The Translation of Orientational Metaphors in Qur’an: A Cognitive-Based Study

Abstract

This paper aims to identify, compare and analyse conceptual orientational metaphors in the Quran and their translations. It attempts to find out the similarities and differences in the metaphorical conceptualization of space between English and Arabic. The paper discusses upward movement versus downward movement within the context of religion. The paper asserts the pervasiveness of metaphors in religious discourse. The verses of the research sample and their translations support the claim that orientational metaphors are generally regarded as universal due to the common cognitive basis shared between Arabic and English. The conceptual metaphor can generate a wide range of meanings, primarily in terms of binary opposites. The researcher adopts the corpus-based approach suggested by Deignan (1999) and collected a number of metaphorical verses to construct the linguistic corpus for the study. The findings of the study reveal that Arabic and English share many conceptual metaphors and their surface linguistic realizations.