Food Metaphors

A Contrastive Approach

Résumé

This paper demonstrates the pervasiveness of the food metaphor in Moroccan Arabic (MA) mundane interactions and deals with its rather limited exploitation in Classical Arabic (CA) Qur’anic discourse. The MA and CA data analysis provides further evidence that metaphor is a mode of thought, not a mere stylistic variation of what can be otherwise stated literally. The paper also predicts the mappings of food with ideas and temperament in many unrelated cultures, owing to the experiential basis of food, its vital importance for the survival and well-being of human beings, yet it argues that many of this conceptual metaphor linguistic manifestations remain culture specific, resist translation, and are not necessarily automatically processed.