Conceptual Metaphors and Visual Schemas in Elucidating the Human Concept in the Works of Dr. Shariati and Motahhari (based on the Cognitive Linguistics Theory of Lakoff and Johnson)

Metaphors are the linguistic manifestation of conceptual metaphors that in cognitive linguistics refer to understanding an idea or a conceptual field based on another idea or conceptual field. A conceptual domain can consist of any systematic organization of human experience. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), metaphors can not only be used to talk about phenomena, but also to think about them with their help. The current research has examined the conceptual metaphor and the visual schema of the human concept in the works of Dr. Shariati and Professor Motahari based on cognitive linguistics, and the researcher has analyzed the schema and metaphors using the theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1980). This research is of content analysis-description type and used quantitative-qualitative method. The corpus of current research data are composed of four works by Motahari and Shariati, two of each of which were selected. After extracting the data, the researcher analyzed the data using SPSS software and the log-Liner test. The results of the research show that both authors have used conceptual metaphors and visual schemas in explaining the concept of human in their works, and their frequency is higher in Shariati's works. Another result obtained from this research shows that there is a significant difference in the representation, variety and frequency of conceptual metaphors and visual schemas in the works of Dr. Shariati and Professor Motahari.