Analogical reasoning in uncovering the meaning of digital-technology terms: the case of backdoor

[EN] The paper substantiates the critical role of analogical reasoning and figurative languge in resolving the ambiguity of cybersecurity terms in various expert communities. Dwelling on the divergent interpretations of a backdoor, it uncovers the potential of metaphor to serve both as an interpretative mechanism and as a framing tool in the ongoing digital technologies discourse. By combining methods of corpus research and frame semantics analysis the study examines the challenges of unpacking the meaning of the contested concept of the backdoor. The paper proposes a qualitatively new metaphor-facilitated mode of interpreting cybersecurity vulnerabilities based on MetaNet deep semantic metaphor analysis and outlines the merits of this hierarchically organized metaphor and frames ontology. The utility of the method is demonstrated through analyzing corpus data and top-down extracting of metaphors (linguistic metaphor – conceptual metaphor – entailed metaphor – inferences) with subsequent identifying of metaphor families dominating the cybersecurity discourse. The paper further claims that the predominant metaphors prompt certain decisions and solutions affecting information security policies. Skrynnikova, IV. (2020). Analogical reasoning in uncovering the meaning of digital-technology terms: the case of backdoor. Journal of Computer-Assisted Linguistic Research. 4(1):23-46. https://doi.org/10.4995/jclr.2020.12921OJS234641Betz, David and Stevens, Tim. 2013. "Analogical Reasoning and Cyber Security." Security Dialogue 44, No. 2: 147-164 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010613478323David, Oana and Matlock, Teenie. 2018. "Cross-linguistic automated detection of metaphors for poverty and cancer." Language and Cognition 10 (2018), 467-493. 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CROSSLINGUISTIC REPOSITORY OF POLITICAL METAPHORS: STRUCTURE AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

The article presents a critical review of numerous approaches to the analysis of metaphor in various scientific traditions. The focus is set on the interdisciplinary methods applied in the metaphor studies which resulted in corpora, databases of figurative language and analysis of repositories of metaphors in English, French, and German. The question of reliable methods and procedures of identification of metaphors in modern linguistics is discussed in the article. The author praises efficiency of a metaphor methodology that was verified in the University of California (Berkley, USA), and considers possibility of its application for studies on Russian political metaphors through their comparison with English. The metaphors of government are used for exemplification of explanatory potential of an integrative approach that unites the opportunities of combining bottom-up and top- down procedures of identifying and analyzing metaphors within a single repository. The paper presents a procedure of deep multi-level semantic analysis of metaphors and dwells on techniques of formalizing the conception of neural cascades as applied to the analysis of metaphors. The author uncovers the problems in constructing the cross-linguistic (English and Russian) repository of political discourse metaphors. The proposed approach enables to determine interrelated conceptual networks and present metaphors at different levels of specificity and complexity of a multimodal model of metaphorical cognition

Metaphor Co-Creation in Reframing Cybersecurity Issues

The paper substantiates the explanatory and interpretative potential of analogical reasoning in resolving the ambiguity of defining cybersecurity. By applying cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics methods, it presents an attempt to showcase how the metaphor co-creation strategy may be helpful in reframing the discourse around cybersecurity dominated by inapt metaphors. The latter, in their turn, prompt wrong inferences, which ultimately results in false decisions about the nature of cyber vulnerabilities. The comparison of the conversational valence introduced by professional audience and laymen involved in the campaign of co-creating new metaphor-based utterances reveals how it channels the cybersecurity discourse, and is followed by outlining the implications of applying the newly created metaphors.Este artículo corrobora el potencial explicativo e interpretativo del razonamiento analógico para resolver la ambigüedad de definir la ciberseguridad. Al aplicar los métodos de la lingüística cognitiva y de la lingüística de corpus, se presenta un intento de mostrar cómo la estrategia de co-creación de metáforas puede resultar útil para reformular el discurso en torno a la ciberseguridad dominada por metáforas inadecuadas. Estas últimas, a su vez, provocan inferencias erróneas, que finalmente dan como resultado decisiones equivocadas sobre la naturaleza de las cibervulnerabilidades. La comparación de la valencia conversacional introducida tanto por los profesionales como por los no expertos involucrados en la campaña de co-creación de nuevas expresiones metafóricas revela cómo se canaliza el discurso de seguridad cibernética, describiendo seguidamente las implicaciones que conlleva la aplicación de las metáforas recién creadas