The Effect of Gender on Metaphorical Conceptualization in Female and Male Narratives of the Imposed War

The representation of gender in male and female narratives and the use of conceptual metaphors and the schemas used by them in narratives have differences that indicate mental, spiritual, and cognitive differences. The purpose of this study is to examine the narratives of male and female authors to determine the extent of gender influences in the use of conceptual metaphors and schemas based on the theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The research method of the article is qualitative content analysis. Eight war-themed stories, including four female- and four male narratives, were examined, resulting in about 3,021 metaphors. The results obtained from data analyses showed that in the works of female writers, the highest number of metaphors is related to ontological metaphor and the lowest is related to directional metaphor, while in the works of male narrators, the highest number of metaphors were structural and the lowest were directional. This difference in the use of metaphors in women compared to men indicates their attitude and ability or desire to objectify abstract concepts. The results of the research show that the above method can be a suitable method for narrative analyses from the point of view of critical analyses of metaphor in the literature of Holy Defense, because schemas, on the one hand, represent linguistic constructions and, on the other hand, indicate the formation of mental images as a result of conceptualization.