Publications
Publication details [#2113]
Barcelona, Antonio. 1992. El lenguaje del amor romántico en inglés y en español. Cognitive Studies of Language: LANGUAGE AND COGNITION IN THE INTERDISCIPLINARY PARADIGM 14 (1) : 2–27. 26 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
Spanish
Keywords
Abstract
This article offers a brief comparison of the cognitive models of ROMANTIC LOVE in English and Spanish. Barcelona follows Lakoff and Kövecses' methodology (in Lakoff 1995, case study 3) for the analysis of the metaphorical and metonymic basis of concepts, and takes as his starting point Kövecses' (1986, 1988, 1991) study of romantic love in American English (which Barcelona expands in some respects). The cognitive model of romantic love emerges from the analysis of the everyday expressions that we use to talk about the emotion in English and Spanish, most of which are metaphorical and/or metonymic. The study has three distinct parts: in the first one, the relevant conceptual metaphors are analysed; in the second, the metonymies are discussed; finally, Barcelona shows how those metaphors and metonymies converge in a cognitive model or cognitive scenario featuring a sequence of events that articulates our prototypical understanding of romantic love. Since the conceptual metaphors and metonymies are the same in English and Spanish, the resulting cognitive model is also the same. However, some minor conceptual and expressive differences are discussed, together with five nonprototypical cases of romantic love resulting from the violation of certain aspects in the central cognitive model.
(Cristina Soriano)