Metaphor is a type of figurative language which is part of one’s culture and speech. It is mainly used to describe something new by referring to something familiar. Therefore, a metaphor is related to cognition and it is not a merely linguistic expression. It was assumed that metaphors are linguistic entities rather than being part of thought and cognition, however, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) proposed that metaphors are part of the human cognition and action. Moreover, they added that the human conceptual system is metaphorical in its structure in the sense that human actions and perceptions are metaphorical in nature. In addition, the systematicity of metaphors in a language reflects the underlying conceptual structure of how something is stored and understood (ibid). Animals are one type of reference that can be used in metaphors since animals have different connotations in a community. Moreover, animal connotations in metaphors may vary from one language and culture to another and, therefore, different ways of treating animals in the language reflects different ways of conceptions about them. Therefore, the present study tries to examine the conceptions of cats in Jordanian community through analyzing twenty proverbs about cats based on the conceptual metaphor theory.

proverbs, conceptual metaphor, cat metaphors, Jordanian Spoken Arabic

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