Happiness and metaphors: a perspective from Hindi phraseology

Abstract Following the tradition of embodiment hypothesis suggested by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the current research article aims to explore metaphorical concepts of happiness in Hindi phraseological expressions. The embodiment hypothesis postulates that phraseological expressions, especially idioms, are not the frozen building blocks of a language, but motivated linguistic bundles, which encode and reflect the physical and socio-cultural experience of a given linguistic community (see Gibbs 1993). In this regard, this article not only proposes the metaphorical instances of motivated Hindi phraseological expressions but also highlights the underlying socio-cultural particularities. This article is expected to contribute to international phraseological research given that Hindi language, particularly Hindi phraseology, has hardly been taken into consideration to validate or refute the postulates of embodiment hypothesis in connection with the conceptualization of emotional concepts.