Estudio cognitivo-contrastivo de las metáforas del corazón en inglés y alemán.

Abstract

In the field of Cognitive Linguistics, the most rapidly expanding school in modern linguistics, a great deal of attention has been paid to identifying and describing the metaphors used by different social groups, in everyday and specific discourse contexts. Although certain “conceptual metaphors” are shared by different cultures, linguistic metaphors may differ across languages.

This paper explores the conceptualizations of the heart in two Germanic languages, English and German. We will show these conceptualizations (container for emotions, as an object of value, as central and innermost part, etc.) trying to establish a pattern of similarities and differences among those cultures.

Most of the similarities derive from universal aspects of the human body, what supports the idea of embodiment claimed by the cognitive theory (Lakoff, 1990, 1994). However, the cultural diversity provides different linguistic expressions which postulate that experiential universals are to be situated at a more abstract, cultural determined, level of thought.