Abstrakt: | The aim of this paper is to illustrate similarities and differences in the conceptualisation
of depression by Polish and Italian authors of blogs and/or posts, who experienced the disease.
The analyses presented in the paper are mainly based on the cognitive theory of metaphor by
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson and constitute a part of a wider research topic regarding the differences
in conceptualisation of depression depending on such factors as: language, discourse, kind
and personal experience of the author concerning the state of depression. The study revealed that
the dominant metaphors of depression in the analysed texts, in both languages, are: depression
is an enemy and depression is a bad life companion. Moreover, the second of them is a typical
way/manner of representing depression by the people who experience or have experienced it. Other
metaphors that occur either in Polish or in Italian texts are: depression is a location (and its more
specific representation depression is an oppressive place) often situated down and taking the
form of a container, depression is dark / darkness and depression is burden. The most vivid
dissimilarity between the analysed languages concerns the existence of the conceptualisations in
which depression is valued as positive in the Polish texts and their absence in the Italian ones,
whilst the most common differences are the ones regarding specific representations of the common,
more general metaphor. |