Metaphors in lexicon: Animal attributes as idioms in Japanese

This study explores the types of animal lexicon used as idioms to express the metaphorical meanings. The Japanese language contains a rich array of metaphors that reflect the speaker’s cultural perspectives and values. The data were collected from Japanese news articles from asahi.com and analyzed using the conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson, with the addition of Knowles and Moon. Based on the results, there are 9 types of animals: neko ‘cat’, inu ‘dog’, mushi ‘insect’, uma ‘horse’, zako ‘small fish’, suzume ‘sparrow’, ushi ‘cow’, sakana ‘fish’, and tori ‘bird’. These types of idioms are commonly used to convey characteristics, states, or situations. The usage of animal lexicon to convey metaphorical meanings may appear as compounds or phrases. The metaphorical meanings are ontological, structural, conventional, spatial, and creative.