The Role of Monomodal and Multimodal Metaphors of Love in Religious Discourse in Russian and Indian Cultures

Abstract

The authors examine of possible implications of the role of monomodal and multimodal metaphors love in religious discourse in Russian and Indian cultures. We follow Lakoff and Johnson's definition of metaphor: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Indian religious discourse is different from language of Orthodox cultural community. We want to study this issue from different theoretical perspectives. A comparative study of the structuring of underlying love metaphorical mappings in the context of photographs of Russian and Indian temples published in the press may permit us to identify the similarities and differences between the strategies used by the addressers in the Russian and Indian civilizations and of these cultures. The role of metaphors and metonymies in invocation of religious feelings. Although some research has been done in this field there is still much to be done particularly with regard to the linguistic and pictorial love's metaphors. An analysis of love's metaphor in religious texts and discourse, more particularly, a study of love's metaphor as a discourse phenomenon in Orthodox and Hindu religious cultures, with a focus on the cross-cultural variations.