Emotion Metaphors We Live by: A Cognitive Study of Metaphors With Body Parts in Colloquial Jordanian Arabic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1601.11Keywords:
body part metaphors, emotions, conceptual metaphor theory, colloquial Jordanian ArabicAbstract
This study investigates how metaphors with body parts used in colloquial Jordanian Arabic are constructed and communicated to express emotions. This study, grounded in conceptual metaphor theory frameworks, used a thematic approach to analyze a dataset of 110 metaphors. The data collection period extended from October 4th to December 27th, 2024. The data analysis revealed six themes that were central to emotions in colloquial Jordanian Arabic. These themes included anger, shame, happiness, pride, sadness, and fear. They emphasized the importance of body part metaphors in constructing different emotions in colloquial Jordanian Arabic. The findings showed that several categories of conceptual metaphors, including orientational, structural, behavioral, and ontological, were employed in the linguistic expressions of these metaphors. These conceptual metaphors contribute to the construction of positive and negative emotions. Moreover, our findings revealed several conceptual patterns for linguistic metaphors, including body parts and expressing emotions. By providing insight into the construction of conceptual metaphors with body parts that articulate different emotions, this study contributes to a greater understanding of how metaphors can help express complicated emotions.
References
Al Jallad, N. (2010). The concept of “shame” in Arabic: Bilingual dictionaries and the challenge of defining culture-based emotions. Language design: Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics, 12, 0031-0057.
Al-Mousa, A. E. A. (2020). Metaphors of body parts in the Holy Qur’an. مجلة البحث العلمي في الآداب, 21(3), 89-103.
Al-Ramahi, A. R. (2016). Conventionalized metaphors in Jordanian colloquial Arabic: Case study: Metaphors on body parts. International Journal of Linguistics, 8(5), 30-39. https://doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v8i5.10066
Atay, E., Dirgar, E., Pehlivan, K., Tosun, B., Ayaz, A., Yava, A., & Leyva-Moral, J. M. (2024). Emotions reflected in colours: experiences of nursing students during the COVID-19 period. BMC Nursing, 23(1), 575. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-02256-6
Belkhir, S (2016). ANGER metaphors in American English and Kabyle: The effect of culture. International Journal of Language and Culture, 3(2), 216-251. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.3.2.04bel
Bogdzevič, M. (2021). Metaphorical conceptualization of ANGER, FEAR and SHAME in Lithuanian: In search of cultural content. Vilnius University Open Series, 2, 76-96. https://doi.org/10.15388/VLLP.2021.5
Broćić, A. (2018). The conceptualization of pride and shame in English and Serbian via the temperature domain. In Z. Kašić (Ed.), Primenjena lingvistika u čast Vesni Berić-Đukić – o jeziku sa raznih aspekata, Novi Sad and Beograd: Društvo za primenjenu lingvistiku Srbije, Filozofski fakultet Univerziteta u Novom Sadu (pp. 49-64). Filološki fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu.
Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis. Palgrave Macmillan.
Goatly, A. (2011). Metaphor as a resource for the conceptualisation and expression of emotion. In Affective computing and sentiment analysis: Emotion, metaphor and terminology (pp. 13-25). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Hamdi, S. (2016). A cognitive study of happiness metaphors in English, Tunisian Arabic and Spanish. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ), 6(1), 132-143. https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol6no1.11
Herr, H., & Popovic, M. (2008). Angular momentum in human walking. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 211(4), 467-481. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.008573
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. University of Chicago Press.
Kövecses, Z. (2003). Metaphor and emotion: Language, culture, and body in human feeling. Cambridge University Press.
Kovecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. The University of Chicago Press (Original Work Published 1980). https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001
Landes, R. (2007). Edward Said and the culture of honor and shame: Orientalism and our misperceptions of the Arab–Israeli conflict. Israel Affairs, 13(4), 844-858. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537120701445315
Liu, X., & Zhao, G. (2013). A comparative study of emotion metaphors between English and Chinese. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(1), 155-162. https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.1.155-162
Mashak, S., Pazhakh, A., & Hayati, A. (2012). A comparative study on basic emotion conceptual metaphors in English and Persian literary texts. International Educational Studies, 5(1), 200-207. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v5n1p200
Maunder, R. (1996). System as metaphor in the psychology and biology of shame. Psychiatry, 59(2), 196–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1996.11024762
Mohammad, S., Shutova, E., & Turney, P. (2016). Metaphor as a medium for emotion: An empirical study. In Proceedings of the fifth joint conference on lexical and computational semantics (pp. 23-33).
Nummenmaa, L., Glerean, E., & Hari, R. (2013). Bodily maps of emotions. Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, 111(2), 646-651. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1321664111
Ortony, A., & Fainsilber, L. (1987). The role of metaphors in descriptions of emotions. In proceedings of the 1987 workshop on theoretical issues in natural language processing, TINLAP (pp. 181-184). Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.3115/980304.980346
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. Sage.
Safarnejad, F., Ho Abdullah, I., & Mat Awal, N. (2014). A Cognitive study of happiness metaphors in Persian and English. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 118, 110-117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.015
Sijpesteijn, P. M. (2018). Beards, braids and moustachios: Exploring the social meaning of hair in the Mediaeval Muslim world. Al-Masāq, 30(1), 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2018.1435390
Siqi, Y. (2020). Conceptual metaphor “THE HEART IS A CONTAINER” in Thai in comparison with Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Liberal Arts Prince of Songkla University, 12(1), 113–139. Retrieved February 7, 2025, from https://so03.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/journal-la/article/view/244500
Tissari, H. (2006). Conceptualizing shame: Investigating uses of the English word shame, 1418–1991. In Selected proceedings of the 2005 symposium on new approaches in English historical lexis (HEL-LEX) (pp. 143-154). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Wollheim, R. (2008). On the emotions (Vol. 288). Yale University Press.
Xi, C., & Pingying, H. (2017). A comparative study of metaphors for pride in English and Chinese. International Journal of Data Analysis and Information System, 9(2), 57-69.
Yu, N. (1995). Metaphorical expressions of anger and happiness in English and Chinese. Metaphor and symbolic Activity, 10(2), 59–92. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327868ms1002_1
Zhou, S., & Jiang, X. (2020). A corpus-based contrastive study of HEART metaphor in Chinese and English. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 7(3), 98-112. https://doi.org/10.30845/ijll.v7n3p9
Zibin, A. (2021). Blood metaphors and metonymies in Jordanian Arabic and English. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 19(1), 26-50. https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00075.zib
Zibin, A., & Hamdan, J. (2019). The conceptualisation of FEAR through conceptual metonymy and metaphor in Jordanian Arabic. International Journal of Arabic-English Studies, 19(2), 239–262. https://doi.org/10.33806/ijaes2000.19.2.1
Zorina, V. A. (2024). Метафора как продуктивное средство вербализации эмоций в политическом дискурсе Германииe [Metaphor as a productive means of verbalizing motions in the political discourse of Germany]. Philology Theory & Practice, 17(4), 1027. https://doi.org/10.30853/phil20240149
