The conceptual images of erotic relations in Spanish. Analysis of some linguistic aspects of The Turkish passion by Antonio Gala

The conceptual images of erotic relations in Spanish. Analysis of some linguistic aspects of The Turkish passion by Antonio GalaIn this paper we try to systematize the contemporary Spanish expressions related to the erotic relations. The corpus is based on the novel by Antonio Gala The Turkish Passion (orig. La pasión turca) which, thanks to its plot with higly erotic content, constitutes an important source of linguistic material for our investigation. The analysis we propose reflects the methodology developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their studies concerning the cognitive theory of metaphor. According to them, every concept consists of a source and a target domain and while expressing one idea we refer to another. Our analysis focuses on the reconstruction of the conceptual domains by means of which the Spanish writer describes the erotic relations. Although the book does not include all the erotic vocabulary and expressions which exist in contemporary Spanish, it enables us to observe some regularities in the use of metaphors in Spanish and reveal some sociocultural phenomena encoded in the linguistic material.