banafsheh Ghafel

Banafsheh Ghafel is an Iranian metaphor researcher and English lecturer (TEFL). Her MA thesis topic was "Basic Colors and their Metaphorical Expressions in English and Persian with Teaching Implications".  She is a part-time lecturer at universities, where she teaches language skills, general English, study skills, and ESP courses. She has authored many papers on metaphors with sewing frames, metaphorical expressions, cognitive schemes, metaphor and colors and their connotations, and conceptual color metaphors. Her research interests are metaphorical expressions and their conceptual maps, metaphor in L2 acquisition, and cross-cultural linguistics considering metaphor in conversation, media, and visual discourse. According to Google Scholar, Banafsheh’s works have been cited more than 53 times (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3bKygtQAAAAJ&hl=en).
Using a cognitive approach and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980), her comparative analysis thesis revealed that, while the connotation of colors in the structure of metaphorical expressions overlaps to some extent, the majority of the expressions are culture-bound and specific to each language. Persian data support Kovecses' six sources, which he claims are used as the foundation for everyday metaphorical usage, as well as his proposed generic schema, which is filled out by each culture that has this metaphor. Her findings are also consistent with Lakoff's embodiment theory.