Conceptual Metonymies in English and Kurdish News Reports
A Comparative Cognitive Linguistic Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21928/juhd.v12n4y2026.pp14-25Keywords:
cognitive linguistics, conceptual metonymies, English language, Kurdish language, News reportsAbstract
The present study explores conceptual metonymies in English and Kurdish language through analyzing 18 texts from online political, health, and cultural news reports. This thesis is grounded in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics, particularly Conceptual Metonymy Theory as developed by scholars such as Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Radden and Kövecses (1998, 2007). Furthermore, another model by Markert and Nissim (2006) is relied on. This thesis attempts to find out the most as well as the least common metonymic patterns across the three written registers of each language. This thesis adopts both qualitative and quantitative approaches for data analysis. After identifying the patterns of conceptual metonyms, the data undergo quantitative analysis. The key findings are that the most frequent pattern of conceptual metonymy in English language is the PART OF THE THING FOR THE WHOLE THING pattern, whereas EMOTION FOR CAUSE OF EMOTION, CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED, and MEMBER OF A CATEGORY FOR THE CATEGORY pattern are the least frequent metonymic patterns. In comparison, the most frequent pattern of conceptual metonymy in Kurdish language is ORGANIZATION FOR MEMBERS. Conversely, the least frequent metonymic patterns are RESULT FOR ACTION, ACTION FOR RESULT, MATERIAL CONSTITUTING AN OBJECT FOR THE OBJECT, CATEGORY FOR A MEMBER OF THE CATEGORY, and CONTROLLED FOR CONTROLLER.
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