Open AccessAT THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN LITERATURE, CULTURE, LINGUISTICS, AND COGNITION: PUNISHMENT AND MORAL METAPHORS IN FAIRY TALES
Author(s) -
Javier Herrero Ruiz
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
odisea
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2174-1611
pISSN - 1578-3820
DOI - 10.25115/odisea.v0i9.151
Subject(s) - morality , philosophy , conceptual metaphor , humanities , interpretation (philosophy) , didacticism , metaphor , literature , art , epistemology , linguistics
This paper studies how several conceptual metaphors (e.g. MORALITY IS LIGHT, MORALITY IS CLEANLINESS, MORAL FREEDOM IS PHYSICAL FREEDOM, DOING IMMORAL DEEDS IS ACCUMULATING DEBT) are able to account for the basic meaning and interpretation of punishments and moral issues in more than twenty popular tales, thus allowing us to explain some of the uncanny elements of tales. The stories, representative of various cultures, have been extracted from the Project Gutenberg online library and belong to the British compiler Andrew Lang (1844-1912). We also suggest that these metaphors, because of their strong experiential grounding, may have contributed to an easier transmission of many fairy tales, and also to make tales alike in different socio-cultural settings.Keywords: Conceptual metaphor, moral and punishment, experiential, uncanny, culture, fairy tales.Resumen:En este artículo tratamos de estudiar cómo varias metáforas conceptuales (p.ej. MORALITY IS LIGHT, MORALITY IS CLEANLINESS, MORAL FREEDOM IS PHYSICAL FREEDOM, DOING IMMORAL DEEDS IS ACCUMULATING DEBT) pueden explicar el significado básico y la interpretación de los castigos y la moralidad en más de veinte cuentos populares, lo que nos permite explicar parte de “lo maravilloso” de los cuentos. Los cuentos, representativos de varias culturas, han sido extraídos de la biblioteca electrónica Project Gutenberg y pertenecen al compilador británico Andrew Lang (1844-1912). También sugerimos que estas metáforas, dado su marcado carácter experiencial, pueden haber contribuido a una transmisión más fácil de muchos cuentos de hadas y a que los cuentos sean similares en diferentes contextos socioculturales.Palabras clave: Metáfora conceptual, moralidad y castigo, experiencial, “lo maravilloso”, cultura, cuentos de hadas.