Love and beloved metaphors in Jordanian Arabic and English songs

Abstract

AbstractThis study examinesloveandbelovedmetaphors from the cross-cultural perspective of Jordanian Arabic (JA) and English. The conceptual models suggested by Lakoff and Johnson (1980,1999) andKövecses (2014)and force dynamics proposed byTalmy (1988)are adopted as the theoretical frameworks for this study. The data was collected from contemporary songs by Jordanian and English-speaking artists. Unlike previous comparative studies onloveandbelovedmetaphors, this study demonstrates that source domains found in JA songs such aspain/suffering, sadness, weakness, wound, stupid endeavour, crueltyanddeadly forcealso exist in English songs to conceptualiselove.It is argued that while the use of these source domains in JA is expected as they form part of the prototypical cognitive model ofloveor thelovematrix in JA, they could be viewed as nonprototypical in English. The analysis also revealed certain JA culture-specific source domains used to conceptualisethe object of love [beloved], i.e.arabian oryxandbasil. We argued that despite the existence of similar conceptual metaphors in the two languages, geographical, historical and ideological factors may have an effect on the prevailing conceptual frames in a certain speech community creating some differences in the metaphorical conceptualisations ofloveandbeloved.