A comparative analysis of conceptual metaphors in English and Iraqi Arabic

الملخص EN

This study is an attempt to compare some English and Iraqi Arabic conceptual metaphors in the hope to find out the extent to which they are similar or different.

This study is carried out in the light of the embodiment hypothesis which contends that human beings experience and consequently comprehend the realities of the world in terms of their bodies.

"The 'embodiment' of meaning is perhaps the central idea of the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor and indeed of the cognitive linguistic view of meaning" (Kovecses,2002:16).Lakoff and Johnson(1999:59) explain that just by functioning normally in the world, we automatically and unconsciously acquire and use a lot of conceptual metaphors.

Conceptual metaphors are realized in our brains physically and are mostly not under our control