Metaphor and Collocation. The Case of REIÐI

Abstract

This article analyzes the conceptual metaphors of ANGER in Icelandic, rendered as REIÐI. Since Lakoff & Johnson (1980), many studies have illustrated how we conceptualize emotions. Much research has been devoted to ANGER in particular, and it has been found that the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER is present in many different languages. When it comes to Icelandic, little discussion has been devoted to such metaphors. Therefore, the present paper aims to examine what metaphors are central to the emotion of ANGER. In determining the centrality, this study uses the MI score. The results show that the central metaphor for REIÐI is ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER. However, the data also show that this metaphor highlights different aspects of the emotion, and that other conceptual metaphors such as ANGER IS FIRE and ANGER IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL are not as strongly connected to the emotion in Icelandic as in English.

Keywords

• cognitive linguistics
• conceptual metaphor
• anger
• collocation
• mi score