Comparing the Meaning Representations and Conceptualizations of pooshidan /wear in Persian and English

.The present multidisciplinary and descriptive-analytical study compares meaning representations (mental models) and conceptualizations of the Persian verb pooshidan and its English equivalent wear, in respect of covering the human body, in the general framework of psycholinguistics, cognitive semantics, and cultural linguistics. The aim of the study was to investigate the mental models and conceptualizations of Persian speakers and English speakers regarding the prototypical concepts of ‘pooshidan’ and ‘wear’. To do this, the authors availed of mental tableaus suggested by Johnson-Laird (1983). All Persian and English key words and phrases carrying the concept of ‘wear/cover’ existing in six monolingual and bilingual dictionaries made the statistical population and the sample included words and phrases containing the above-mentioned concepts. The results indicated that the mental models of Persian speakers and English speakers and also their conceptualizations have significant differences  with little similarities in this domain. In addition, Persian speakers’ conceptualizations and meaning representations are wider and more complex. This results from their different cultural knowledge in the domain. Besides, Persian speakers, unlike the English speakers, avail of a number of light and compound verbs collocating with various covering objects to express the concept of ‘wear/cover’ which results in a wider polysemy for pooshidan than wear.
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