METAPHORICAL USE OF LANGUAGE AND PLANT METAPHORS WITHIN THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF COGNITIVE SEMANTICS

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present concisely a new approach to the plant metaphor analysis relying on the basic postulates of Cognitive Linguistics. We use comparative method and present metaphorical projections of a limited number of plant names. Additionally, we try to construct core models of the basic conceptual metaphors for plant names. In the last three decades within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics a highly important ‘’innovation’’ has occurred in comparison with traditional linguistics. Namely, metaphor is primarily viewed not as a figure of speech, but as a cognitive process by means of which we conceptualize and categorize the world around us. Although research on metaphor has been very intensive in Cognitive Linguistics, few papers analyzing mataphors and plant names have been published.

Keywords

• mataphor
• cognitive linguistics
• conceptual metaphors
• plant names.