GHEIRAT seems to be a complex emotion in Iranian men and women with a variety of contextual meanings including, jealousy, chivalry, courage, and protecting one’snâmus‘female family members’. GHEIRAT may be defined as a monitoring device or alarm system in the mind of Iranians. The cognitive linguistic analysis of the conceptual domains interacting with GHEIRAT indicates that the GHEIRAT concept operates to protect one’s values against threat, insult, and injury, provide assistance to the Other, and aid the Self in accomplishing goals as a supplementary force. Moreover, the paper comes to the conclusion that in Iranian culture, the cultural model of GHEIRAT is largely constituted by conceptual metaphors (THE OTHER IS A POTENTIAL OPPONENT, GHEIRAT IS A PHYSICAL SUPPLEMENTARY FORCE), conceptual metonymy (CAUSE FOR EFFECT) and related key concepts (ÂBERU ‘face’, NÂMUS ‘one’s female family members and the sanctity associated with them’, MAHRAMIAT ‘the legitimate physical and emotional intimacy between men and women’). Furthermore, based on Kövecses’s (2000) account of emotion concepts, it is revealed that GHEIRAT fulfills its functions indirectly through acting as a cause for other emotions and feelings such as ANGER, HATRED, JEALOUSY, and SELFLESSNESS.

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Proper hejab observance has long been an important issue to political-religious conservatives in Iran who, in recent years, have relied on metaphorical language to persuade Iranian women to dress modestly in public. The present paper, based on Kövecses’s (2015) account of metaphor in context, explores the role of contextual factors involved in the formation of hejab linguistic metaphors used in 56 pro-hejab billboards and posters. Data analysis indicates that the moral and social status of women are depicted as being determined by, or correlated with, their degree of veiling. On that basis, properly covered up women are shown to be the recipients of very positive metaphorical conceptualizations (aspearls,flowers, andangels), whereas immodestly dressed women are negatively pictured as being subject to sexual objectification (asunwrapped edibles). Moreover, thehejab is a protective coveris shown to be the metaphor instantiated in many of the billboards and posters. The protective function of hejab is highlighted by conceptualizing corrupt men asfliesanddevils.Finally, the metaphorical patterns represent the contextual role of political and religious ideology, key cultural concepts, and show entrenched conventional conceptual metaphors and metonymies in the production of novel metaphors.

While dysphemism has been extensively studied as a general phenomenon, there are not too many studies on how it is used in political discourse by top officials. This paper aims to examine the ways in which a sample of two high-level Iranian politicians offensively conceptualize their alleged enemies, namely the U.S., Israel, and the West, through conceptual metaphors and metonymies. A cognitive linguistic analysis of the speeches of Iran's supreme leader and ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicate that the selection of the metaphorical dysphemistic source domain is primarily determined by religion, previous discourse (pre-existing conventional dysphemistic metaphors), aspects of the target domain, and anger or hatred toward the enemies. The analysis indicates that most of the pejorative connotations are attributed to Israel as the alleged number one enemy of Iran via Israel is an animal, Israel is a tumor, and Israel is a bastard. The other presumed enemies, that is, the U.S. and the West are characterized via the u.s. is a devil, and the u.s. and the west are criminals. Moreover, the two politicians, while resorting to taboo concepts, remain loyal to the established discursive norms of delegitimizing the actions and thoughts of the enemies of the Islamic Republic.