Analysis of Common Metaphors Surrounding Linguistic Diversity in the Minds of Social Actors

Document Type : Original Article

Author

PhD in Linguistics, Researcher at the National Language Institute, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The present study, based on Batistella’s metaphorical approach and Ruiz’s three-layer framework, examines the representation of common metaphors related to linguistic diversity in the minds of social actors, aiming to identify the dominant and more prominent metaphors held by these actors. The research data were selectively collected from Iranian press texts published from the Pahlavi II era to the present day, concerning the issue of language diversity and monolingualism. This study is descriptive-analytical, and data collection was conducted through library research. Qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed that the metaphor “language as a nation” holds the highest frequency. This high frequency indicates that social actors, without considering linguistic diversity and multilingual societies worldwide, assume a reciprocal relationship between “language and nation.” Based on the reasoning derived from the metaphor “language as a nation,” they believe that monolingualism leads to cohesion and unity among speakers of a nation, while linguistic diversity results in fragmentation and disintegration of the nation.

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Literary Discourse Analysis
Volume 2, Issue 3 - Serial Number 6
December 2024
Pages 101-123

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