The Metaphorical Conceptualization of Depression in Arabic Blogs Written by Patients with Depressive Disorder

Authors

  • Ronza Abu Rumman

    Department of English Language and Literature, University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan
  • Mohammed Dagamseh

    Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
  • Ahmad S Haider

    Department of English Language and Translation, Applied Science Private University, Amman 11937, Jordan
  • Hadeel Saed

    Department of English Language and Translation, Applied Science Private University, Amman 11937, Jordan
  • Yousef Sahari

    Department of English Language and Literature, College of Arts and Letters, The University of Bisha, Bisha 67714, Saudi Arabia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i3.8427
Received: 2 January 2025 | Revised: 6 March 2025 | Accepted: 17 March 2025 | Published Online: 18 March 2025

Abstract

This study aims to identify the conceptual metaphors of depression in a corpus of 100 blogs written in Arabic by people suffering from major depressive disorder by adopting the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Metaphor Identification Procedure was used to identify metaphorical expressions, and then the five-step procedure proposed by Steen was employed to extract the conceptual metaphors. The results revealed three main categories of metaphors: metaphors of depression, metaphors of interpersonal communication and social context, and metaphors of medicine and professional treatment. The study concluded that blogging as a genre provides individuals with the opportunity to give more truthful descriptions of their illness, which enables them to present a more thorough picture of their lives with depressive disorder.

Keywords:

Blogging; Conceptual Metaphor Theory; Depressive Disorder; Genre; Metaphorical Expressions

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How to Cite

Abu Rumman, R., Dagamseh, M., Haider, A. S., Saed, H., & Sahari, Y. (2025). The Metaphorical Conceptualization of Depression in Arabic Blogs Written by Patients with Depressive Disorder. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(3), 874–889. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i3.8427

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 3 (March 2025)

Article Type

Article

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Copyright © 2025 Ronza Abu Rumman, Mohammed Dagamseh, Ahmad S Haider, Hadeel Saed, Yousef Sahari

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.