Abstract
Based on an analysis of a corpus of Arabic e-commerce websites, this article investigates the use of figurative language in e-business texts. While our focus is on metaphors, we also incorporate the related concept of metonymy to explain the data. Using the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis, we examine the linguistic and conceptual metaphors used in e-commerce texts. The empirical analysis demonstrates that the metaphor of COMPANIES ARE LIVING ORGANISMS is the most prevailing one and provides the cognitive frame within which the e-commerce texts are constructed. Entailments and specifications of this cognitive metaphor further structure the texts. Other cognitive metaphors that underlie the text are those of a FORWARD MOVEMENT, PATH—GOAL, and COMPANIES ARE COMPLEX STRUCTURES. On a more general level, we show that despite the fact that the e-commerce text is in Arabic, the underlying cognitive framework is not much different from that in other Western languages. We do, however, find some linguistic strategies that attempt to make the text sound more typically Arabic.
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