The Polysemy of “Head” in English and Kurdish

Abstract

Polysemy is the phenomenon where a linguistic unit denotes multiple yet related meanings. These semantic extensions have a clear motivation through either metaphor or metonymy which are central to cognitive linguistic. This paper examines the polysemous meanings of body part term “head” in both the English and the Kurdish languages and reveals certain similarities and differences in terms of metaphor and metonymy. The data of this paper are dictionaries of the English Language. As far as the Kurdish language is concerned, the researchers depend on their experiences, because they are native speakers of the Kurdish language besides some bilingual and explanatory the Kurdish dictionaries. The results show that there is more convergence in meaning than divergence between the two languages when it comes to the lexeme. One of the reasons is that “head” is used in the English and the Kurdish to express more similar metaphorical purposes other than metonymical purposes.