Representations of Riyadh in Conceptual Metaphor Maps: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach

This study examines representations of the city of Riyadh in poetry through the lens of Conceptual Metaphor Theory as an analytical framework within cognitive linguistics, with the aim of revealing how the city’s spatial and environmental features are reconfigured into conceptual structures that contribute to the construction of meanings of identity and belonging. The study draws on a selected corpus of poetic texts and applies metaphor identification procedures inspired by the Metaphor Identification Procedure of the Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU), enabling the coding of source and target domains and the construction of mapping networks between lexical fields such as love / journey / water and conceptual categories such as identity / belonging / memory. The findings reveal the recurrence of higher‑level metaphorical patterns across different poetic generations—most notably LOVE IS A JOURNEY, THE CITY IS A BELOVED, and WATER IS LIFE / CONTINUITY. They further indicate that experiential correlations, rather than formal resemblance, constitute the decisive factor in transforming concrete spatial experience into a collective value. The study concludes that metaphorical mappings function as a cognitive mechanism that organizes the relationship between place, memory, and the national self, while also opening applied perspectives in education, urban policy, and place‑based communication.