Ecological And Natural Symbolism In Turkish And Uzbek Proverbs Related To Sleep
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55640/eijps-05-10-16Keywords:
Proverbs, sleep imagery, cognitive semanticsAbstract
This paper examines ecological and natural sign systems within Turkish and Uzbek proverbs dealing with sleep, dream, and consciousness. Folk Proverbs, as brief segments without any intervening context constituting fundamental tidbits of popular wisdom are not only means for transfer of wisdom wealth to future generations but also are succinct mediations between human and nature. Using methods from cognitive semantics and conceptual metaphor theory, the analysis investigates how ecologically-based imagery, specifically animals, astronomical bodies & weather, and plants is used in structuring figurative thought about sleep in these two Turkic traditions. By comparison with one another a corpus-based analysis, it moves on to identify prevailing metaphorical mappings that bring out both their shared cultural background and categorical distinctness. To trace the repetition and emphasis of these ecological motifs, we use quantitative means; i.e., to interpret their symbolic significance in terms of cultural values and social norms, we rely on qualitative resources. The results reveal that, even though universal embodied experiences embody a common cognitive ground, diverse metaphorical extensions are formed as a result of cultural filers and environmental settings in Turkic proverbs of Türkiye and Uzbekistan. This study advances ecolinguistics as it demonstrates the role language plays in interconnecting human cognition, cultural belonging and environmental thinking, and proposes that paremiology is indispensible for exploring cross-cultural metaphors of abstract concepts.
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