The Differences and Similarities of the Conceptualization of Sadness in Poetic and non-Poetic language: A Cognitive and Corpus-based Study

The current study investigates the similarities and differences of conceptualization of SADNESS in representative corpuses of ordinary (non-poetic) and poetic language. Analysing two separate corpuses (Persian Language Data Base and Farsi Language Corpus), the writers managed to identify and extract the relevant conceptual metaphors of SADNESS in both ordinary language and contemporary poetics respectively. Then according to Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1989), the most frequent generic and specific mappings of SADNESS in both ordinary and poetic language were determined. The study showed that almost all the generic metaphors of SADNESS occur in both types discourse, though some of them occur significantly in either the one or the other type. An analysis of the two sets of metaphors revealed several important differences between poetic and non-poetic conceptualization of SADNESS, including the higher degree of agentivity, positive conceptualization of SADNESS and unconventionality in poetic language compared to non-poetic genre. The finding that almost all the identified metaphors are found in poetic and non-poetic language supports Lakoff and Turner’s claim (1989) that there is nothing essentially different about poetic metaphors.