Metaphorical Conceptualization in the Last Eleven Parts of the Holy Qur’an: A Cognitive and Cultural Explanation

نویسندگان
شکراله بابائی الهه ID 1
کریمی سحر ID 2

1 دانشگاه فرهنگیان

2

doi
10.37264/jiqs.v1i1.9
چکیده

The present semantic research has been performed in order to provide a cognitive and cultural explanation of conceptual metaphors in parts 20 to 30 of the Holy Qur’an. Extraction of ‘types of conceptual metaphors,’ determination of ‘high frequency metaphors,’ ‘source domains’ and ‘target domains’ is the process of conducting research using the conceptual metaphor theory. The variety of concepts of ‘target’ and the functional frequency of ‘source’ concepts indicate what concepts are intended in the holy Qur’an through metaphorical conceptualization. This study provides a basis for further understanding of the worldview presented in the Holy Qur’an and the possibility of determining the behavioral patterns of religion by identifying metaphors. The results of the present study represent a septenary classification of metaphors in the ‘empirical source domain,’ containing: ‘social life,’ ‘needs of the body and its activity,’ ‘image schemas (schema-based),’ ‘elements of nature,’ ‘person,’ ‘body parts,’ and ‘similarity-based metaphors (simile)’; Among which, the highest percentage of metaphorical conceptualization in the source domain is in ‘social life’ and the lowest one is in the domain of ‘person.’ Considering the fact that most of the human knowledge is about the elements and subdomains of ‘social life,’ Qur’anic sources in this domain have played the major role in abstracting the cultural and doctrinal concepts of religion and organizing Islamic religious experiences using the sources of this field and have been used as customary (conventional) and practical models. Accordingly, Qur’anic metaphors lead to the formation of cultural and cognitive patterns, and the ‘monotheistic belief system’ (Qur’anic) directs human bodily experiences in metaphorical conceptualization, and this ‘Qur’anic worldview’ can be seen as an Islamic cultural and cognitive model in the Qur’anic metaphorical schema.

کلیدواژه‌ها
Metaphorical mappings and the target and source concepts in the Qur’anic metaphors are based on which empirical-physical domains and with what frequency?, What is the relationship amongst the frequency of mappings of the source and target domains with metaphorical entailment?, What is the cognitive and cultural explanation for the source and target domains concepts in the metaphors of parts 20 to 30 of the Holy Qur’an?, The first four areas/ domains of metaphors, namely “social life”, “needs of the body and its activity”, “elements of nature”, and “organs of the body”, are in line with Mar’ashi (2007)., The types of “schema-based” metaphors are particularly inspired by the divisions of Santibáñez (2002), Kövecses (2002), and Evans and Green (2006)., The “similarity-based” metaphors are cited by reference to metaphorists such as Lakoff and Turner (1989), Chippe and Kennedy (2001), and Stockwell (1992). “Creating similarity” in metaphor was also mentioned, citing Lakoff and Johnson (2003)., The “person-based” metaphors are based on the findings of the present study from previous studies and classifications, in particular Lakoff (2006), Lakoff and Johnson (2003), and Ghaeminia (2017)., Social Life: Journey, Bodily (physical) functions and activities, CONTAINMENT Schemas (CONTAINER), Landscapes and features of the land, (Attributes of) Person, Eye, The similarity-based metaphors with the source of building, and furniture, Basic level concepts in 5 areas: 1. Social life, 2. Body parts, 3- Physical activities, 4. Elements of nature, and 5. Human attributes, Metaphorizing image schematic elements, in 5 categories of image schematic “UNITY (MULTIPLICITY), “FORCE”, “OBJECT”, “CONTAINMENT”, and “SPACE”, “Weak” metaphors (similarity-based with comparators), in the areas of “nature”, “social life”, and “mind”, Social life; 2. Schematic basis; 3. The needs of the body and its activity; 4. Elements of nature; 5. Organs of the body; 6. Similarity basis (weak metaphors); 7. Person., “Social life” is the most frequent experimental field with 41.12% of application among the septenary fields of research and among the sources of social life domain; “travel” has the highest frequency with 40.72% occurrence., According to Table 3 in the study, the source domain concept “journey” in the field/scope of social life with a frequency of 102, is the main element in constructing 134 metaphor target concepts in 271 sacred verses. Among the 7 domains, the most correspondences are related to the sphere of social life and image schemas., Overall, most correspondences relate to the realm of social life, image schemas, and business. This indicates that the higher the frequency of mapping between the source and target domains for a metaphor in a particular text, the more metaphorical entailments that metaphor implies. Accordingly, the journey, object, and business metaphors show the greatest metaphorical entailments., In the source concepts domain:, Journey, object, physical activity, and spatial concepts with the highest frequency occurrence represent Arab nomadic life., The higher frequency of eye and ear in conceptualization indicates the illiterate and oral Arab society., The greatest human knowledge of the elements and sub-domains of social life and sources in this domain have the greatest role in the abstraction of religious concepts., The least human knowledge is of the behavior of the person, and the soul in this domain (source) and other low frequency source domains., Less importance or role of body, organs words, mind, soul, life and death, and mental activity in Arab life because they are used less frequently in conceptualizations., The septenary experiential areas of the present study provide a conceptual basis for expressing religious experiences., In the target concepts domain and the metaphors:, The power to select the sieve of Islamic culture and pattern from the sources for conceptualization., Determining the framework of Islamic thought by the sieve of Islamic culture by attributing knowledge to the heart, eyes, and ears., In cases of conflict between the physical experience concept and the target concept, reconceptualization takes place., Our tasks, rewards and punishments, situations in the form of “EVENT STRUCTURE METAPHOR”, Emotion, morality and thought in the form of “FORCE”, The four relationships of human beings with God, man himself, others, and nature in the form of “OBJECT metaphors”, Resemblance-based metaphors for predicting future events - human task and destiny in both worldly and otherworldly life in the form of “metaphors of life”; Reports of past episodes- of tribes., Behavioral and cognitive attributes of human beings in life in metaphors with the source of “body needs and its activity”, Elements of nature in different metaphors for explaining and determining the duties of different participants in human life, Person based metaphors in event structure (Resurrection) and the concepts of revelation, the Qur'an, the rules, natural phenomena (such as rain), etc. as a factor from God that is conceptualized by mapping the human, behavioral, and voluntary aspects of the person onto targets, Body organs Sources for the purposes of cognition and perception, In the Qur'anic metaphors, the direct involvement of the Creator of the universe is evident in all stages of life, most Qur'anic metaphors are an extension of conventional metaphors and therefore novel and they have innovations that have not been in any culture and they have created new patterns of behavior., This reflects the fact that most human knowledge is of the source concepts of life and the characteristics of “OBJECT” schema;  and the least knowledge is of the source concepts of “soul” to conceptualize “revelation and the Qur'an”, and  of the human attributes of “person” to conceptualize “death”, and of the source concept of “death” to conceptualize “fear”, “curse” and “dryness”. The results indicate the appropriateness of sources and targets. In the JOURNEY metaphor, verbs of motion and destination express “goal-orientation” (Charteris-Black, 2004: 74, quoted in El-Sharif, 2011: 127). In this journey, “people have the freedom to choose the path of their religious life, but they must accept the consequences of their choices” (El-Sharif, 2011: 127)., Many Qur'anic metaphors (especially metaphors of actions and organs of the body) are derived from the interaction of metonymy, schema, and metaphor (metaphorical mapping), and mostly schemas have transformations and co-occurrences and are not understood separately., According to Izutsu (1981), the religious and moral concepts of Islam [and consequently the metaphorical concepts of the Qur'an] “are by no means completely separate from each other but are closely related to each other, and this is due to the fact that the Qur'anic worldview is essentially a ‘God-centered’ worldview”. The most important point in all types of metaphors is “the division of religious and moral concepts into positive and negative poles” (Izutsu, 1981: 19) and as a result it is possible to “evaluate” the concepts. “Metaphors tend to convey summarizing, emotional and evaluative aspects of cognition” (Kimmel, 2010: 110)., As research data have shown, the most frequent mappings and target concepts of “life” and OBJECT metaphors are in the form of “EVENT STRUCTURE” metaphor. Other Schema-based “CONTAINMENT” and “SPACE” metaphors are next in the rank. Applications of these metaphors and metaphors of other domains, in addition to teaching lifestyle, are also used in human behavioral and cognitive patterns. The relationship between concepts is also seen in the use of metaphors due to the God-centered worldview that leads to their evaluation., RIS, EndNote, Mendeley, BibTeX, APA, MLA, HARVARD, CHICAGO, VANCOUVER