Document Type : scientific-research
Authors
1 Associate Professor of Persian Language and Literature Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Ph.D. Candidate of Persian Language and Literature Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
< p >< p >It has been about four decades since George Lakoff and Mark Johnson brought up the notion of conceptual metaphor in their book Metaphors We Live By (1980). Since then, this theory has found numerous followers and accordingly it has been applied to Persian linguistic and literary researches as well. This essay contends that these two thinkers were not in fact the originator of conceptual metaphor and that, as Richards says, the theorization of this type of metaphor goes back to the olden times. The article attempts to compare literary and conceptual metaphor through the thoughts of Islamic and western masters of eloquence and the definitions of literary and conceptual metaphor that they have given in order to highlight the point that the definition of these two kinds of metaphor should be distinctly recognized and the consideration of one should not result in the overlooking of the other. Considering these two types as the same, undermines their value and independence and may even force the mind to choose one and ignore the other — there are cases in which this has happened or at least some writers have intended to do so. On the one hand George Lakoff’s insistence on rejecting traditional definitions of metaphors in his essay titled “The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor” (1993) and on the other hand the enthusiastic acclamation of conceptual metaphor in recent years are some of the reasons for doing this study. In this article, however, neither of these two notions are denied and efforts are made to consolidate the status of both of them. So the outcomes of conceptual metaphor in both language and literature are illustrated and it is argued that this new type of metaphor does not cause limitation to literary metaphor, but can be an appropriate element in linguistic and literary studies.
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