The Status of Research on Conceptual Metaphors in Thai

Abstract

This research aims to synthesize previous research studies on conceptual metaphors in the Thai language. 80 research projects constituting data for this investigation were collected from universities libraries in Thailand and e-databases, namely, ThaiLis, Thai National Research Databases, and electronic journals The findings reveal that research on conceptual metaphors in Thai language has been conducted since 1996, most of which used the conceptual metaphor frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson, and Kövecses. These research studies can be classified into 12 groups based on their focus : 1) human beings and their body parts; 2) sexual copulation; 3) life, death, and religion; 4X emotions and feelings; 5) wars and fighting; 6) food, health, and illness; 7) politics; 8) time; 9) performing arts; 10) natural resources and disasters; 11) color; and 12) unspecified conceptual metaphors. This article shows that conceptual metaphors studies in the Thai language have been extended to included not only conceptual metaphors in daily spoken language but also written language used in various genres.