Lingua inglese

USEFUL LANGUAGE TO DESCRIBE DATA GRAPHICS

Here are some of the words and expressions you need to describe change and development using charts.

MOVEMENT UPWARD – Verbs

go up = salire, crescere recover = recuperare jump = saltare, trasalire

increase = aumentare bounce back = rimbalzare take off = decollare

rise pick up = risollevarsi escalate = aumentare

grow shoot up = impennarsi

ascend soar = elevarsi

creep up = increase gradually boom = rising market

climb surge = aumentare improvvisamente

improve

Attention to grammar: to rise and to raise means the same thing but the first one is intransitive, thus it

isn’t followed by direct object . The second one is transitive, therefore you have to put direct object after it.

For example:

The government is going to raise taxes (il governo alzerà le tasse)

The value of my shares is rising (il valore delle mia azioni sta crescendo)

Also to boost is transitive, thus to boost economy, rates, sales, …

MOVEMENT UPWARD – Nouns

an upturn = ripresa, rialzo a recovery = ripresa a jump = salto

an increase an improvement an escalate = aumento

a rise a surge = aumento improvviso

a growth a boom

an ascent

an upsurge = slancio

a climb

an upward trend 71

MOVEMENT DOWNWARD – Verbs

go down slip = scivolare

decline plummet = precipitare

fall plunge = cadere

decrease slump = crollare

fall off collapse

dip = scendere, abbassarsi crash

drop = diminuire

deteriorate

worsen = peggiorare

MOVEMENT DOWNWARD – Nouns

a downturn a slip

a decline a plunge

a fall a slump

a decrease a collapse

a dip a crash

a drop

a downward trend

a deterioration

NO MOVEMENT – Verbs

Remain stable

Remain constant

Remain unchanged

stabilize

Level off

Stay at the same level

Hold steady

Note: the verb “to fluctuate” means to rise and fall irregularly in number or amount (noun: fluctuation)

AT THE TOP – Verbs

Reach a peak Raggiungere la vetta, arrivare all’apice

peak

AT THE TOP – Nouns

Peak = picco, vetta

AT THE BOTTOM – Verbs

Reach a low point Toccare il fondo

Bottom out

AT THE BOTTOM – Nouns

Trough = punto più basso 72

DEGREES OF CHANGE

Adjectives Adverbs Description

dramatic dramatically very big

considerable considerably big

sharp = acuto, forte, netto sharply big

significant significantly big

substantial substantially big

moderate moderately modest

slight = leggero, insignificante slightly minimal

SPEED OF CHANGE

Adjectives Adverbs Description

abrupt = brusco, improvviso abruptly without warning

sudden suddenly without warning

rapid rapidly very fast

quick quickly very fast

gradual gradually no sudden change

slow slowly no sudden change

steady steadily no change

constant constantly no change

PREPOSITIONS!!!

 The number of cars sold remained unchanged in 2008, at 4,000,000.

 Hedge fund assets bottomed out at roughly $ 1 trillion in 2009.

 Sales peaked at $3 million in 2008.

 Sales reached a peak of $3 million in 2008.

 The number of students fell to a low of 1,700 in 2007.

 The number of students fell by 9% in 2007.

 Profits rose from a low of £1.5m to a high of £5.5m.

 Profits rose by 20% from 2005 to 2008.

 We were forced to raise price by 1.5%.

 The company’s revenues dropped by 7% in the first quarter of 2009.

 The company reported an increase in sales of 2.5% over the last year.

 Sales fluctuated between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000.

 Profits rose steadily between 2004 and 2009.

 Profits have risen steadily during the last five years. 73

CLASS 17 – ECONOMIC METAPHORS 1

Topics: Verbal metaphors

The way texts are assembled, interlinked and visualized on the web page has changed our approach to read-

ing (from linear to non-linear); the notion of semiotic space originally reflected in web pages can also be

applied to the static print page. This image is about paper recycling; the space is equally divided into

two vertical halves. In the left half the word “new” is written in bold,

white letter and positioned in a black space, whilst the right half pre-

sents an opposing visual configuration centered on the word “old”

written in bold, black letter and positioned in a white space.

The two halves are joined by the word “for” written in white letters

and contained in a black arrow.

The central arrow indicates a reversed reading direction from right to

left and this suggested reversed order in reading is reinforced by the

black and white opposition (there is a chromatic parallelism).

VERBAL METAPHORS

A metaphor is a figure or speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or an action to which is

not literally applicable; it is a figurative expression that enables us to talk of one thing in term of another

one. A metaphor states that one thing is another thing, instead of saying it’s like something else; it doesn’t

use “like” or “as” to make the comparison.

Example:

We often talk about LOVE in terms of:

She drives me out of my mind;

She drives me crazy;

I’m crazy about you;

He’s wild about that girl.

In this case, LOVE is the TOPIC, MADNESS is the METAPHOR.

Other examples are:

 His life took an unexpected direction

We talk about LIFE as a JOURNEY

 Can’t do you get into your head that I’m not interested?

MIND is a CONTAINER

 He was in a black mood

SADNESS is DARKNESS

 The bride looks radiant

HAPPINESS is LIGHTNESS

At the core of metaphorisation there is the idea of transferring something to one place to another, on the ba-

sis of a perceived similarity between the two “places”, so what we perceive as similar today may not neces-

sarily correspond to what other people perceived as similar in the past.

For example, the following example of “life” are still very familiar to us:

Life is war

Life is a dream

Life is a sleep

Life is a game of chance

Constructing life as war, dream or game is still part of our way of thinking and they are so familiar to us that

they are not recognized as metaphors anymore.

THEORIES are BUILDING

IDEAS are FOOD FOR BRAIN

IDEAS are PLANTS

LIFE is a GAMBLING GAME 74

Often we use direction and colours to say something, for example HAPPY is UP and SAD is DOWN:

I’m feeling up

You are in high spirits

My spirit sank

I’m depressed

He is really low these days

METAPHORS IN BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

The “rhetoric of economics” was successfully introduced because it favours the process of understanding ab-

stract reasoning and complex definition in specialized discourse; metaphors are tangible images borrowed

from the physical world, for example the most recurrent economic “transfers” are borrowed from the se-

mantic fields of gambling, nature and health.

Time for europhoria?

The euro is quietly making a comeback.

For most of its four-years existence, the euro has been a sickly currency. But in 2002 the weak-

ling suddenly gained some muscles and climbed by 18% against the dollar. On December 31 st

the euro briefly broke through $1.05, its highest for three years and 27% above its low in October

2000.

Many analysts expect the euro to clamber higher in 2003. USB Warburg reckons it will hit $1.15

by the end of the year. The euro’s past weakness was widely blamed on the euro area’s sluggish

rate of growth compared with the dynamic American economy. Yet the currency’s rebound hard-

ly reflects an economic revival. Growth in the euro area is again forecast to lag behind that the

Unite States in 2003.

The euro’s bounce is largely the flipside of a weak dollar which has been hit by worries about

American’s huge current-account deficit and undercertainties about a war with Iraq. Foreign in-

vestors have also woken up to the fact that corporate America is less profitable than they thought.

Most of euro zone’s economic growth over the past year has come from net exports, while domes-

tic demand has more or less stagnated. Some commentators fret that a rising euro could make

firms uncompetitive and so further choke growth. But this ignores the fact that a stronger euro

will bear down on inflation and so allow the European Central Bank (ECB) to cut interest rates

more rapidly. […]

In this article of The Economist, euro and dollar are visualized in terms of strength and weakness; the euro

is anthropomorphized as a young child who was sick and weak at birth but now has suddenly gained some

muscles, while the anthropomorphic dollar is conceptualized as a weak man hit by worries and uncertain-

ties.

Another frequent use of metaphors in business and economics is about time: we often say “Time is money”,

but in reality time is not literally money, it is a valuable resource or it is as precious as money.

You are wasting my time

This gadget will save your hours

How do you spend your time these days?

I’ve invested a lot of time on in

You are running out of time

Or more:

 MERGER as LOVE RELATIOSHIP

The marriage of Tokyo Bank and Mitsubishi Bank was announced in July

 STOCK MARKET as BUBBLE

The FED has allowed the stock market bubble to develop

We use bubbles because is something that is breakable

 COMPETITION as WAR

Local banks are fighting back

 ECONOMY as SHIP or ORGANISM

In this increasingly foggy world, the changes of navigational errors are high

I’m seeing a few green shoots, but it is a little bit too early to say something.

So how we can see, most of business metaphors come from the language of war, sports and game, water,

health and flight. 75

CLASS 18 – ECONOMIC METAPHORS 2

Topics: Visual metaphors

VISUAL METAPHORS

As we have already said before, metaphors are one of the primary means of conceptualizing the world; a

vast proportion of our conceptual life is metaphorical.

In the Western tradition we conceptualize purpose as destination and purposeful lives as journeys to-

wards goals. “I’m not getting anywhere”, the idea is the virtual importance in the West but this would be

meaningless in other cultures.

Both verbal and visual metaphors are a way of organizing knowledge and understanding and they

can be used to express ideas.

A visual metaphor uses an image rather than words to make comparison; in Western culture, meta-

phors are generally thought of as being verbal. In other cultures, where the tradition is oral rather than

written, metaphors may be primarily visual and are interpreted in a different way.

In this image the life is metaphorical represented as a curve, made by ups and downs; life-as-a-curve

metaphor seems to refer to the journey of life. The question below