Justified Pride? Metaphors of the Word Pride in English Language Corpora, 1418–1991

Abstract

This article deals with the words pride, proud and proudly in a cognitive linguistic framework, addressing the questions: (1) What causes pride? (2) Which other concepts are associated with pride? (3) What are people’s behavioural reactions to pride? (4) Which conceptual metaphors contribute to people’s understanding of pride? It discusses and compares three periods, Late Middle and Early Modern English (1400–1700), Late Modern English (1700–1900), and Present-Day (20th century) English, with the aim of tracing possible changes in the conceptualization of pride. The data comes from five electronic corpora of English containing a number of different text types.