Conceptualizations of Sadness in Persian

The purpose of this study was to investigate the social and cultural norms of expressing sadness in Persian by exploring the cultural categories, metaphors, and schemas (or collectively described as cultural conceptualizations) associated with sadness, and reflected in the language. Besides, the act of responding to the expression of sadness (verbal sympathizing) as another norm-based behavior was analyzed in terms of the cultural schemas underlying it. To this aim, the theoretical and analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics together with the insights from the field of Pragmatic Act Theory (PAT) were adopted.