Metaphoricide. The death of heuristic metaphors in molecular biology and crosslinguistic epistemic implications

Metaphor is a linguistic device scientists have regularly employed for coining new terminology, leveraging the ability of analogical reasoning to facilitate the contextualization and construal of new knowledge and contributing to the dissemination of science. However, the standardisation of scientific terminology and the spread of scientific ELF, often leads to the borrowing or calquing of standardised terms, with critical epistemic implications for the construction and dissemination of knowledge in different languages. The present contribution analyses specialised terminology in molecular biology, to assess the presence of heuristic metaphors and examine their corresponding Italian terms. The Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (8th edition, 2019) was tagged and annotated to identify and classify metaphors. Findings characterise and categorise the use of metaphors in this specialised field, prompting reflections on translational implications from an epistemological perspective.