New Developments in Linguistic Pragmatics
University of Lodz-Poland, 11-14 May 2006

Love as a journey metaphor in the Cultural Schemata of English and Turkish Speakers

Dr hab. Yeşim Aksan & Dr. Dilek Kantar
English Language and Literature Department, Mersin University- TURKEY

e-mail address: yesim.aksan @ gmail.com

Postal adress: Mersin Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fak. İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyati Bölümü
Çiftlikköy Kampusu-Mersin-TÜRKİYE

In a previous study (Kantar and Aksan 2005) we compared love metaphors in English and in Turkish within the framework of Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory. Our data for Turkish came mostly from real-life discourse (internet resources, spontaneous speech). For English data, we consulted Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999), Kövecses (1988, 1991, 2000), and Baxter (1992). We found out that large number of metaphorical source domains which are used by English and Turkish speakers to conceptualize romantic love are the same. We also observed that conventional metaphors of romantic love display cross-cultural differences. Love as a Journey is one of the dominant metaphors of romantic love which reflects different cultural ways of conceptualizing love in the two cultures.

In this study, we focus on the differences in the manifestations of romantic love in English and Turkish speakers’ cultural schemata (Wierzbicka 1991). Journey metaphor in Turkish is both like and unlike the journey metaphor identified by Lakoff and Johnson (1980,1999). Consistent with their work, the journey metaphor suggests movement through a variety of paths or routes as seen in ilişkimiz iyi gidiyor ‘our relationship is going well’ or ‘this love was a dead-end street.’ Most of the entailments of journey metaphor apply to Turkish conceptualizations of love as a journey as well:
The journey is love.
The travelers are the lovers.
The road covered is the progress of the love relationship.
The difference occurs in the part where the difficulties along the way are described. In English speakers’ schemata, the difficulties along the way are the difficulties of the love relationship, while the difficulties along the way make the goal of union in love unattainable in the Turkish speakers’ schemata. Consequently, we will investigate the cultural bases of the difference in the conceptualization of romantic love in English and in Turkish in this study.

References

Baxter, L. A. (1992). Root metaphors in accounts of developing romantic relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 9, 253– 275.
Kantar, D and Y. Aksan (2005). Contrastive linguistic analysis of love metaphors in English and in Turkish. Paper presented in the 3rd International Conference in Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics Confererce, 16- 18 September 2005, Shanghai International Studies University, Shaghai.
Kövecses, Z. (1988). The language of love. Lewisburg: Bucknell University.
Kövecses, Z. (2000). Metaphor & emotion: Language, culture & the body in human feeling. New York: Cambridge University Pres.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. New York: Basic Books.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.