a corpus analysis of mouse-cat conceptual metaphors in the persian books of “mouse and cat

metaphorical language has been a significant component of human language, including language, idea, and performance (lakoff & johnson, 1980; lakoff, 1998). this study looks for responses related to the diffusion of mouse-cat terms in persian books of “mouse and cat” by obaid zakani and sheikh bahai and their metaphoric reaction in peoples’ opinions, thoughts, or values. by investigating the pertinent books, a corpus of 239 mouse-cat terms in content were considered for the analysis. five assessors who studied literature of persian analyzed carefully the books for the assessment of the mouse-cat metaphoric conceptualizations. to validate the raters’ propositions, a focus group of twenty interpreted the counselled connotations. findings showed that mouse and cat are not analogously distributed in the aforementioned persian books, are used with diverse conceptions and stood for both positive and negative connotations. since conceptual metaphors are essential feature of the authors' and speakers' ordinary lives to represent information, language users are proposed to obtain needed awareness of these expressions in diverse spheres.