Abstract
This paper describes an English-Polish theoretical and empirical cognitive study of the axiological aspects of the concept(s) death/śmierć and conceptualizations to which they refer. The pragmatic tool of a language mask is presented and applied to death, a generally difficult topic. A two-part survey was conducted to test the valuing of expressions where death/śmierć was used in the literal sense and in figurative senses, often idiomatic and not referring to the end of life of an organism (Part 1), as well as expressions where death/śmierć was masked – conveyed indirectly, by means of other concepts – mostly using metaphors and metonyms (Part 2). Death is a carrier of negative axiological charge as a source domain of metaphors (as seen in Part 1). Metaphor and metonymy are treated as language masks, i.e., pragmatic tools of pretending, used to modulate the valuing of death/śmierć (in Part 2). Valuing of seemingly equivalent or similar expressions varies cross-linguistically. Humor is a very controversial aspect in terms of its axiological parameter.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston