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Article published In:
Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 6:2 (2019) ► pp.295–324

Animal-related concepts across languages and cultures from a cognitive linguistic perspective

| Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou

This paper investigates the use of animal-related concepts in the proverbs of English, French, Arabic, and Kabyle. Research in cognitive linguistics has highlighted the important role played by cultural influences in conceptual metaphor variation (Kövecses 2005). Animal-related proverbs constitute interesting examples of cultural influences upon conceptual metaphor and its instantiation in language (Belkhir 2014, 2012). The principle of hierarchy underlying the Great Chain Metaphor Theory has been questioned. It has been demonstrated that in addition to the ranking of human and animal concepts on a hierarchical scale, animal concepts were also ranked on the scale (Belkhir 2014). The present article attempts to show that there exists another type of ranking that seems to have never been explored to date; that is, the ranking of concepts within the same animal species. Therefore, this paper offers a cross-cultural cognitive study of some animal-related concepts’ use in a sample of English, French, Arabic, and Kabyle proverbs. Its aim is to explore the influence of cultural contexts and cultural models upon the main meaning foci characterizing the concepts dog, lion, ass, horse, camel, and ox leading to, not only a hierarchical classification of these animals, but to a classification of animals within one animal species as a result of the influences of cultural contexts and cultural models. The conclusion is that sociocultural contexts determine the main meaning foci characterizing the animal source domain concepts involved in the human is animal metaphor resulting in animal-animal rankings within different species, and animal-animal rankings within the same species.

Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, animal-related concepts, proverbs, corpus-based analysis, cultural influences
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
  • 3.Theoretical background
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Cultural models
    • 5.1Dog
    • 5.2Lion
    • 5.3Ass
    • 5.4Horse
    • 5.5Camel
    • 5.6Ox
  • 6.Descriptive account of animal concepts rankings
    • 6.1Rankings in English proverbs
      • 6.1.1Rankings within distinct animal species
      • 6.1.2Rankings within single animal species
    • 6.2Rankings in French proverbs
      • 6.2.1Rankings within distinct animal species
      • 6.2.2Rankings within single animal species
    • 6.3Rankings in Arabic proverbs
      • 6.3.1Rankings within distinct animal species
      • 6.3.2Rankings within single animal species
    • 6.4Rankings in Kabyle proverbs
      • 6.4.1Rankings within distinct animal species
      • 6.4.2Rankings within single animal species
  • 7.Discussion of the findings
    • 7.1Convergence in animal concepts rankings
      • 7.1.1Convergence in rankings within distinct animal species
      • 7.1.2Convergence in rankings within single animal species
    • 7.2Divergence in animal concepts rankings
      • 7.2.1Divergence in rankings within distinct animal species
      • 7.2.2Divergence in rankings within single animal species
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 February 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00042.bel
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