A taste of the technical cuisine: metals and other ingredients

According to cognitive linguistics, language has an experiential origin based on perception, sensory motor activities and our knowledge of the world. Our thought operates by establishing similarities, links and associations that enable us to talk about one thing in terms of another as shown in the example of love as a journey (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Metaphor and metonymy are conceptual and linguistic tools that make possible most of these cognitive operations. Since metaphor is an essential element of human communication, the discourse of specialised disciplines includes metaphorical mappings and numerous examples of metaphorical expressions, for example in economics, where business is mapped in terms of war (White, 2004; Herrera & White, 2000), electrotechnics with electrical components understood as couples (Roldán- Riejos in preparation) or in civil engineering where a bridge is conceptualized as a person (Roldán-Riejos, 2013). In this paper, the metaphors: WORKING WITH METALS IS COOKING/ TRABAJAR CON METALES ES COCINAR and METALS ARE CULINARY OBJECTS/ LOS METALES SON OBJETOS CULINARIOS are explored. The main aim is to show that the cooking metaphor is widely spread in the metallurgical domain in English and Spanish, although with different nuances in each language due to socio-cultural factors. The method adopted consists of analysing examples taken from the: Bilingual Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Metaphors and Metonymies Spanish- English/English-Spanish, a forthcoming and rigorously documented bilingual dictionary that sums up research on conceptual, linguistic and visual metaphor and metonymy in different areas of engineering (Roldán-Riejos and Molina, 2013). The present paper studies in detail English and Spanish cross-linguistic correspondences related to types of metals and processes. It is suggested that they reflect synesthetic metaphoric mappings. The exploitation of cognitive conceptual metaphor in the ESP classroom is lastly recommended.

On the economics of energy consumption in 4G networks: the case of Spain

Reducing energy consumption is one of the main challenges in most countries. For example, European Member States agreed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20% in 2020 compared to 1990 levels (EC 2008). Considering each sector separately, ICTs account nowadays for 2% of total carbon emissions. This percentage will increase as the demand of communication services and applications steps up. At the same time, the expected evolution of ICT-based developments - smart buildings, smart grids and smart transportation systems among others - could result in the creation of energy-saving opportunities leading to global emission reductions (Labouze et al. 2008), although the amount of these savings is under debate (Falch 2010). The main development required in telecommunication networks ?one of the three major blocks of energy consumption in ICTs together with data centers and consumer equipment (Sutherland 2009) ? is the evolution of existing infrastructures into ultra-broadband networks, the so-called Next Generation Networks (NGN). Fourth generation (4G) mobile communications are the technology of choice to complete -or supplement- the ubiquitous deployment of NGN. The risk and opportunities involved in NGN roll-out are currently in the forefront of the economic and policy debate. However, the issue of which is the role of energy consumption in 4G networks seems absent, despite the fact that the economic impact of energy consumption arises as a key element in the cost analysis of this type of networks. Precisely, the aim of this research is to provide deeper insight on the energy consumption involved in the usage of a 4G network, its relationship with network main design features, and the general economic impact this would have in the capital and operational expenditures related with network deployment and usage.