The metaphoric mappings of animal in proverbs extracted from Persian texts

The use of different metaphors in text by language speakers reflects their attitude and perception. Ideologies create metaphors to realize their beliefs and teachings. In this way, the role of metaphor in society and in life is undeniable. As a reflection of the thoughts of the speakers of a language, the proverb is part of the local and popular literature that can be considered as one of the best ways to express the common thoughts among them. The name of the animals is one of the widely used words in Persian proverbs and in the poetry of the past and in contemporary poets to represent the material and spiritual instances. By adopting a descriptive –analytical research methodology, this research aims at investigating conceptual metaphors of animals in literary texts based on cognitive linguistics theoretical framework. The data gathered is based on “the great dictionary of Persian proverbs “by Hassan Zolfaghari. The results of the total proverbial corpus of this dictionary concerning the use of animals showed that 184 mappings were observed, among which the conceptual metaphor of "weakness” with 26 proverbs and 15 mappings was the most frequent, followed by the conceptual metaphor, respectively. "Hostility” with 21 proverbs and 8 mappings, "strenghtness" metaphor with 15 proverbs and 6 mappings and finally the metaphor of "ignorance and disbelief" with 12 proverbs and 5 mappings have been frequently used.