A Cognitive-Critical Discourse Analysis of Death Metaphors in Sinan Antoon’s The Corpse Washer

Abstract

This study aims to examine the metaphorical use of death in Sinan Antoon's The Corpse washer uses the cognitive-critical discourse analysis framework. The study is based on the conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) and critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004) and it investigates the conceptual and linguistic construction of death through mappings in the novel. By using strictly qualitative descriptive-analytical design, the data were prototypical texts that were purposively selected. The analysis of the excerpts follows a three-stage methodological model (identification, interpretation, and explanation) that aims at identifying, interpreting, and explaining the conceptual metaphors, their source domains, and their ideologies. The results indicate that death is mostly conceptualized in a systematic structural and ontological manner, either as an active institutional force or as a procedural operation, both of which have emerged from The traumatic socio-political conditions of post-2003 Iraq. The metaphors carry two kinds of meaning: they are cognitive devices to understand abstract experiences, but They also carry ideological implications that are imbued with trauma, collective suffering and cultural memory. The study calls to the attention of readers the role of metaphor in the way they perceive mortality in works of literature during wartime