearly, the metaphorical shift that can be observed in the case of the
lexemes wing(s), tail, and beak obtains from English LGP to the
peripheries of aviation LSP, and the process itself can be referred to as the
metaphorical specialization of meaning for the purpose of LSP term
creation.