KEEP A COOL HEAD ABOUT THIS HOT ISSUE – THE ANALYSIS OF METAPHORICAL SENSES IN THE SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF ADJECTIVES FROM THE DOMAIN OF TEMPERATURE IN ENGLISH AND SERBIAN

Abstract

This paper analyses the derivation of metaphoric senses of English and Serbian adjectives primarily denoting a certain degree of temperature as a physical property of objects. The aim of the analysis is to identify conceptual metaphors that have driven the derivation of these senses and compare English and Serbian in terms of conceptualisations of abstract notions using temperature as the source domain. Furthermore, the analysis aims at revealing whether the conceptualisation of an abstract notion using a certain degree of warmth as the source domain activates the conceptualisation of the opposite abstract notion starting from a degree of coldness and vice versa, i.e. to investigate whether there are pairs of opposite metaphors activated in semantic dispersion of the given adjectives. The analysis has shown that there is a significant similarity between English and Serbian regarding the conceptualisation of abstract notions using temperature as the source domain. Still, English displays a greater variety of abstract notions conceptualised in the given way. There are rare cases in which derivations of metaphoric senses of adjectives belonging to the opposite sections of the temperature scale are mutually related in the sense that they are driven by opposite metaphoric patterns.