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Argument is War Metaphor in the Qur’ān

Abstract

This paper investigates the experiential basis of the concept of ‘argument’ in the language of the Holy Qur’ān in order to explore the cross-era dimensions of war as the source domain for argument. Conceptual metaphor approach has been applied to the data collected from the Holy Qur’ān through the technique of topical words to find out metaphor themes of argument. The findings reveal that ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor is missing in classical Arabic of the Holy Qur’ān. However, the concept of argument is framed by other metaphors such as container schema, objects, and personification. It also serves as source domain for the invocation to Allah SWT. The findings also show that language has an intrinsic function in metaphor comprehension. The paper suggests further research of classical Arabic literature to make some definite theoretical conclusions on ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor, and to explore more basic conceptual schemas in cross-era languages.

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