The ideological function of directional metaphor in Ghazi al-Gosaibi’s anthology

Metaphor, as a challenging topic in ancient rhetoric, has become an important issue in the field of modern linguistics with a change in its form and meaning. In the contemporary era, metaphor has change from the word level to the concept level, and linguists have considered it a tool of unconscious manifestation and the inner and hidden thoughts of the writer. The theorem that has made metaphor more associated with meaning and thought, in contrast to ancient rhetoric, is closely related to form. Basically in cognitive linguistics, language is considered as a system of categories, and the formal structure of language is not viewed as an independent phenomenon. However, it is thought to be a manifestation of the general conceptual system, principles of categorization, and processing mechanism. Its experimental and environmental effects have already been studied. For instance, the military language is intertwined with social institutions. In this regard, meaning is the principle and basis in metaphor, especially "conceptual metaphor" one type of which is "directional metaphor". Its sub-form is considered as a bridge to enter the concept. According to Lakoff, every "conceptual metaphor" has a source domain, a destination domain, and a source-destination mapping. The main feature of the theory of conceptual metaphors with conventional metaphors is proposed by Lakoff and Johnson. As they state, in these metaphors, the properties of words are not considered in detail, but the properties of conceptual domains are. The position of the word in the structure of the word is also taken into consideration. In this type of metaphor, the concepts of origin and destination are considered as the two main components. In fact, any concept of the origin domain can be used to explain another concept of the destination domain. In general, Lakoff and Johnson use conceptual metaphors according to the characteristics of the origin domain in the three categories of structural, directional and ontological metaphors. As mentioned, one of the most important and obvious types of conceptual metaphors is directional or spatial metaphor that is accompanied by directions and location (such as up, down, inside, outside, front, back, depth, depth, surface, center and margin). The importance of this metaphor lies in the fact that most of our basic concepts are organized on the basis of one or more spatial metaphors, which are rooted in human physical and cultural experience and are not accidental or fragmented, but they have internal and external systems. They are opposed to each other in pairs, and the connection of different metaphors shows that they have a kind of external coherence and system.

The main objectives of the present study are to analyze one of the poetic works of Ghazi al-Gosaibi in the emerging poetry of Saudi Arabia, to extract and examine the metaphors of direction that have modern meanings, and to introduce this poet and his works in Iran.

This research has used an analytical method to collect and analyze the data until the desired result is reached. Based on this method, directional metaphors are examined in the anthology "Controversial Battle" by Ghazi al-Gosaibi, a contemporary Saudi Arabian writer. Therefore, first we try to provide a brief definition of directional metaphor, and then we extract and analyze a sample of his poems in accordance with directional metaphors.

Through examining the various maps of directional metaphors in the anthology "Controversial Battle” by Ghazi al-Gosaibi, the research findings were obtained as follow. Internal metaphorical mapping with 126 occurrences has the highest frequency and external metaphors with 54 occurrences are in the second place. Also, left-handed mapping with a frequency of one has the lowest degree. Given the connection between the poem and the inner functions, and especially the hobby, the composition of the poem by Al-Gosaibi has caused a high frequency of dealing with inner issues. The current political issues of the Arab world have influenced the poet. By using this metaphor in various positions, he has considered his political ideology to better depict the situation of nations. The expression of his pride and the concept of resistance in the poems have a high frequency. Failure to address disputes and different political positions has led to a low frequency in the left and right mapping. Before and after metaphorical mapping, we did not follow the main norm and the central function of metaphors, which is leadership; it had no new function and de-familiarization but had other common functions to deal with. Tradition does not reach its main function, but it is out of the norms. In general, directional metaphorical writings by the poet, although not beyond their usual forms, are usually used to express poetic feelings. At times, however, they are taken advantage of to induce political ideas and social conditions.