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https://doi.org/10.31820/f.38.1.9
Conceptual Metaphors in Contemporary Dance Discourse: Dancing Body as the Target Domain
Nataša Kustura
; Sveučilište u Zadru
Sanja Škifić
; Sveučilište u Zadru
Sažetak
Since contemporary dance discourse is based on various conceptual structures and metaphorical linguistic expressions related to embodiment, research on conceptual metaphors has proven to be an adequate basis for examining how the body is conceptualized in dance discourse (Goschler 2005; Brandt 2015; Katan-Schmid 2017). This study is grounded in the theoretical framework of conceptual metaphor theory and the idea that the cognitive processes shaping perception, thought, and language emerge from bodily experience (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Kövecses 2005). The aim of this research is to identify conceptual metaphors with the dancing body as the target domain in a corpus of texts on contemporary dance. The research is guided by two hypotheses. The first is that the identified metaphorical expressions will only partially overlap with conventional metaphors and will exhibit features of aesthetic metaphors, and second, that some examples will demonstrate a reversed mapping direction, where the source domain is abstract and the target domain concrete. In order to achieve the research aim, a corpus was compiled using the Sketch Engine platform. Metaphorical patterns were examined in linguistic structures containing the target lemma tijelo (‘body’), while Hrvatski jezični portal was consulted in order to verify meanings and confirm the metaphorical dimension of analysed expressions. The collected data were grouped into three categories representing three superordinate source domains. The first category includes conceptual metaphors in which the dancing body is conceptualised as a material object, drawing on the following source domains: celestial body, container, sculpture, map, landscape, relief, and building. In the second category the dancing body is conceptualised as a means and subject of expression, with source domains including language, communicator, and cognitive-emotional subject. The third includes metaphors in which the dancing body is conceptualised as a dynamic physical phenomenon, with source domains being: energy/force, water, light, and sound. The findings indicate that the identified metaphors are largely aesthetically oriented and, as hypothesized, shaped by the specific context of contemporary dance discourse, thereby providing insight into the figurative dimensions of the conceptual frameworks through which the dancing body is represented.
Ključne riječi
cognitive semantics; conceptual metaphor; dancing body; contemporary dance discourse
Hrčak ID:
349913
URI
Datum izdavanja:
28.7.2026.
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