An Investigation into Conceptual Metaphors of “Emotion” in Social Media Discourse of Young People
Authors
- Nguyen Ngoc Bao Tran The University of Danang - University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam
- Ngo Thi Hien Trang University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Danang, Vietnam
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate conceptual metaphors of EMOTION in the social media discourse of Vietnamese young people from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics. The research data consists of 150 linguistic expressions collected from 73 accounts on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram during the period from 2020 to 2025. A qualitative method combined with descriptive statistics was employed to identify, classify, and analyze metaphorical expressions based on the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) and the Conceptual Metaphor Theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The findings reveal ten major conceptual metaphor models of emotion. In addition, the study indicates that the use of emotional metaphors is influenced by cognitive and socio-cultural factors, as well as by the distinctive communicative features of each social media platform. The results contribute to clarifying how Vietnamese young people conceptualize emotions in the context of digital communication.
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