Based on Lakoff and Johnson’s cognitive framework, metaphor is considered is a key way humans perceive concepts in the universe. The aim of the present research was to study the effects of animal names on native Turkish speakers and the implicational meanings of the words. Turkish speakers derive metaphoric meanings by comparing humans and surrounding events to these entities. Based on interviews with 30 native speakers, 93 words were collected, 22 of which were common and reflected Turkish cultural views. First, the implicational meanings of these 22 words were extracted and listed in a table alongside each animal’s name. Then for each word, the explanation was given according to some examples and poems from Turkish reference books. In addition, the study examined the subjects of gender, frequency, and percentage in these metaphors. The results indicated that animal names influence the speech of native Turkish speakers, who use these metaphoric words daily in appropriate contexts.

The study of metaphors through cognitive approach illustrates mental images would lead to abstract concepts. Turkish speakers compare humans and some environmental factors with nature phenomena such as animals, plants, and so on, and present metaphoric uses of those phenomena. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the frequency and percentage of the most significant word structures of nature metaphors in Turkish. Another aim was to evaluate the names of nature in word formation processes and their gender. Research data were collected through field study and interviews with 70 Turkish speakers that 677 words were collected. First, the frequency and percentage of morphological concepts were investigated. Then nature word structures role and share of gender in word formation processes of these words were dealt with. The findings revealed that nature has influence over speaker´s speech and they utilize names of nature in their speech metaphorically. In Turkish metaphoric nature words compounding, derivation, compound and derivation, onomatopoeia, and borrowings have the highest rate of use respectively. Furthermore, the names attributing to animals, birds, and insects have the highest rate of metaphoric use. The results have significant benefits to poets, teachers, authors, and linguists to reach a better understanding of metaphors.

This research is about lexical variation in Khorramabad county of Lorestan province. The data come from the data gathered for Linguistic Atlas of Lorestan. The data are categorized as kinship terms, words related to natural objects, words related to human, animal names, words related to plants, words related to human-made objects, pronouns, demonstrative – place adverbs, question words, and numbers. The language varieties of the villages whose data are analyzed in this research are varieties of Lori and Laki languages for which the coefficient of variation is calculated and analyzed separately. We see not only considerable language variation in Khorramabad, but also many lexical differences in the varieties used in villages of the county. Findings indicate that in both Lori and Laki, the category of number has the least coefficient of variation, and the category of words related to human-made objects has the largest coefficient of variation. The analysis of the data also shows that words for “father”, “language”, “bread”, and “blood” have had the least variation in language varieties whose data have been analyzed in this research, so they can be considered as the most basic words of those language varieties.

The aim of this paper is investigating the process of applying animal common nouns as human proper names from a cognitive perspective. The theoretical framework of the study is adapted from Barcelona's (2003) ideas on constructing the figurative meaning of proper names of paragons, and the class-inclusion model of conceptual metaphor comprehension of Glucksberg and Keysar (1990). In this framework, applying the conceptual metaphor and metonymy tiers results in the emergence of the salient characteristic of the animal, forming a common class including the animal and the persons endowed with the salient characteristic, considering the animal noun as the prototype of the class, and the figurative use of the animal noun instead of proper human name, respectively. Sometimes, issues like the positive connotation of the salient characteristic, the morphological structure of the animal noun and the cultural beliefs about the animal cause the other individulas who are devoid of the salient characteristic to join the class. This results in fading away and erosion of the salient common characteristic. The erosion, finally, results in the properization of animal common noun to be used as an anthroponym. The successive application and interaction of the conceptual metaphor and metonyms indicate the metaphtonymy at work in this process.