A Cognitive Analysis of Head and Heart Metaphors in English and Spanish

Abstract

This study investigates the use and the conceptualization of head and heart metaphors in English and Spanish. It studies 57 heart and head English metaphorical expressions and their equivalents in Spanish. This study mainly aims at exploring the similarities and differences between the two languages with regard to the conceptual metaphors from which the metaphorical expressions are generated and the ways of conceptualizing these metaphorical expressions. The study also investigates the role of the human body-experiences in forming and conceptualizing these body-based metaphorical expressions. The results show that the conceptualization and the manifestation of the investigated metaphorical expressions differ in terms of the linguistic expressions used and the conceptual metaphors from which they generate. The results also show that despite the differences that occur, there is still a common way of conceptualizing the bodily-based human experiences through metaphor..