Abstract
Body part lexemes are among the most frequently metaphorised lexemes across languages and cultures. Heart is often conceptualised as a container for feelings and emotions, especially in Western languages and cultures. The paper sets out to examine a typical construction signalling the image schema of heart as a container: in the/my/his/ her heart in English and šird-yje (heart-loc.sg) in Lithuanian to determine the relevance of the image schema for the semantics of the above construction, especially in reference to emotions and feelings. Also types of containers in each language are identified. The investigation is based on corpus data and the key principles of metaphor identification procedure. The results demonstrate that the construction is mostly used metaphorically in both languages and the container image schema is paramount in interpreting the semantics of the construction. It is employed in at least three senses: container for emotions and feelings, centrality and hiding. However, the distribution of the senses in the two languages is quite different with Lithuanian showing more adherence to the metaphor of a container for emotions and feelings and English giving preference to heart as centre of activity and attraction.
Highlights
Ample literature demonstrates that human body parts are often employed to express abstract ideas, in other words, they are used metaphorically
This paper addresses the claim that heart is the seat of, or container for, emotion, which, presumably, suggests that the English expression in one’s/the heart and the Lithuanian šird-yje, when used figuratively, mainly appear in emotion-related contexts
The key questions of the investigation are concerned with first, identifying the tendencies of metaphorical usage of the above construction in English and Lithuanian, assuming that the semantics of the construction is interpretable with reference to the underlying image schema of a container, second, specifying the type of a container in each language, and third, determining the extent of the conceptualisation of heart as a container for emotions in each language
Summary
Ample literature demonstrates that human body parts are often employed to express abstract ideas, in other words, they are used metaphorically. The importance of a container in reference to head and heart, first of all, in English, has been pointed out by Niemeier, who claimed that “the container metaphor, a very general if not universal metaphor, is active in the conceptualization of human mental faculties” (2008, 365). The key questions of the investigation are concerned with first, identifying the tendencies of metaphorical usage of the above construction in English and Lithuanian, assuming that the semantics of the construction is interpretable with reference to the underlying image schema of a container, second, specifying the type of a container in each language, and third, determining the extent of the conceptualisation of heart as a container for emotions in each language
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