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Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage
Edited by Iwona Kraska-Szlenk
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 12] 2020
► pp. 291–308

Cultural conceptualisations of nawsk ‘belly/stomach’ in Kurdish

Conceptualisations of body parts across languages have received a great deal of attention in recent years (Ameka, 2002; Frank et al., 2008; Maalej & Yu, 2011; Sharifian et al., 2008; Yu, 2009). Nevertheless, there have been no systematic studies examining the conceptualisations of body parts, and in particular nawsk ‘belly/stomach’, in Kurdish. To that end, the present study employs the analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian, 2011, 2017b) to explore Kurdish expressions of nawsk and their underlying cultural conceptualisations. The data consists of naturally occurring expressions collected through a variety of sources including a questionnaire, Kurdish online data, dictionaries, and narratives. Other sources included the author’s intuition as a native speaker and a number of Kurdish native speaker interviews. The results indicate that the body part nawsk functions as the main conceptual basis for a large number of conceptualisations in Kurdish. Nawsk is conceptualised as the locus of a wide range of emotions, attitudes, and moods. It is associated with both positive and negative emotions such as love, courage, sadness, curse, and anger. Overall, it is revealed that in Kurdish, nawsk is conceptually associated with expressing feeling, wanting, and thinking. Nawsk is metaphorically conceptualised as a container.

Keywords: Kurdish, belly/stomach, Cultural Linguistics, cultural conceptualisations, emotion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The language and its speakers
  • 3.Synopsis of the research design, method, and sources of data
  • 4.Cultural linguistics
  • 5. Sk and Nawsk conceptual categories
    • 5.1 Sk category
    • 5.2Nawsk category
  • 6. Nawsk and conceptualisations of emotions in Kurdish
    • 6.1Nawsk as love, passion, and intimacy
    • 6.2Nawsk as sympathy, empathy, and pity
    • 6.3Nawsk as hate, curse, and revenge
    • 6.4Nawsk as complain, fear, and anger
  • 7. Nawsk conceptualisations and personality traits, character and mood
    • 7.1Wicked and devilish
    • 7.2Gluttonous and insatiable
    • 7.3Opportunistic and greedy
    • 7.4An abusive person
    • 7.5A nag
  • 8. Nawsk and conceptual metaphor
    • 8.1Nawsk can be filled or emptied
    • 8.2Nawsk can be tightened or torn
  • 9.Conceptualisations of Nawsk in Kurdish literature
  • 10.Concluding remarks
  • References
Published online: 23 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.12.c13nos
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