International Journal of Language & Linguistics

An Analysis of the Figures of Speech in Mental Spaces: A Cognitive Semantic Study
Nabaz Ismael Hamad, Prof. Dr. Suhayla Hameed Majeed, Asst Prof. Dr. Wirya Ezzaddin Ali

Abstract
This study is an attempt to investigate a range of the figures of speech within Mental Spaces Theory to provide a counter argument that dramatic language can equally be examined with reference to linguistic structures just like everyday language. The study also makes the counter claim that the figures of speech should have value outside literature, as they are not only literary tools in literature. The study is conducted in a qualitative method by taking a series of examples of from Shaw’s ‘Man and Superman’ to be analysed under cognitive semantic theory of Mental Spaces. The study has concluded that the figures of speech are primarily linguistic tools for meaning construction, and from there these devices are expanded from their linguistic function to also fulfill the literary ones. From a cognitive perspective, it has been realised that these literary devices enable the language users to firstly conceptually construct meaning in mind via spaces creation and connection that comprise information as their elements, and then these information are verbally realised in communication.

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