Occhio all'italiana - cioe il ruolo dell'occhio nell'immagine linguisica del mondo italiano

Abstract

This paper investigates a cognitive study or the occhio (eye) concept in Italian. It contains an explanation or tbe chosen concept and explores its meaning and symbols not onty in a language, but also in culture and religion. It comments on generaI concepts or cognitive linguistics like categorization and conceptualization in language. This research primarily utilizes the theory or Cognitive Grammar proposed by R.W. Langacker and also incorporates the Polish approach with JOS, The Linguistic lmage 01 the World introduced by J. Bartminski. The project rocuses on describing the ways people perceive and define tbe world and rea1ity and how they identify things and events. There are six distinguished occhio-profùes: structural, functional, animistic, intellectual, communicative and sentimental. These profiles reflect what the expressions containing the occhio (eye) or ways or speaking actually communicate, and what these utterances mean. In tbe structural profùe the expressions use the occhio (eye) form and shape to describe objects and phenomena. The functional profile utilizes the phisiologica1 functions or eyes: sight ability, the capacity to see and the state or sleeping (or being awake). Living beings' characteristics, such as movement and feelings can be found in the animistic profile of the occhio (eye). The intellectual profile shows the ability to understand, discover, judge, measure, and to estimate things. The most specific profile is the communicative profile. This profile can be connected to the intellectual one, in that it involves tbe capacity to speak by using the eyes, to read, to transfer some information without words. Finally, the sentimental profile includes alI the Iocutions that somehow describe feelings or emotions. This analysis shows the difTerent ways or world perception demonstrated in the locutions containing the occhio (eye) where the meaning depends on the speaker's choice and intention.