COGNITION AND COMMUNICATION: METAPHOR IN THE SPANISH MEDIA DISCOURSE

Te process of thinking and the process of cognition inevitably include metaphorization as one of the ways of conceptualization of the reality, when new and unknown things are thought through categories of already known. Metaphor as a mental operation based on analogy, represents a universal category of thinking. Nevertheless, metaphors are part of a national cultural worldview. Te stability of the metaphorical system due to cognitive constants does not exclude the variability of metaphorical models that depend on social, national-cultural, historical and other parameters of the discursive context. Te key principle of metaphor is the principle of fctitiousness - als ob - as if: one area of knowledge borrows the concept from another area. Cognitive properties of metaphors allow not only to name, but also to model the reality; therefore in media discourse the functional load of the metaphorical nominations is very high. Scientifc and technological progress and the speed that operates social, economic and political transformations of the surrounding reality leads to inevitable creation of metaphors for naming new concepts and realities of our life. In the article, metaphor as a special cognitive model and a way of modeling the reality is investigated from the point of view of cognitive and communicative approaches, on the example of the materials of the Spanish media discourse.