Metaphoric Conceptualization of Love Pain or Suffering in Turkish Songs through Natural Phenomena and Natural Disasters

ABSTRACT Traditional Turkish love is identified with suffering. This study investigates how suffering in love is metaphorically conceptualized in Turkish via natural phenomena and disasters. Based on figurative expressions in sad love songs of Arabesque and Art music genres, the study reveals that love pain/suffering is expressed through three salient metaphors: 1) love paın/sufferıng ıs natural phenomena, 2) love paın/sufferıng ıs natural dısasters, and 3) the overarching metaphor (the suffering) lover’s body ıs a landscape (affected by weather conditions or natural disasters). It was unearthed from metaphoric expressions in lyrics that as part of a cultural scenario, natural phenomena and disasters are profiled as internalized forces culturally imagined to directly affect vital body parts to express the emotional distress or anguish of the Turkish lover. The overarching metaphor lover’s body ıs a landscape is a manifestation of conceptual integration producing a novel structure in which natural phenomena appear to occur in or to culturally selected body parts or organs. The study makes a distinction between the three metaphors above about body parts and the well-known love ıs a natural force (which affects the WHOLE body as if it were an object being swept away or blown about, etc.)