Ontological Metaphors in Stories Written by Children

Metaphor in cognitive semantics is the fundamental mechanism of language and thought. By analyzing the representations of metaphor in language, we would discover the most significant processes of mind. Moreover, since it has been always fruitful for cognitive linguists to study acquisition and development of language, the authors of this paper decided to investigate the frequency and variation of conceptual metaphors that children use in their own stories. The reason behind selecting such data as the research corpus was that investigation on ontological metaphors in children’s literature reveals the manifestation and usage of such mechanisms by children. In order to achieve the above mentioned purpose, 60 pieces of scripts (including story, letter, summery, and poem) written by children were selected from Aroosak-e Sokhangoo3, a monthly published magazine in Iran. Once the scripts were studied, the sentences containing conceptual metaphors were elicited and constituted the research corpus. Then the domains based on which the conceptual metaphors had been formed were determined and accordingly the representations were classified. Eventually, the statistics of the conceptual metaphors employed by children have been presented, showing that whether they have a tendency to cognitively use metaphor in their language or not. The outcome of this study provides information about the knowledge extent, high-frequent domains of conceptualization, and traces of emotional and cultural elements represented in the language of children.