Conceptual Metaphors “Death” in Mourningth Song His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej Maha Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great Borommanatbophit

Abstract

This article aims to study the conceptual metaphors of “death” in the songs that         express condolences to His Majesty, King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great Borommanat Bophit. Moreover, by collecting data from the online media from October 13, 2016, which is the day when the Great Borommanat Borphit passed away, to October 26, 2017, which is the day of cremation, the total number of aforementioned songs comes out to be 125. Furthermore, this research is qualitative research by using 2 theories, Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphors along with utilizing the idea of Gibbs metaphor and Kovecses in terms of analysis. In terms of results, the results of the study unveil that there is a total of 353 metaphorical words for the word “Death”. These metaphors reflect various concepts of death. In addition, by ranking the five metaphors from the most common ones to the least, death is a journey, death is a rest, death is a disappearance, death is the extinguishing of light, and death is the end of action. Actually, these metaphors exhibit two aspects of Thai people about death’s His Majesty, King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great Borommanat Bophit. The first one reflects positive views about death, as it can be noticed from conceptual metaphors (death is a rest). The second one reflects negative views about death, as they can be noticed from conceptual metaphors (death is a journey, death is a disappearance, death is the extinguishing of light, and death is the end of action).