A Contrastive Phraseological Analysis: Metaphorical Expressions in Azerbaijani and English

Abstract

This study conducts a rigorous contrastive analysis of metaphorical phraseological units (PUs) in Azerbaijani and English, interrogating the cognitive, ethno-linguistic, and cultural architectures that underpin linguistic imagery in two typologically distinct language systems — one Turkic, one Germanic. Grounded in the dual theoretical framework of Contrastive Linguistics and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as articulated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the investigation explores how each linguistic system encodes human experience, social reality, and cultural memory into stable, figurative expressions. Through a qualitative and quantitative corpus-based methodology, the research identifies and systematizes a tripartite classification of cross-linguistic equivalence: full, partial, and zero equivalence. Central to the analysis is the cognitive “mapping” of concrete source domains — the body, the animal kingdom, and the natural world — onto abstract target domains encompassing emotion, social hierarchy, and intellect. The findings reveal a significant divergence in metaphorical production: while somatic metaphors, anchored in universal human physiology, demonstrate high degrees of cross-linguistic symmetry, zoomorphic and nature-based metaphors prove deeply contingent upon the unique ecological environments, historical trajectories, and folkloric traditions of their respective speech communities. Cases of zero equivalence are examined in particular depth as semiotic markers of irreducible cultural specificity. This study advances the field of intercultural pragmatics by charting the cognitive “traps” and “bridges” encountered in the translation and pedagogical acquisition of these languages, and by foregrounding the role of the translator as a “cognitive architect” navigating the irreversible asymmetry between cultural conceptual systems.