Conceptual Metaphor Theory in Poetrys’ Code

Abstract

Common conceptual metaphors are used in poetry, as part of the conceptual metaphor theory, that enables poets to express their poetic images and depict their world through a mixture of language and cultural codes. This study is an attempt to show how conceptual poetic metaphors are illustrated in Kurdish poems by analysing source and target domains. According to the theory, the target domain which is the metaphor emerges from the source domain, that is generally the source of our common knowledge of the world. This leads speakers and listeners to easily categorise and make sense of the abstract terms. In this research, samples of poems were analyzed and categorized according to four types of conceptual metaphors such as imagistic, orientational, ontological and structural. They were also given two codes in reference to both aforementioned domains. Therefore, the Mapping between the two sources in the literary samples was observed and shown in the present paper.