Metaphors of body parts in the holy Qur'an

Abstract EN

The use of human body parts in metaphor has recently been an interesting field in rhetoric.

Even though George Lakoff and Mark Johnson imply it in their book Metaphors We Live By in 1980, it has not been a complete, independent genre until the beginnings of this millennium especially in 2004 by Danica Skara who introduces them as a new rhetoric genre in her study Body Metaphors where she categorizes human body parts according to the body side they belong to.

The study questions are whether the Holy Qur‟an employs human body parts metaphorically to convey messages and what main functions these metaphorical uses perform.

This study aims at investigating metaphorical uses of human body parts in the Quran, and it examines their functions in light of politeness and cognitive functions.

Therefore, it makes a valuable contribution to rhetoric by applying that new approach to the rhetorical style of the Holy Qur‟an.

Main findings of the study are that metaphors of human body parts are commonly used in the Holy Qur‟an and connecting each part to its task in human anatomy when dealing with metaphorical uses gives us better understanding.