Metaphoric and Metonymic Conceptualization of Emotions in the Poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler and Salomėja Nėris

The object of the research is the Lithuanian and German confessional poetry of the first half of the 20th century, specifically – the poetry of Salomėja Nėris, the representative of Lithuanian Neo-Romanticism, and the poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler, the most famous German female expressionist. The dissertation discusses the conceptualization of emotions in Lithuanian and German. The main aim of the analysis is to prove that metaphor and metonymy can be treated as cognitive phenomena which include language and thinking, as well as play a key role in the formation and structuring of knowledge related to emotions. The thesis discusses the essential aspects of cognitive linguistics. In particular, the theories and practical researches done by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Z. Kövecses, H.-H. Drößiger, S. Papaurėlytė-Klovienė and R. Toleikienė. The author seeks to verify whether the discussed models and methods can be applied in the research performed in the dissertation. The practical research was aimed to identify the patterns of emotion conceptualization, to find the regularities, links and differences which are not only confined to the mentioned poetry but are also generally characteristic of both cultures and languages. The texts were analyzed using the model and method of concept reconstruction developed by Sinaida Fomina (2004) later modified and improved by Drößiger (2008). This method allows to reconstruct the conventional knowledge about a certain phenomenon