Illuminating Progress, Obscuring Complexity: Metaphorical Highlighting and Hiding in Scientific Discourse

Abstract

It should be noted that scientists use a variety of metaphors in their works to convey complicated phenomena using easily perceivable concepts. But based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, metaphors not only illuminate a part of knowledge about a particular subject matter but also veil other aspects of it from consideration. Therefore, this work aims at investigating illumination and veiling processes involved in scientific discourse. Specifically, a corpus-based cognitive linguistic analysis will be employed in studying a 100,000-word-sized corpus consisting of scientific and institutional English-language publications dated between 2020 and 2025. As for methodology, the MIPVU framework was used consistently and produced 1,247 metaphorical units. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of this sample have allowed us to identify the three most frequent types of metaphor: MACHINE (31%), NATURAL FORCE (27%), and MOVEMENT (24%). The results prove that MACHINE metaphors illuminate efficiency and control, whereas trial-and-error elements get concealed. At the same time, NATURAL FORCE metaphors emphasize inevitability and scale while completely hiding human agency, decision making, and responsibility. Finally, MOVEMENT metaphors create a picture of gradual improvement, which hides the reality of recursion, chaos, and ambiguity inherent to scientific exploration.  The study highlights the profound rhetorical consequences of these choices and calls for metaphor-aware communication to foster a more nuanced public understanding of scientific processes.

Keywords: Scientific Discourse; Conceptual Metaphor Theory; Highlighting and Hiding; Corpus Linguistics; Cognitive Linguistics.