翻译：2019 年 3 月 18 日星期一

The negative impact of war metaphors on cancer

把癌症比喻成战争的消极影响
The usual use of war metaphors to refer to diseases such as cancer or HIV & AIDS
can have negative consequences for patients
对癌症或者艾滋病等疾病常用的战争比喻，会对患者产生负面效果

After analyzing more than 1.5 million words taken from interviews and comments
on the cancer network, the metaphors most used to refer to cancer are " those
that have to do with violence, such as 'battle', 'struggle' and 'war '. These
are the conclusions reached by the linguist Elena Semino. "When you talk about
battle, you usually refer to an individual experience, in the case of war it is
spoken as a collective and in the case of struggle it is used in both directions,"
he explained.
对癌症网络中超过 150 多万字的访谈和评论的分析显示，在提到癌症时，最常见的比喻是
“和暴力相关的” ，例如”战役”，”斗争”和”战争”。这些是语言学家 Elena Semino 得
出的结论。”当你谈论战役时，你通常是指一次个人的经历，而谈战争时，是一次集体的经
历，而在斗争里，这两种方向都有。”他解释到。

The professor of linguistics at the University of Lancaster (United Kingdom)

believes that the usual use of war metaphors to refer to diseases such as cancer
or HIV AIDS can have negative consequences for patients.
兰卡斯特大学的语言学教授们相信，对癌症或者艾滋病等疾病常用的战争比喻，会对患者产
生负面效果。

For example, he explained during a conference organized by the International

University of Catalonia (UIC), metaphors in general "can affect how we see or
how we live a particular phenomenon and is especially important in the case of
a disease."
例如，他在加泰罗尼亚国际大学组织的一次会议上解释说，一般来说，比喻”可以影响我们
如何看待或者我们如何生存在某一特定现象中，其对疾病的影响尤其重要。”

The late writer, Susan Sontag, had warned of the metaphors in the disease in her
two essays - ' The disease and its metaphors' and 'AIDS and its metaphors ' -
which still exert a great influence on the lives of patients and
caregivers Sontag pointed out that around these two diseases has been built a
language loaded with prejudices, phobias and fears that have woven a network of
complicated metaphors that hinder their understanding and, sometimes, their cure.
已故作家 Susan Sontag 在他的两篇文章中，对这种疾病的比喻进行了警告 – ‘疾病及其
比喻’和’艾滋病及其比喻’- 对患者和护理人员的生活都产生了重大影响。Sontag 指出，
这两种疾病已经被充满偏见、恐惧症和害怕的语言围绕，这种语言编织了一系列复杂的比喻，
阻碍了他们的理解，有时甚至是他们的治疗方法。
Sontag pointed out in his essay: "When we talk about cancer, the master metaphors
do not come from economics but from the vocabulary of war. [...] Cancer cells
do not multiply and enough: 'invade' "In another paragraph you could read:" We
talk about the 'defenses' of the organism and the radiotherapy that 'bombs' the
patient, whose body is seen as a battlefield. And the strongest: "it's about
waging a 'war' against cancer."
Sontag 在他的文章中指出：”当我们谈论癌症时，最主要的比喻不是来自经济，而是来自
战争词汇。癌细胞不会因为繁殖而觉得入侵已经足够。”在另外一段你会读到：”我们谈论
我们身体的’防御’以及在患者体内放’炸弹’的放射疗法”，这时患者的身体就被视为一
个战场。而最强的是：”这是发动一场针对癌症的战争。”

Professor Semino believes that the use of these metaphors has "a negative impact"
on many patients, especially "when they do not recover", since "they make you
feel guilty, responsible and also disempower you ". This situation is even
more serious in the case of those people who are at the end of their lives
because "they feel as if they have lost".
Semino 教授认为，使用这些比喻对许多患者产生了”负面影响”，特别是”当他们没有康
复时”，因为”这些比喻让你感到内疚，自责，无能为力”。这种情况，对于那些处在生命
尾声的人来说，更为严重，因为”他们感觉自己好像已经输了”。

Semino has detected that another of the most used metaphors in cancer is the
' trip '. In this case, "there is no idea that you have the enemy inside you
and if you do not recover you do not feel that you are the one who has failed"
and has indicated that some patients use it "to empower themselves".
Semino 发现，另一类对于癌症的常见比喻是”旅行”。在这种情况下，”你并不知道自己
身体了有个敌人，因而即使没有康复，你也不会指责自己是个失败者”。有些病人会使用这
种比喻来”给自己力量”。

During his research, he has also discovered that the use of positive metaphors
can have a motivating effect on the patient. In this sense, Semino and his team
have developed " The menu of metaphors for people with cancer " in which they
collect the most used metaphors to refer to cancer along with other new ones,
some of them associated with other cultures such as the oriental.
在他的研究中，他还发现，使用积极比喻会对患者产生激励作用。从这个角度来说，Semino
和他的团队开发了”针对癌症患者使用的比喻清单”，这个清单收集了他们最常用的比喻以
及一些新的比喻，其中有一些和其他文化相关，比如东方文化。

Another metaphor detected in the studies refers to cancer as "a guest who does
not want to leave your house and, when you get her to leave, your house is not
the same again and the only thing you expect is that the person does not come
back much later. weather". The objective of this list is to offer it to patients
so they can choose with their doctors that metaphor with which they feel more
comfortable to talk about their illness.
在研究中发现的另一个比喻是将癌症比作”一个不想离开你家的客人，当你想办法让他走
后，你的房子也不再是原先的房子了。你唯一能祈祷的是希望他不要再来了。”这份清单的
目的是给患者提供选择，这样他们可以和医生用他们觉得更自在的比喻来谈论他们的疾病。

The research carried out by Semino aims to "put on the table all these metaphors"
with the aim that each person " choose whichever you want and be more useful ."
Semino 主导的这项研究，旨在”将所有的这些比喻都放到桌面上来”，也让每个人都可以”
自住选择你想要的，对你有用的比喻”。

Along with cancer, AIDS and HIV is possibly the disease that fears more and
prejudices and that has developed around it a language full of
misunderstandings. Sontag already reflected in his essay: the disease was
described as " punishment of God ", " consequence of moral decadence " and
" revenge of nature ".
和癌症一样，艾滋病和艾滋病病毒可能是最让人害怕也最容易带来歧视的疾病。围绕它们的
很多语言都充满了误解。Sontag 在他的文章中已经写过：这些疾病被描述为”来自上帝的
惩罚”，”道德堕落的后果”和”大自然的复仇”。

This made it necessary for the United Nations organization of AIDS, UNAIDS ,
to publish some recommendations when talking about this epidemic. Onusida noted
that "language can determine beliefs and influence behavior" and that "the use
of appropriate language has the power to strengthen the response to the epidemic"
这使得联合国艾滋病组织和艾滋病规划署有必要发表一些关于谈论这一疾病时的建议。
Onusida 提出，”语言可以决定信仰，影响行为”，以及”使用恰当的语言可以加强对疾病
的反应”。

Sontag, who died in 2004, at the age of 71, due to leukemia, had already warned
us. "I was convinced that metaphors and myths also kill."

El negativo impacto de las metáforas bélicas en el cáncer

https://www.abc.es/salud/enfermedades/abci-negativo-impacto-metaforas-belicas-
cancer-201902230102_noticia.html