Chapter Eleven
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of the specialist sense of ‘a hardware device that enables reading and
writing the data on a memory card, such as a multimedia card’ depends on
the perception of the expanded cognitive base (Langacker 1987) necessary
for its construal, as the fact that someone who can READ can usually WRITE
too is a part of the relevant extralinguistic experience.
Moving on in time, an example of a word which became a member of
the lexical (semantic) field of PROFESSIONS/OCCUPATIONS during the
Middle English period, and developed a sense denotative of COMPUTER
HARDWARE/SOFTWARE in the 20th century, is late M.E. driver.^53 It is an
interesting case of a metaphor within a metaphor, as before acquiring a
computer-specific sense by means of an anthropomorphic metaphor, the
word had developed its professional/occupational senses through
metaphorization too.
Dependent on the earliest senses of the O.E. verb drive it derives from
(‘to urge onward and direct the course of an animal drawing a vehicle or
plough, or the vehicle itself’, inter alia),^54 the earliest (late M.E.) sense of
driver applicable to PROFESSIONS/OCCUPATIONS is ‘someone who drives a
vehicle or the animal that draws it, a charioteer, coachman, cabman, etc.’.
The OED offers the following illustrations of its existence:
c.1450 “All þe dryuers ware agaste þat þe sledd suld ga our faste.”
1581 “Buffons, stage-players, and charet drivers.”When – due to technological development – the conceptual domain of
a DRAUGHT ANIMAL lost its cognitive salience within the original
conceptual frame (involving a HUMAN BEING who is IN CONTROL of the
OPERATION of a VEHICLE that is DRAWN by a DRAUGHT ANIMAL), it
became possible – by means of a metaphor motivated by the similarity of
function – to conceptualize driver as a HUMAN BEING whose PROFESSION/
OCCUPATION is to be IN CONTROL of the OPERATION of a VEHICLE (or even
an AIRPLANE or SUBMARINE)^55 powered by STEAM/ELECTRICITY/
COMBUSTION, etc. (as in bus driver, engine driver, sub driver,^56 etc.).
(^53) Some of the comments on driver presented in what follows coincide with the
observations in Cymbalista (to appear). A discussion of the semasiological
evolution of the sense of the word may be found in Cymbalista (2011).
(^54) The others include: ‘to force people or animals to move on or away’, ‘to force
people or animals to move on before one, or flee away from one, by blows or
intimidation’ and ‘to urge on or impel with violence’ (see the OED).
(^55) In slang usage – see the Historical Dictionary of American Slang (the HDAS).
(^56) In American English slang: ‘a commander of a submarine’ (see the HDAS).