Metaphoricity of personal language

The paper examines the tropological nature of personal language. Personal language is the implicit content of grammatical structures that goes beyond dictionary meanings of words and expressions. The representatives of Kharkov Linguistic School demonstrated the metaphorical nature of personal language. Personal meanings are metaphorical meanings of concepts since they are the result of correlating a new phenomenon with subjective experience and of transferring meanings from the already known to what is being cognized. Tropological nature of personal language is manifested both in artistic creativity and in scientific cognition, which indicates their deep connection. In the paper, the metaphorical use of scientific terms is demonstrated on the classification of living organisms. When referring a particular individual to a certain species, a taxonomist discovers a characteristic in it that he considers essential for the species. Thus, the characteristics of a particular taxonomic group are applied to an animal or plant being observed, while known meanings of terms are transferred to a new object. Described by Kharkov Linguistic School representative A.A. Potebnya, the mechanism of the emergence of a new word in an allegorical meaning makes it possible to explain the metaphorical use of scientific terms. The basis of any classification is a «shift» of the original meanings of concepts, their extension to a new phenomenon. In the process of classifying an object under a certain category, its properties are identified and compared with the distinctive features of objects belonging to this category.