Đurović, T. (2013). Open window, concrete ceiling, rust out: Figurativeness in language of human resource management. In: V. Polovina, J. Vučo (Eds.), Current Issues in Linguistic Research, Section I (pp. 333-351). Beograd: Filološki fakultet.

OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. Tatjana Đurović Ekonomski fakultet univerzitet u Beogradu OPEN WINDOW, CONCRETE CEILING, RUST OUT. FIGURATIVENESS IN LANGUAGE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. Summary The paper deals with two ways of igurativeness of human Resource Management (hRM) vocabulary – igurative expressions belonging to the building and construction domain, on the one hand, and igurative phrasal verbs used to talk about human Resources, on the other. The main purpose of the paper is to examine the metaphoricity of selected combinations, i.e. to determine how they are motivated. In addition, it stresses a need for language practitioners to effectively incorporate igurative language into language teaching and learning by providing useful insights into the relationship between language and thought which, in turn, should lead to a structured pattern of internalising metaphorical language. Key words: hRM vocabulary, metaphorical language, the phrasal verbs. building metaphor, 1. Introduction Metaphors have become an indispensable feature of economic discourse, increasingly permeating different ields of research. Bearing in mind that metaphors are deeply embedded not only in our everyday language, as originally and systematically witnessed by lakoff and Johnson (1980), but also in specialised language, such as the one of economics and business (e.g. Charteris-Black 2000; 2004, Boers 2000, white 2003, etc.), it is very likely that we operate totally unaware of the inluence of metaphors and their effect on our thinking and behaviour. The vocabulary of one of the business approaches focusing on, inter alia, recruitment and management of the people who work in the organisation – human 333 Tatjana Đurović Resource Management (hRM), is pronouncedly igurative. If, according to Short, “[m]etaphors can be viewed as central to the task of accounting for how we think about things, make sense of reality, and set the problems we try to solve” (Short 2000: 323), there is little doubt that the ield of hRM, similar to other areas of research, is rife with metaphors. This paper is set within the theoretical framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. according to its basic postulates, in order to generate a conceptual metaphor, the knowledge from one conceptual domain must be mapped onto another. In other words, the domain from which the concept is mapped is the source domain – “the domain supporting the literal meaning of the expression” (Croft & Cruse 2004: 195), and the domain the concept is mapped onto is the target domain – “the domain we try to understand through the use of the source domain” (Kövecses 2002: 4). a convenient way to represent this mapping, i.e. the metaphorical relation between elements in two domains, is the following: target domain is source domain, or conceptual domain (a) is conceptual domain (b),1 which is what is called a conceptual metaphor (see Kövecses 2002: 4). although metaphors in the lakovian view are conceptual structures, “and are not merely linguistic in nature, […], they are normally realized linguistically.” (Croft & Cruse 2004: 197). For example, the conceptual metaphor, theories are buildings, can be linguistically realised as “Is that the foundation for your theory? we need to construct a strong argument for that.”, etc. (lakoff & Johnson 1980: 46), where the italicised words, i.e. foundation, construct and strong are linguistic instantiations of the given conceptual metaphor. The corollary of this is that “metaphor is not just a manner of speaking, it is a mode of thought” (Taylor 2002: 487). To be more speciic, any conceptual metaphor is an amalgam of conceptual mappings (i.e. how we think about certain concepts) and linguistic expressions (i.e. how we talk about certain concepts). The mappings between the target domain and the source domain are incomplete, which means that “[w]hen a source domain is applied to a target, only some (but not all) aspects of the target are brought into focus.” 1 334 By convention, conceptual metaphors are written in small capitals and take the form a is b, a standing for an element of the target domain and b for an element of the source domain. OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. (Kövecses 2002: 79). Metaphors, according to the cognitivist view, always produce a kind of “one-sided insight” (Morgan 1997: 4), meaning that drawing on one aspect of some concept (e.g. the aspect of the construction of an argument or theory and its strength, when an argument or theory is perceived as a building), as a rule leaves subdued other aspects of the same concept (e.g. the aspect of progress when an argument is perceived as a journey). lakoff and Johnson call this highlighting and hiding (1980: 10). Therefore, metaphor researchers always have a dual task – they describe and explain not only what metaphors reveal, but also what metaphors veil and what possible meanings may be unfolded. Thus the term human resource(s) is deeply metaphorical and controversial per se. Equating people, i.e. employees of some organisation with resources may support the view of commodifying the labour – treating people as resources that organisations use for their own purposes, that if not harnessed effectively they can be depleted, and if not needed any more can be expendable and got rid of. In that sense, people are likened to any other resource companies have at their disposal, such as capital, property, machines, etc. On the other hand, since resources are scarce, organisations tend to make the best choice of scarce resources, i.e. select, hire and train the best people who will add up to organisation’s value. In other words, from the company’s viewpoint, implications of the human resource metaphor are justiiable and positive. a literature review shows that, metaphorically speaking, organisations have been differently viewed, and each of these perspectives has different connotations as regards the relationship between organisations and people in them. Morgan (1997)2 proposes a list of eight metaphors for organisations, with their respective insights into the nature of organisational life. Thus, Morgan examines images of corporations as, inter alia, machines, pinpointing the underlying assumptions, such as “an emphasis on eficiency, goal-oriented activity, engineering principles, organisation as a tool or instrument”, organisms, highlighting the strength of this metaphor like “a living systems perspective, an open system capable of growth and decay, passages through various life cycles”, or brains, where attention is drawn to “the importance of information processing, learning and intelligence”, i.e. providing a frame of reference for understanding modern 2 See also Short (2000; 2001). 335 Tatjana Đurović organisations in this way (Morgan 1997: 5-7). Striving to put perceived similarities at the forefront, all these metaphors of organisations give “a background role” to some other equally legitimate interpretations. Thus, equalising organisations to machines at the same time denies the aspect of innovation, lexibility and creative action, which does not conform to a deterministic view of achieving pre-set goals. In this paper, we set out to explore the igurativeness of the hRM vocabulary, i.e. of expressions belonging to the building and construction domain, on the one hand, and of phrasal verbs used to talk about human Resources, on the other. The main aim of this investigation is to examine the metaphoricity of selected igurative expressions and verbs, i.e. to determine how they are motivated. we also argue that the cognitivist approach to these aspects of English lexis may be successfully employed in the foreign language classroom. The building and construction metaphors for Human Resource Management after consulting several reference books,3 we noticed a signiicant representation of the building and construction metaphors in the hRM vocabulary. generally, metaphors from this domain are used “to talk about creating and strengthening relationships and businesses” (deignan 1997: 55), and usually carry positive connotations. Both employers and employees share the characteristics of architects or craftsmen who, in the process of construction, should build good and balanced human relations, not only in the organisation itself but also in its relation with the wider business environment. That is why Charteris-Black says that “such metaphors convey a positive evaluation of an activity because its outcome is valuable” (2004: 96). however, taking a deeper look at the hRM vocabulary, the selected terms are rather negatively loaded and relect overtly or covertly stated divisions between the management and personnel. although there are some other types of buildings or construction identiied in the selected 3 336 Selected reference books from which examples have been taken are provided in the References. OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. reference books,4 the largest number of igurative expressions have house as its source domain. Still, house is more represented by its structural elements, such as door, walls, ceiling, etc. Besides the expressions inhouse (e.g. in-house counselling, in-house training) and out-house (e.g. out-house staff), where house is an equivalent to a company and implies a notion of control, there is yet additional example where this source domain is explicitly used in the hRM vocabulary, that of bleak house. Bleak house, drawing on dickens’s novel of the same name where it is used as the epitome of ineficiency of English legal system, i.e. of equity jurisprudence, refers to the non-unionism and union derecognition aspect of hRM, characterised by harsh hire-and-ire employment practices deriving from a lack of employee direct participation and involvement. These dickensian bleak houses rest on hidden conlict, instability, poor working conditions and act as a contrast to unionised workplaces. Consequently, the igurative expression bleak house encompasses higher levels of dismissals, compulsory redundancies, and labour turnover. however, what this metaphor obscures is the role of managers, i.e. their different styles of tackling certain staff problems as well as the size of organisations and their changing way of doing business as a response to the dynamic business environment. Thus, opposed to traditional bleak houses, there are happy houses as still non-unionised workplaces but characterised by high levels of employee loyalty to the organisation forged by high wages, attractive perks and considerable personnel presence.5 as already noted, the building and construction domain is more represented by several structural parts of a house, one of them being the door in the expression open door, which similarly to the literal open door means having an access to the interior part of the house, in this case a company. Open door suggests an easier low of communication between the employees and management, a possibility to directly raise certain issues or express some concerns without the aid of employee representatives, i.e. the unions. In practice, this usually means that employees have an open door only to their immediate managers, who are directly in charge 4 5 For example, shop (e.g. open shop, closed shop), (e.g. electronic cottages), etc. See, e.g. Turnbull & wass (1998). cafeteria (e.g. cafeteria plan), cottage 337 Tatjana Đurović of employees’ appraisals, future prospects, or pay, which may act as a deterrent to employees. In other words, the metaphorical expression open door does not necessarily mean open all doors of the company, especially the ones of senior or top managers, which in turn implies that usually a more appropriate term would be the half-open or the half-closed door. Similarly, the expression open window may also be interpreted from two opposing angles. Metaphorically speaking, window means an opportunity or chance to see something in a new way or to get a new understanding of it (see deignan 1997: 68). Open window in the hRM vocabulary represents a mode of early retirement, especially if the company is in need of downsizing the scale of its operations, which consequently means reducing the number of its staff. Instead of layoffs companies offer a package of inancial incentives which is attractive enough to make senior employees retire earlier than they planned, so that it seems as a voluntary act. But, leaving the house not through the door, but jumping through the window, implies transitory nature of the whole activity. Besides, windows should be eventually closed. Thus, the negative implications of this seemingly positive expression, open window, is that window, i.e. the offer of leaving the company on your own will and considerably well-off, is restricted in time and as soon as the window is closed, inancial incentives are no longer available to employees. houses have walls whose function is to hold buildings up, but dividing the space into different rooms they form barriers which bar the person from perceiving the space inside the house in its entirety. Thus, when a wall is used as a metaphor it usually suggests dificulties people experience in different situations. we have singled out two expressions containing a word wall(s), Chinese walls and glass wall(s), respectively. Chinese walls refer to “imaginary barriers between departments in the same organisation, set up to avoid insider dealing or conlict of interest”.6 The modifying word Chinese, brought into connection with the great wall of China, should indicate the insurmountable obstacles to the low of information between two different functions of an organisation, in order to prevent premature disclosure of sensitive information to the public. The term is questionable on at least two grounds: irstly, the terms containing a 6 338 Dictionary of Human Resources and Personnel Management (2006: 46). OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. reference to ethnic groups are mostly evaluatively loaded, and considered a way of perpetuating certain stereotypical traits (let us recall some other idiomatic expressions in English containing nationality or ethnicity word with negative overtones, such as Dutch courage, Dutch uncle, Indian giver, young Turk, etc.). The expression Chinese walls connotes a barrier of silence and cooperation conjuring up the images of putting restraints on open communication, all linked to the nationality adjective used in the term. Secondly, the metaphor is conceptually faulty – the connotations of the Chinese walls expression are to prevent two-way communication between departments, meaning that information can low neither in nor out of the departments in question. however, the great wall of China was built in order to prevent hostile invaders to get into China, while those from the other side of the wall were free to move out. In other words, it is one-way obstacle, therefore rather unsuitable to convey the implied meaning when used in the hRM context. To denote that some top management positions can still be reached by women, the glass walls igurative expression is devised. Walls in this metaphor indicate belonging to a house or space made up of top managerial walls. women are therefore allowed to move horizontally across the area of top management positions, but the term glass indicates the subtle discrimination relating to that movement. Namely, the advancement of women to executive ranks is allowed but only in certain industries which record a large number of woman customers such as consumer products (e.g. cosmetics) or the media. Thus, women (and some minorities, e.g. african americans) via the use of the glass walls metaphor are prevented from taking free career moves in all industry sectors (e.g. science or technology), i.e. they can perceive what options lie in front of them through transparent substance such as glass, but still cannot experience the whole space as they encounter the obstacles to keep outsiders out of certain positions. hurdles and barriers, more or less visible, are best illustrated by several metaphorical expressions, all containing the word ceiling in them. They refer to preventing persons primarily on the basis of their gender and race, but also on certain disability or age factor, from climbing into the upper echelons of corporations, and are linked with vertical career movements. Though literally ceiling is not the same as roof, metaphorically it is also 339 Tatjana Đurović used to indicate the upper limit on something that cannot be surpassed. The blanket term is glass ceiling to indicate that the barriers standing in the way to top executive ranks are imperceptible until women hit them, hence the expression glass in the glass ceiling metaphor. however, the increasing number of women at the top managerial positions suggest that still present gender inequalities are not so well depicted by the glass ceiling metaphorical expression. The assumption arising from this metaphor is that women freely low through management ranks till the time they reach the chief executive levels when they hit the glass ceiling. But the data show7 that the challenges that women face in having successful careers are not just at the top, but they are all the way through the career, which makes this metaphor rather misleading. In other words, the underlying assumption is that women face obstacles only when they try to reach the top, which minimises the whole problem. In fact, still a small number of woman executives can be accounted for a progressive drop out that can occur for a variety of reasons. another aspect hidden in this metaphor is the thickness of glass, i.e. how well women can see through transparent glass barrier and plan ahead. It seems as if they face only one-strand obstacle, that of becoming the head of a company, while actually more subtle forms of discrimination can be noted, like making a choice between their family and business lives. Brass ceiling – to label the dificulties women have while trying to reach the top military positions, or bamboo ceiling, concrete ceiling, and ivory ceiling when these limitations relect not only gender but racial discrimination as well, against East asian descendants, nonwhite women, and black and other minorities, respectively are additional examples of more speciic form of dividing. Though the implications of some previously elaborated and seemingly positive examples of the building and construction metaphor are rather negative, the ceiling igurative expressions are inherently negative. however, they can trigger a positive response, such as an attempt at their removal. Charteris-Black says that “…the destruction of a barrier is also a worthwhile activity” (2004: 98), so the motivation behind this metaphor is aimed at helping shatter the glass ceiling and break through glass walls. One way of achieving this is to make men more involved in 7 340 See e.g. Fortune 500, 7 Oct, 2010. OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. those activities traditionally assigned to women, such as taking care of children, as well as making alterations to pay scales. Inability to progress, i.e. to move at all as regards job advancement is represented by two expressions, sticky loor and glass loor, respectively. Floor is the opposite extreme to ceiling, iguratively signifying the lowest point of vertical orientation on a career scale and it also represents a form of vertical segregation. Strangely enough, while the sticky loor metaphor refers again to women who are unable to escape low-paid jobs and low mobility jobs, practically meaning no career movement beyond the initial entry job, it is the men who slide on glass loor moving through rather blue-collar, temporary jobs with almost no prospects of moving further. although the loor metaphors are in a stark contrast to the ceiling metaphors as regards the work place advancement, i.e. a career scale (conceptually linked with the orientational metaphors, up and down), both represent rather a continuum of barriers. “The mobility barriers in lowpaying jobs within well-deined organizational hierarchies are clearly part of an exclusionary process that begins on the sticky loor and culminates at the glass ceiling.” (harlan & white Berheide 1994: 2). although the sticky/glass loor expressions tend to emphasise the aspect of personal development as a prerequisite of moving forward, while the glass ceiling hinges on organisational impediments imposed, both call for active participation on behalf of both employees and management so as to break through all the barriers installed. 2. Figurative phrasal verbs in the Human Resource Management vocabulary In addition to previously mentioned igurative expressions which comprise either noun plus noun combinations or adjective plus noun combinations and belong to the building and construction domain, the hRM vocabulary is characterised by a number of phrasal verbs that exhibit metaphorical meaning, stemming either from the verb or the particle which makes up the combination. although there are a few grammatical issues to keep in mind about phrasal verbs, the most effective way to learn and teach them is as lexis, and the cognitive approach to phrasal verbs, i.e. taking them 341 Tatjana Đurović as a system of organised meanings, has important pedagogical implications as regards the memorisation of these verb-particle combinations. Traditionally, phrasal verbs are grouped around the particular verb (e.g. bring down, bring out, bring up, etc.). however, if we reversely classify them according to the particle (e.g. get out, stay out, lock out, etc.), the meaning of the particle can shed more light on the meaning of the whole phrasal verb. The selected particles – in, out, up, down, off and on – have original spatial meanings but also extend towards nonspatial and metaphorical senses. In other words, metaphor which creates the meaning of a given phrasal verb brings together the two seemingly disparate domains – spatial orientations and abstract concepts. Two kinds of metaphors, ontological metaphors – when an abstract concept such as an emotion, idea, or event is perceived as something concrete such as an object, a person, or a container (in particular the schematic meaning of in and out, i.e. something is inside the container or outside the container), and orientational metaphors, which are closely related to people’s physical and cultural experience of spatial relations, can be used to reveal the underlying meaning of phrasal verbs. In the world of human Resource Management the focal points are companies and the activities related to them. The conceptualisation of the company is the one typical of the container image schema, in both a physical and an abstract sense. In a physical sense a company is a container via the metaphor a building is a container. Mentally, it is also perceived as a container-like structure – the company has an interior (e.g. there are people in the company), it also has a boundary, i.e. something that separates its interior from its exterior, and the company has an exterior, i.e. somebody may get ‘out of’ a company or leave the inside of a company. however, the primary spatial senses of in and out evolve into non-spatial, igurative senses in some phrasal verbs related to hRM. Thus, e.g. a job may also be perceived as a container. Being an activity people are involved in and in which people spend a lot of time, the job may be thought of having physical boundaries, i.e. inside space (see Rudzka Ostyn 2003: 19). Similarly, some physical and psychological states are also viewed as containers. For example, the metaphorical meaning of the verb burn out is out of the state of being healthy, functional, and with energy. let us 342 OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. illustrate the selected in and out phrasal verbs, providing the conceptual metaphors on which they are based and their meaning. Table 1. Phrasal verbs – the particle in Conceptual metaphor Phrasal verbs call in send in bring in Meaning enter a company building; join a group or organisation job is a container ill in ill in for put somebody into a space, a container for a short time empty/blank space is a ill in to write the required information in the blank spaces on a form the activity of registering when arriving on the job; taking part in an arrangement company building is a container container activity is a container clock in phase in contract in Examples 1) The company called in a team of experts to help it sort out its problems. 2) The dTI may send in inspectors who will, if necessary, stop the company trading. 3) If the company needs to improve its computer systems, it should bring in some outside IT experts. 1) If a miss a meeting, alison always ills me in. 2) he did a great job when he illed in for his boss. Please ill in the application form correctly. 1) If workers do not clock in on arrival at the factory, they may be sent a written warning. 2) The company is phasing in a new bonus system. 3) The company pension scheme was started last June, and since then 1500 employees have contracted in. 343 Tatjana Đurović Table 2. Phrasal verbs – the particle out Conceptual metaphor company building is a container the state (of possession) is a container the mental / physical state is a container 344 Phrasal verbs weed out ilter out drum out boot out lock out Meaning Examples leaving a group or organisation 1) Of course we get a few people who can’t do the job, but we try to weed them out in the early stages. 2) at the irst meeting we ilter out all unsuitable candidates. 3) She risks being drummed out of the company. 4) he was booted out of the company for money laundering. 5) The company responded to the strike by locking out over 5,000 workers. 1) Our business is hiring out IT people to companies. 2) These days we put out a lot of work to freelancers. 3) we contract out most of our IT work. 4) why don’t we farm these jobs out to an agency? 1) after six months of twelve-hour workdays, most people just burn out and quit. 2) ‘a man will rust out sooner’n he’ll wear out’ is one of his oftrepeated maxims. hire out put out contract out farm out outside, not inside; not involving people from inside an organisation; out as accessible, available burn out rust out mentally or physically exhausted; without energy; inaccessible, nonfunctional OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. activity is a container empty/blank is a container space clock out phase out contract out pull out opt out the activity of registering the time of departure at a factory; not taking part in an arrangement ill out to write the required information in the blank spaces on a form 1) I’m clocking out early today. 2) Tax relief on company cars will be phased out over a couple of years. 3) If your company uses the state pension scheme and you want to contract out, then you can also have a personal pension. 4) Our australian partners pulled out of the contract. 5) The irm opted out of the company car scheme last year. To get customs clearance you must ill out three forms. Phrasal verbs containing the particles up and down hinge on the more is up / less is down metaphors, which belong to the most primary metaphors since they are grounded in our experience. For example, the more is up metaphor is linked with the common experience of pouring more luid into a container and seeing the level go up, or adding more things to a pile and seeing the pile get higher. These are our very pervasive, every day experiences. They are also experiences with a structure or correspondence between the conceptual domain of quantity and the conceptual domain of verticality: more corresponds in such experiences to up and less corresponds to down. however, as the examples in the tables below show, phrasal verbs with up and down particles used in the hRM vocabulary, may metaphorically extend to, e.g. power and control, (i.e. a loss of power and control), when powerful, inluential managers are viewed as being at the top of a company (the phrasal verb head up, being a case in point), or at its bottom (e.g. step down). 345 Tatjana Đurović Table 3- Phrasal verbs – the particle up Conceptual metaphor Phrasal verbs Meaning Examples more is up scale up step up gear up an increase in number or intensity is up 1) we are scaling up our workforce. 2) The company has stepped up production of the latest models. 3) The company is gearing itself up for expansion into the african market. ‘complete’ is up ill up to completely inish writing on a form he illed up the form and sent it to the bank. head up give someone more important job or position in an organisation he has been appointed to head up our European organisation. having control or power is up Table 4. Phrasal verbs – the particle down Conceptual metaphor less is down losing control power is down or Phrasal verbs Meaning Examples scale down a decrease in number or intensity is down a difference in someone’s sense of importance and respectability we are scaling down our workforce. The director is stepping down in favour of a younger candidate. step down Similarly, the particles off – literally meaning a loss of spatial contact, and its counterpart on – with its original meaning the presence of contact, may form several phrasal verbs, all concerning the relationship between the management and workers. The tables below show how the igurative meanings develop from the original, spatial ones. 346 OPEN wINdOw, CONCRETE CEIlINg, RuST OuT. FIguRaTIVENESS IN laNguagE OF huMaN RESOuRCE MaNagEMENT. Table 5. Phrasal verbs – the particle off Conceptual metaphor Phrasal verbs Meaning Examples / condition is off break off call off knock off pay off walk off moving away from the former condition; inishing or completing is off separation lay off removing or being separated from a given group is off 1) Management broke off negotiations with the union. 2) The union has called off the strike. 3) we knocked off at 3p.m. on Friday. 4) when the company was taken over the factory was closed and all the workers were paid off. 5) The builders walked off the job because they said the site was too dangerous. The group plans to lay off 10% of its workforce. slacken off stand off a gradual decrease in intensity / number is off separation from the former state due to motion away from the former state / condition is off / leaving g r a d u a l decrease is off 1) Trade has slackened off. 2) There isn’t enough work, so we have to stand some of you off for the day. Table 6. Phrasal verbs – the particle on Conceptual metaphor contact is on Phrasal verbs Meaning Examples take somebody/ something on getting closer or be in touch with somebody or something is on 1) The economy is improving and many irms are taking on new staff. 2) People who are selfemployed often take on too much work. 347 Tatjana Đurović Pedagogical implications Both ways of igurativeness of human Resource Management (hRM) vocabulary presented here – igurative expressions belonging to the building and construction domain, on the one hand, and igurative phrasal verbs used to talk about human Resources, on the other have important pedagogical implications. as noted earlier, the primary aim of the paper is to explore the metaphoricity of selected word class combinations in the ield of hRM, i.e. to determine how they are motivated. In addition to enriching students’ vocabulary with selected igurative lexical expressions, we also lay particular stress on effectively incorporating igurative language into language teaching and learning. we believe if students are made aware of the ‘underlying interpretations’ of metaphorically-loaded economic and business terms, they will be able to grasp the concepts behind language which in turn should lead to better assimilation of igurative language in the area of hRM. This particularly pertains to phrasal verbs where we tried to show that a cognitive approach to Business English phrasal verbs may lead to better clariication and understanding of the conceptual link between the spatial sense and its metaphorical extensions, all stemming from the cognitive linguistic attempt to provide the conceptual motivation of linguistic structures. “This way, all the possible senses of a preposition, and particularly of a phrasal verb, appear to be related and therefore motivated, instead of constituting a bunch of arbitrary, unconnected senses.” (Porto Requejo & Pena díaz 2008: 125). This insight beneits language learners a lot helping them to remove a heavy load on their memory. Moreover, “giving a conceptual home” (holme 2004: 32) to something that was previously thought of as dificult, unknown and unsystematic, is gratifying to teachers and students alike and provides for meaningful foreign language teaching and learning. References: Boers, F. (2000). 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(2000). analysing metaphor use in hRd. Human Resource Development International 3(3): 323-341. 349 Tatjana Đurović Short, d. C. (2001). Shining a torch on metaphor in hRd. Advances in Developing Human Resources 3(3): 297-308. Taylor, J. R. (2002). Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: Oxford university Press. Turnbull, P. and V. wass (1998). Marksist Management: Sophisticated human Relations in a high Street Retail Store. Industrial Relations Journal 29 (2): 98-111. white, M. (2003). Metaphor and economics: the case of growth. English for Speciic Purposes 22: 131-151. Tatjana Đurović FIGURATIVENESS IN THE LANGUAGE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Summary Pod okriljem teorije pojmovne metafore u radu analiziramo dva oblika igurativnosti jezika iz oblasti upravljanja ljudskim resursima – metaforičke izraze koji pripadaju pojmovnom domenu gRaĐENJa/gRadNJE s jedne strane, i igurativne frazne glagole koji se koriste u vokabularu o ljudskim resursima, s druge strane. Osnovni cilj nam je da ispitamo metaforičnost odabranih kombinacija, tj. da ustanovimo motivisanost njihovih značenja. uz to, u radu ukazujemo na pedagošku primenu kognitivno-lingvističkog pristupa, tj. na potrebu za eikasnim uključivanjem igurativnog jezika, ovde u oblasti upravljanja ljudskim resursima, u nastavu engleskog jezika struke i nauke naglašavanjem veze između jezika i mišljenja, što bi vodilo ka jednom strukturisanom i sistematskom obrascu usvajanja metaforičkog jezika. Ključne reči: kognitivna lingvistika, upravljanje ljudskim resursima, metafora gRaĐENJa, frazni glagoli 350