The Inner Self Desires a Friendly Chat: Chat Metaphors in Turkish and English

Abstract

This study presents a cross-cultural contrastive analysis of chat and its dictionary translation sohbet in Turkish. It aims to find out the source domains in the metaphorical expressions of chat in Turkish and English and what these source domains reflect regarding the two cultures because it is believed that metaphor is not just “in the heads” as a figure of speech but is embodied in cultural situations, and thus, is inseparable from the cultural context with which it interacts. In doing this, the method of conceptual metaphor theory is used and the data are collected from various corpora. The study has shown that although some conceptual metaphors are shared by both sohbet and chat expressions, some of these are more dominating in sohbet than in chat or vice versa. There are also conceptual metaphors unique to sohbet. The data analysis illustrates that sohbet is more structured and conventional, requiring certain conditions, whereas chat seems to be similar to everyday conversation. Motivation for the findings is discussed with reference to cultural background and Hofstede's and Varis's culture studies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Şükriye Ruhi from the heart for giving us insights into metaphor studies and for her valuable suggestions and guidance in writing this paper.