Lakoff and Johnson (1980) claim that conceptual metaphors are largely universal. Several conceptual metaphors, one of which revolves around the concept of ‘happiness’, are shared by many languages. There is a considerable number of conceptual metaphors for happiness in English (Zoltan Kövecses 1991). Important examples are HAPPINESS IS UP (e.g., ‘I was on cloud nine’), HAPPINESS IS LIGHT (e.g., ‘She had stars in her eyes’), and HAPPINESS IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER (e.g., ‘He’s bursting with joy’). Take ‘HAPPINESS IS UP’ as an example in English and Persian.
English sentence: He is very high spirited.
The equivalent Persian sentence: دراد ییلااب هیحور وا
Transcription of the Persian sentence: /?u ruhiyeye bālāyi dārad/ Back translation of the Persian sentence: He has a high spirit.
English sentence: His spirit is on the rise.
The equivalent Persian sentence: تسا شیازفا هب ور وا هیحور
68 Back translation of the Persian sentence: His spirit is on the rise.
‘His spirit is on the rise’ is a metaphorical expression which exists in both English and Persian as two distinct languages and cultures. A key question here is how these two different cultures and languages conceptualize a concept such as ‘Happiness’ in a similar metaphoric way. Then, three answers may be suggested: 1) this is merely a coincidence 2) one of the languages has borrowed the metaphor from another, and 3) some universal motivation has resulted in creating the very same metaphor in these cultures.
Some cognitive linguists such as Joseph Grady (1997) and Kövecses (2002) have claimed that universal correlations in bodily experiences underlie simple or primary metaphors. Therefore, the third answer seems to be more likely than others.
It appears that universal experiences are related to happiness in nearly all cultures. So, for instance, when somebody is happy or joyful he may be up, more active, full of energy, jump up and down and the like. People all around the world have the same experiences associated with happiness, regardless of their nationality, culture or language. Thus they may tend to create universal or as Kövecses (2006. P. 56) suggests near-universal simple or primary metaphors. Accordingly, ‘HAPPY IS UP’ is a generic-level metaphor that is likely to be universal or near-universal. In contrast specific-level metaphors vary across cultures and languages. Kövecses (2006, p.55) takes ‘HAPPINESS IS BEING OFF THE GROUND’ as an example and a specific-level version of the generic-level metaphor ‘HAPPY IS UP’, stating that this specific-level version does not exist in many languages (such as Persian).
69 2.5.1 Dimensions of Metaphor Variation
Kövecses (2005, p. 55) identifies two types of dimensions along which metaphors vary: the cross-cultural and the within-culture dimension.
2.5.1.1 Cross-cultural Variation
Despite their similarities, metaphors may vary cross-culturally. Kövecses (2002) believes that cross-cultural variation in metaphors occurs mainly due to the broader cultural context, which refers to “the governing principles and the key concepts in a given culture” (ibid, p. 186), and the natural and physical context in which a culture is located. Variation in this dimension may be revealed in a number of different forms one of which is congruence (Kövecses, 2006, p. 157) which has to do with the relationship between the generic-level metaphor and its variations across cultures at the specific level. In another form, a group of various source domains are used for a specific target domain or on the contrary, a particular source domain is mapped onto a set of different target domains. Yet in another case a set of conceptual metaphors for a specific target domain is approximately the same between two cultures or languages, while one culture prefers certain metaphors among others. Finally, there are some conceptual metaphors which are specific to a particular culture.
2.5.1.2 Within-culture Variation
Metaphors vary not only across different cultures but also within cultures. According to Kövecses (2006, p. 58), several dimensions including social, regional, ethnic, stylistic, sub-cultural, diachronic, developmental and individual dimensions cause the variation
70 within cultures. Let’s have a look at how metaphors vary along some of these dimensions.
2.5.1.2.1 The Social Dimension
The social dimension includes the classification of society into upper-class and middle- class, children and adolescents, young and old, men and women, etc. At this dimension, questions like ‘Do men use different metaphors than women?’, ‘Do middle-class people use more metaphors than upper-class people?’ or ‘Do the young use different metaphors than the old?’ are posed. Some studies show that these social factors sometimes lead to different patterns of use among the members of these different classifications. For example , Kövecses (2006, p. 59) offers gender as a potential social factor which may affect the use of metaphors and states that in English-speaking countries men usually use expressions like dish, chick , bunny, kitten, bird, , cookie, sweetie pie, canary, cheesecake, crumpet and the like for women. These expressions are based on some conceptual metaphors such as WOMEN ARE SMALL ANIMALS (chick, bird, kitty, bunny, canary) or WOMEN ARE DESSERTS (cookie, pie, cheesecake, crumpet).
2.5.1.2.2 The Regional Dimension
It appears that regional varieties of the same language can also cause metaphor variation. Regional varieties can include national or local dialects. Kövecses (2000b) also points out that languages often develop new metaphors when the language is moved by some of its speakers to a part of the world different from where it was originally spoken. For example, there are a lot of metaphorical expressions used in British English that come
71 from American English. In the meantime, the English spoken in Britain was taken to North America by the British people who went to settle there.
2.5.1.2.3 The Style Dimension
Linguistic variation may occur due to factors such as the communicative setting, subject matter, medium, audience, etc. Metaphors may be used differentially along these dimensions or factors. For example, slang is usually full of metaphors that may not be found in other varieties of language (Kövecses, 2006, p. 58).
2.5.1.2.4 The Sub-cultural Dimension
Each mainstream culture includes several subcultures which can partly be defined by the metaphors they use. Of course, no individual subculture possesses a completely new set of metaphors rather just some of them may be new relatives to the mainstream. For example, emotionally-mentally ill people can be taken as one such group. Although depressed people share many of the metaphors for the concept of depression-sadness that ‘non-depressed’ people have, like DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS, DEPRESSION IS HEAVY, DEPRESSION IS DESCENT/DOWN, they also have metaphors that are unique to the group. One such metaphor is DEPRESSION IS A CAPTOR (Linda McMullen and John Conway, 2002).
2.5.1.2.5 The Individual Dimension
Some metaphors are almost unique to a person’s individual style. However, some of the other expressions that s/he may use are commonly used and understood by other native
72 speakers of a given language. For example, the metaphors used by individuals such as writers and poets can differ significantly from one person to another (Kövecses, 2006, p. 60).