Eco topografía Mapping Ecology

This metaphor conceptualises the biomedical scientists as travellers going towards certain destinations which are metaphorically meant here to refer to the medical goals focused on by these scientists to cure diseases, to enhance the body’s functioning and health, and to discover the medical therapies, the promotors of disease, and particular body components that can be used to enhance the activity of the body’s biological functioning and ensure that it remains in good health. The same holds true for the patients suffering from these diseases who are portrayed in this metaphor as being travellers on a journey towards reaching their destinations - a reference to achieving their aim of recovering from these diseases by virtue of medical therapies. Accordingly, this metaphor is employed to positively emphasise biomedical therapies

126

and advances and the ongoing biomedical research and endeavours made by biomedical scientists to discover the causes of disease, to invent efficient vaccines, and to perfect biomedical procedures to promote the health of the human body. This metaphor is also meant to raise the public’s hopes of being cured of diseases and of having a better, healthier life. This metaphor is expressed by metaphorical tokens like journey, trace, track, path, on the road to recovery, a long way off, move closer, stepped up, bypass, opened up new avenues, milestone on the road to, passed, propelled down, a long way to go, quickening pace, made rapid strides, paved the way, making some progress, guide our path forward, goal is within reach, and reached the stage. This metaphor is also used in the corpus to attract the reader’s attention. This is shown by the appearance of the metaphorical expression “A New Path to Longevity” as a headline of one of the ST articles, the appearance of “Rapid Progress toward Safe Cell Rejuvenation” as a sub-headline in the same ST article, and the appearance of the metaphorical expression headway in the headline of the ST article “Making Headway against Cancer”

Most of these expressions are meant to highlight the progress the biomedical scientists have made in terms of their medical researches and therapies to treat a wide variety of serious and deadly diseases like malaria, cancer, AIDS, in addition to their efforts to slow ageing, Alzheimer’s and other chronic conditions like depression. In this imagery, the search for vaccines, the medical means to cure such diseases, the biological entities that improve the body’s health and the promoters of diseases are conceived of as reaching a destination after a journey. The same holds true for a patient’s progress where the journey destination here represents recovery from disease with the help and guidance of medical therapies. In the following examples, the progress made by patients suffering from cocaine addiction and moving towards recovery is interpreted in terms of the distance being covered by travellers moving along a road that leads them to their destination. Thus the start of the travellers’ moving along a road corresponds to the initial progress that these patients make towards recovering from this disease represented here; this involves giving patients a small dose of powdered cocaine, instead of a large dose of crack, which can then lead to their recovery from that disease. By the same tokens, the vaccine that can cure the malaria

127

disease is depicted as being a destination which biomedical scientists attempt to reach, and thus achieve their medical purpose of treating the malaria disease. Thus the great progress that these scientists have made towards achieving this purpose is conveyed as drawing closer to the destination of a journey. This is also applicable to the last example, where the milestone expression is used to highlight the great progress made by scientists on the road to modifying the genetic structures of animal cells, which then can be used as vaccines for diseases. Consider the following examples:

5.20 The rush of smoking a large dose of crack might be reduced to the less overwhelming level of snorting a few milligrams of powdered cocaine. And that difference could be enough to start addicts on the road to recovery. [SA 31]

5.21 As they move closer to the first vaccine for the disease, they must prevent their hopes from tipping over into hype. [SA 6]

5.22 Another milestone on the road to transgenic animal bioreactors was passed in 1987. [SA 54]

5.1.2.2 THE DIFFICULTIES OF BIOMEDICAL THERAPIES/RESEARCH ARE A JOURNEY’S OBSTACLES

This metaphor depicts the difficulties facing biomedical research and therapies to devise vaccines and cure diseases in terms of the hindrances that travellers face while on their journey. This metaphor helps to draw the reader’s attention to the persistence of scientists in continuing their efforts to find such medical therapies and accomplish their research despite these difficulties. In some cases this metaphor is also meant in the corpus to highlight the determination and success of biomedical scientists in overcoming these obstacles. This metaphor is expressed by metaphorical tokens like impediment, hit another roadblock, went around this impasse, the path is not straightforward, hurdles stand in the way of, obstacles seem surmountable, road is circuitous, and road is bumpy. This metaphor can be shown in the following examples:

5.23 Yamanaka and his group went around this impasse by taking a novel approach to turning adult cells directly into pluripotent cells without the use of eggs or embryos. [SA 25]

5.24 Edible vaccines for combating autoimmunity and infectious diseases have a long way to go before they will be ready for large-scale testing in people. The technical obstacles, though, all seem surmountable. [SA 32]