STUDENT ELBOW AND ATHLETE’S HEART – THE WORLD OF MEDICAL METAPHOR

Abstract

Specialized language or language for specific purposes such as that of medicine is considered by scientists a separate language and entity possessing the features and categories of general language.  Despite the specificities and the obviously ‘incomprehensible’ language of medicine to the public there are certain figures which help in ‘deciphering‘ the language or making it more understandable by using words and concepts which are familiar but are used in a different aspect. Metaphor and metonymy are two such figures which scientist would rather associate with fiction and poetry. This article pays particular attention to those medical metaphors which denote diseases in the field of sports medicine, occupational medicine etc. and are formed by relationships of the person practicing a particular sport, occupation, activity in the possessive form and the organ it affects, e.g. student elbow, footballer’s ankle, runner’s knee, housemaid’s knee etc. It is the activity that is practiced that causes the injury in most cases, hence the lay name of the disease. The metaphorical images created by this combination sound peculiar and are somewhat colloquial, however this is one of the principles of term formation. In this way they are easier to remember than the medical term that lies behind them.