Evaluation of the Degree of Conformity between Verbal and Non-verbal Metaphors of Sadness and Happiness in Poems of the Elementary Books from a Cognitive Linguistics Perspective

From a cognitive perspective, the term “metaphor” is a method of understanding a mental and abstract concept in terms of another more concrete and simpler concept. This process includes both verbal and nonverbal metaphors. The present study is an attempt to study “sadness” and “happiness” conceptual metaphors as well as the degree of conformity between verbal and pictorial metaphors in the primary school poems and pictures in “reading” books. The data were collected from a number of 26 poems and their pictures from the first to third grades. The analysis of the data revealed that the metaphors of happiness were significantly more used than the opposite domain. Regarding conformity between verbal and nonverbal (pictorial) metaphors, 8 poems showed a high degree of conformity, 17 poems were partially compatible and one poem was completely incompatible. The findings were satisfactory due to the high frequency of happiness metaphors; however, due to the lack of complete compatibility between verbal and non-verbal metaphors, the modification of the pictures should be taken into account. Therefore, results can be useful for the book illustrators of the children literature books.