A corpus-assisted cognitive analysis of metaphors in the Arabic subtitling of English TV series

Abstract This paper reports on the findings of a study that aimed at investigating the conceptual metaphors used in the Arabic subtitling of 150 English TV series (1982–2017), adopting Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) for data analysis. The data were examined by using WordSmith Tools (Scot 2012) which is compatible with Arabic data. The study revealed that the most frequently used source domains in the corpus were journey, building, war, illness, plants, and machine, respectively; whereas, the least frequently used source domains were body parts, game, water, supernatural creatures, fabrics, fire, and light, respectively. Besides, the most commonly used type of conceptual metaphor is structural metaphor. The study concluded that the vast majority of metaphorical expressions are lexicalized and conventional to make the subtitling easily accessible to the reader. The study recommends that future studies be conducted on the translation strategies adopted in subtitling English metaphors into Arabic.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
This paper aims at exploring the conceptual metaphors employed in the Arabic subtitling of 150 English TV series . The study revealed that the most frequently used source domains in the corpus were journey, building, war, illness, plants, and machine, respectively; whereas, the least frequently used source domains were body parts, game, water, supernatural creatures, fabrics, fire, and light, respectively. The study concluded that the vast majority of metaphorical expressions are lexicalized and conventional to make the subtitling easily accessible to the reader.

Introduction
Television series and movie media are considered the major forms of entertainment worldwide. Foreign movies, series, and documentaries are becoming more accessible to viewers because of audiovisual translation (AVT). Audiovisual translation is defined as "a specialized branch of translation which deals with the transfer of multimodal and multimedia texts into another language and/or culture" (Pérez-González, 2009, p. 13). According to Díaz- Cintas and Remael (2014), there are two main forms of AVT, namely, revoicing and subtitling. Revoicing indicates that the original audio track is substituted for a new version in the target language. Subtitling is defined as "the translation of the spoken source language text of an audiovisual product, generally movie dialogues, into a written text, which is superimposed onto the image of the original product, usually at the bottom of the screen" (Luyken et al. 1991, p. 31). In the same vein, Gottlieb (2004) defined subtitling as "the rendering in a different language of verbal messages in filmic media in the shape of one or more lines of written text presented on the screen in sync with the original message" (p. 87). According to Díaz- Cintas and Remael (2014), subtitling can be divided into three types, namely, intralingual subtitling, interlingual subtitling, and bilingual subtitling. Intralingual subtitling means rendering dialogues into written subtitles within the same language (Haider & Hussein, 2022), whereas interlingual subtitling means the text is translated into another language to be accessible to people who do not know the original language (Debbas & Haider, 2020;Samha et al., 2023).
There are five main types of intralingual subtitling. The first type of intralingual subtitling is subtitling for the deaf and the hard of hearing (SDH). It is also known as (closed) captioning in American English. This kind of subtitling is mainly provided for the deaf and people with hearing impairment to offer access to audiovisual programs. The second group of intralingual subtitles is those created as a means for the teaching and learning of foreign languages. A third category of intralingual subtitling is known as karaoke. It is used with songs or movie musicals to enable the public to sing along at the same time as the words appear on the screen. The fourth type of intralingual subtitling is the use of subtitles in movies to represent the dialogues of people whose accents are difficult for audiences to understand. The last kind of intralingual subtitling is presented on monitors in public areas for advertising and broadcasting notices and announcements (Díaz-Cintas & Remael, 2014).
On the other hand, interlingual subtitling refers to the translation from a source language into a target language. This type of subtitling is called by Gottlieb (1994) "diagonal subtitling" because the dialogues are translated from one language into another and there is a shift from the oral mode into the written mode. There are two types of interlingual subtitling, namely for hearers and for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing (SDH). This category of subtitling is the main focus of the present research study. The third type of subtitling is called bilingual subtitling which is provided in geographical areas in which two languages are spoken. For instance, in Belgium, subtitles in the cinema are provided in Flemish and French to satisfy the Walloon and Flemish communities.
Subtitling as a genre can be a rich source for researching different linguistic phenomena (Abu-Rayyash et al., 2023;Al-Abbas et al., 2022;Aldualimi & Almahasees, 2022;Al-Zgoul & Al-Salman, 2022;Haider & Hussein, 2022;among others). In particular, the use of conceptual metaphors in TV subtitling is considered an area worthy of investigation. Despite the vast body of research studies in the field of cognitive semantics that investigates conceptual metaphors in English in general, the number of research studies that explore conceptual metaphors in Arabic is limited in number. To the best of the researchers' knowledge, not a single study has investigated conceptual metaphors in the genre of TV series subtitling in Arabic. Accordingly, in light of the related studies carried out cross-linguistically, the present study aims to fill this gap in the literature by contributing to the existing body of research on conceptual metaphors in TV series subtitling in Arabic. In addition, the present study is the first study that adopts corpus tools for metaphor identification and analysis in the genre of TV series subtitling. In particular, the present study seeks answers to the following questions: (1) What are the most common source domains in Arabic subtitling of English TV series?
(2) What is the repertoire of conceptual metaphors used in this type of genre?

Conceptual metaphor theory
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) shows how we perceive one thing in terms of another (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). In their influential book Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) claim that metaphors are not solely rhetorical devices, but rather pivotal to human thought and reasoning. In other words, metaphors are essentially conceptual phenomena. Hence, they structure not only our language but also our thoughts, attitudes, and actions (p. 39). For instance, the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR is noticeable in our everyday language and this is reflected by several linguistic expressions. In the following sentences: "Your claims are indefensible", "He attacked every weak point in my argument", and "I've never won an argument with him", we do not only describe arguments in terms of war but we also win or lose arguments and we consider the person who argues against us an adversary. Thus, we attack his claims and we defend ours. The conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR reflects what we do and how we perceive what we are doing while arguing.
From a cognitive linguistic view, Kövecses (2010a) posits that conceptual metaphors consist of two conceptual domains. The conceptual domain from which we borrow metaphorical expressions to perceive another conceptual domain is called a source domain, while the conceptual domain that is perceived this way is called a target domain. An abbreviated way to reflect this view of conceptual metaphor is that CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN A IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN B. Target domains tend to conceptualize abstract notions, while source domains tend to refer to more concrete or physical concepts. Consequently, ARGUMENT functions as a target domain, while WAR acts as a source domain.
According to CMT, Evans and Green (2006) argue that there is a set of correspondences between the source domain and the target domain which is technically called mappings. For example, the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY refers to journeys that include travelers, a means of transport, a route, and obstacles along the route. Likewise, love relations include lovers, events and difficulties, etc. Thus, elements of the source domain are mapped onto elements of the target domain.
"We're spinning our wheels", traveling along a particular ROUTE, e.g. "Our relationship went off course", faced by obstacles, e.g. "Our marriage is on the rocks". Kövecses (2002) claims that conceptual metaphors are divided based on the cognitive function they serve into three types: structural, ontological, and orientational metaphors. First of all, structural metaphors are employed to "enable speakers to understand target A using the structure of source B". For instance, the notion of time is perceived in terms of motion and space. Thus, the following elements: physical objects, their locations, and their motion are involved in understanding the concept of time. The following mappings are established: Times are things. The passing of time is motion. Future times are in front of the observer; past times are behind the observer. Kövecses (2010a) suggests that two instances manifest the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MOTION in English. First, the conceptual metaphor OF TIME PASSING IS THE MOTION OF AN OBJECT THAT conceptualizes time as an object which moves about a fixed observer. This can be illustrated by the following metaphorical expressions: The time will come when . . . The time has long since gone when . . .

The time for action has arrived.
Secondly, ontological metaphors mean "we conceive of our experiences in terms of objects, substances, and containers, in general, without specifying exactly what kind of object, substance, or container is meant" (Kövecses, 2010a, p. 38). For instance, fear can be understood in terms of an object. Therefore, we can depict it as "our possession" as it appears in "my fear" and "your fear". The state of love can be visualized as a container as in being "in love", whereas an activity can be conceptualized as a substance as in there is "a lot of running in the game" (p. 39).
Thirdly, according to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), orientational metaphor is associated with "spatial orientation: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral". Spatial orientations are derived from the fact that our bodies act in a certain way in this physical world. A concept acquires a physical orientation through the use of orientational metaphors (p. 14). For instance, the conceptual metaphor HAPPY IS UP indicates that happiness is linked with the state of being up. Consequently, the following expression is formed "I am feeling up". In contrast, the conceptual metaphor SAD DOWN indicates that sadness is associated with the state of being down. Therefore, the following expression is formed "I am feeling down" (p. 15). Kövecses (2010a) indicates that conceptual metaphors differ from metaphorical linguistic expressions in that metaphorical linguistic expressions are words that are derived from the language or the source domain. For instance, in the following sentence, "He's without direction in life", all words that are related to life and are derived from the domain of journey are metaphorical linguistic expressions, while the corresponding conceptual metaphor that these words indicate is LIFE IS A JOURNEY. The use of small capital letters means that these words are not mentioned in the language in this manner, but they indicate conceptually all the metaphorical expressions employed underneath them.
The main features mentioned above are related to what is called the "standard" conceptual metaphor theory (as proposed by Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). However, Kövecses (2020) proposed the extended conceptual metaphor theory which is different from the standard theory in two ways. First, the extended conceptual metaphor theory is not considered merely a cognitive theory of metaphor, but it has a rich contextual component. Secondly, it shows that each conceptual metaphor does not exist only on one single level, i.e. domains, or frames, but it exits on four hierarchical levels of schematicity, i.e. image schemas, domains, frames, and mental spaces (Kövecses, 2021).
In particular, the use of metaphors in discourse is affected by several contextual factors, namely, situational context, discourse context, conceptual-cognitive context, and bodily context. The situational context involves physical, social, and cultural situations. The discourse context involves the surrounding discourse including the previous discourses on the same subject matter. Conceptual-Cognitive Context involves the metaphorical conceptual system as a whole, ideology, knowledge about past events, and the main concerns of a society or individual. Bodily context refers to a particular state of the body that reflects certain metaphorical conceptualizations (ibid: 199-200). Kövecses (2021, pp. 197-198) highlighted the multilevel view of conceptual metaphors in which conceptual metaphor is composed by an image schema, domain, frame, and mental space level. For example, THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS conceptual metaphor is based on several image schemas, such as CONTAINER, PART-WHOLE, OBJECT, etc. The building domain is made up of several schematic concepts, namely, THE BUILDING IS A PHYSICAL OBJECT IN SPACE. Thus, it has size and location. The building domain includes several frames, viz., building, (physical) support, parts of the building, and function of the building. At the mental spaces level, an elaboration of the building frame is considered the mental space associated with the following sentence: "John built himself a strong house." The sentence would identify the specific individual who built the house and the structural property of the house.
In the context of TV series and movies in particular, the use of conceptual metaphors in these genres has also been examined thoroughly by several researchers (Baza, 2021;Dessiatri, 2022;Hassan & Abbas, 2020 Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT). The study concluded that conceptual metaphors of disease are portrayed as a puzzle to be solved, warfare, criminals, animal, and people. The study concluded that the use of metaphorical language makes the medical notions concepts more concrete and understandable to the members of the medical team.
Sobola (2019) explored the use of conceptual metaphors in a Nigerian Nollywood Film Ẹ lúkú ìràwọ by adopting Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT). The study revealed that the metaphor used in the film are used in everyday language. The researcher concluded that "conceptual metaphors are veritable cultural tools that enrich language use, spur artistic productions, and aid aesthetic satisfaction" (p.1).
Terry (2019) examined the metaphors of death, disease, and sex in a corpus including the first two seasons of five American award-winning TV series (House, How I Met Your Mother, Six Feet Under, M.D, Grey's Anatomy, Sex, and the City,). The main findings indicated that the sex, disease, and death metaphors that are found in TV series cannot be taken as a representative sample of sex, disease, and death metaphors since they reflect some specificities compared with those found in naturally occurring conversations. In addition, metaphors found in the examined TV series are more creative than in naturally occurring conversation and they play an aesthetic and artistic role as they are included in fictional works.
Hassan and Abbas (2020) investigated the conceptual metaphor in the non-compositional idioms found in four different selected T.V. series by adopting Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The study concluded that the most commonly used type of conceptual metaphor is ontological metaphor followed by orientational and the structural metaphors.
Baza (2021) explored the conceptual metaphors used in the American satirical show, the daily show with Jon Stewart, by adopting Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The analysis revealed that structural metaphors were more pervasively used than ontological metaphors. The following conceptual metaphors were found: POLITICS IS ART, GOVERNMENT IS A CORRUPT BUSINESS MODEL, GOVERNMENT IS A HYPOCRITE AND LIAR, JOURNALISM AND PROSECUTION ARE FREE HUMAN BEINGS. The researcher concluded that the use of conceptual metaphors could convey several messages clearly and enable the citizens to recognize the reality of their presidents and politicians.
Yicai and Xueai (2021) investigated conceptual metaphors in Disney animated film: Zootopia by adopting Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT). The study indicated that instances of structural metaphor, orientational metaphor, and ontological metaphor were found in the corpus. Furthermore, the study found that "the ontological metaphor can be divided into entity and substance metaphor and container metaphor" (p. 25).
Dessiatri (2022) examined the conceptual metaphor found in the TV Series Siren Season 2 and 3 by adopting Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT). The researcher found 35 instances of structural metaphors, 27 instances of ontological metaphors, and six instances of orientation metaphors. The study concluded that structural metaphor is the most pervasive type of conceptual metaphor in the corpus. Panjaitan (2022) analyzed the conceptual metaphors used in the film script Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. The analysis revealed (30%) of structural metaphors, (34%) of ontological metaphors, and (36%) of orientational metaphors. The study indicated that orientational metaphor is the most commonly used type of conceptual metaphors.
Drawing on the above review of literature on the use of conceptual metaphors in TV series and movies, not a single study has adopted corpus-approaches to metaphor analysis in the genres of movies and TV series. Besides, not a single study has examined the use of conceptual metaphors in the Arabic subtitling of English TV series. Accordingly, the present study aims at filling this gap in the literature on Cognitive Semantics by investigating Arabic subtitling of English TV series by adopting a corpus-assisted approach to the identification and analysis of metaphors with the aid of WordSmith Tools (version 7) software.

Data collection and corpus compilation
The corpus used in this study is based on the Arabic subtitling of 150 English TV series . The fifth episode of each TV series in the first season is selected to compile the corpus which consists of one million words. Those selected TV series belong to different genres, namely, Action, Drama, Adventure, Animation, Biography, Comedy, Crime, Science Fiction, Romance, Thriller, Horror, Family, Music, Mystery, and Fantasy. The whole corpus is meta-tagged based on the title of the TV series, genre, year, stars, duration, season number, and episode number.
The following website which is considered the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV series, and celebrity content www.imdb.com is used to select the TV series. The Arabic subtitling of those English TV series is downloaded from the following website www.subscene.com which provides subtitles of TV series, movies, and music videos in more than 50 languages. The extracted TV series episodes were collected as a set of text files. The subtitles are written in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The English translations provided are generally idiomatic, with a literal translation of Arabic metaphorical words and phrases. Charteris-Black's (2004) approach which is based on sampling is adopted in the current study. By using this approach, the researchers will overcome the problem that is related to deciding which word forms to focus on. This approach will not enable researchers to find all the metaphorical uses in the entire corpus, but this approach is likely to provide reliable results especially if the corpus is relatively homogenous (Deignan, 2008).

Metaphor identification procedure
By adopting Charteris-Black's (2004) approach, the researchers manually applied MIP (Group, 2007) on a manageable sample drawn from the corpus to identify metaphor candidates. The preliminary study carried out is considered corpus-driven. A corpus-driven study starts with the corpus itself instead of starting with preconceived theories which are confirmed or refuted later on based on the corpus (Tognini-Bonelli, 2001). Corpus-driven research provides more accurate results than corpus-based research since the former examines all the data. However, Deignan (2008) maintains that in reality, the majority of corpus-driven research studies begin with an initial hypothesis, but in a corpus-driven study, the hypothesis is examined throughout the entire data instead of being "pre-imposed" upon it. There is a lack of literature on metaphors utilized in Arabic subtitling of English TV series. Therefore, a corpus-driven preliminary study was necessary to identify the metaphors used in this genre. The metaphors identified at this stage are considered the basis for further concordance search over the whole corpus (Charteris-Black, 2004;Deignan, 2009). At this stage, thirty five TV series episodes out of 150 TV series episodes from 1982 to 2017 in the corpus were surveyed manually for identifying metaphorical expressions.
The researchers adopted a bottom-up approach to derive the underlying conceptual metaphors from the metaphorical expressions found in the corpus. Adopting a bottom-up approach means linguistic evidence is the basis for constructing hypotheses on cross-domain mappings (Ansah, 2014). First of all, the researchers adopted Group's (2007) metaphor identification procedure (MIP) to identify the metaphorical expressions used in the corpus. The majority of researchers depend on their intuition in identifying and analyzing metaphors which leads to subjective judgments and biases. To overcome this problem, MIP is adopted in the current study which enables researchers to identify metaphors in naturally-occurring discourse. MIP involves the following stages which are devised by Group (2007): (1) Read the entire text-discourse to establish a general understanding of the meaning. 2.
Determine the lexical units in the text-discourse (2) (a) For each lexical unit in the text, establish its meaning in context, that is, how it applies to an entity, relation, or attribute in the situation evoked by the text (contextual meaning). Take into account what comes before and after the lexical unit. (b) For each lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given context. For our purposes, basic meanings tend to be-more concrete [what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear, feel, smell, and taste]; related to bodily action; more precise (as opposed to vague); historically older; basic meanings are not necessarily the most frequent meanings of the lexical unit. (c) If the lexical unit has a more basic current-contemporary meaning in other contexts than the given context, decide whether the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be understood in comparison with it.
(3) If yes, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical.
Secondly, Steen's (2007) five-step procedure was adopted to derive the conceptual metaphors from the metaphorical expressions. The steps are outlined as follows (Steen 2007): (1) Find the metaphorical focus.
The researchers adopted Steen's (2007) five-step procedure to make the process of deriving conceptual metaphors from linguistic metaphors more systematic. The following statement demonstrates applying MIP to identify the metaphorical expressions followed by applying Steen's (2007) five-step procedure to derive the conceptual metaphors from the metaphorical expressions.
. "We must fight advancement, but we must also take measures to mitigate the shock."

‫ﻳ‬
Following steen's (2007) approach, the first step is using MIP to identify the metaphorical words. In the following example, the word muħa:rabat "fighting" is used metaphorically since it has a contextual meaning which is different from its basic meaning which refers to taking part in a war or battle. The metaphorical expressions along with the words that express the focus or the source domain are identified. In step 2, the researchers transformed the metaphorical expression into a conceptual metaphor, using a series of propositions, i.e. ADVANCEMENT, FIGHTING. In step 3, the researchers transformed the single proposition accompanied by concepts from two different domains which were arrived at in step 2, SIM {∃F ∃a [F (ADVANCEMENT)]t [FIGHTING(a)]s}, into an open comparison between two unfinished propositions, which each of them relating to another source domain. That is, step 3 states that: for some state F in the target domain (the state of advancement) and some entity a in the source domain (enemy), there is some similarity. Using the terms source and target domains suggests that the similarity has to be projected from fighting an enemy onto destroying advancement. In step 4, the researchers transformed the open comparison of step 3 into a closed comparison that has the formal structure of an analogy and provided an interpretation to the open values in step 3 (Steen, 2007). Finally, in step 5, the researchers transformed the analogical structure which was derived in step 4 into a mapping structure between two conceptual domains, namely, ADVANCEMENT and FIGHTING through establishing a link between fighting an enemy and destroying advancement. Thus, the conceptual metaphor would be ADVANCEMENT IS AN ENEMY.

Corpus-based approach
A significant development in metaphor research has been the employment of corpora and corpus methods (Gibbs, 2010). In contrast to the traditional approach which relies on the manual extraction of metaphors from a smaller corpus, a corpus-linguistic software program which is utilized in the current study helps researchers identify metaphors in large corpora. This offers a more systematic account of the distribution of metaphors in the given corpus.
For this stage, WordSmith Tools version 7 (Scott, 2012) was utilized to analyze the entire corpus. Firstly, the researchers generated separate wordlists for the entire corpus. Secondly, the researchers started the screening process of the metaphorical expressions collected from the preliminary study, looking only for the metaphorical uses by referring to MIP (Group, 2007) and Steen (2007). In particular, the researchers fed the Arabic metaphorical expressions into the Concordancer in WordSmith which shows the metaphorical expression surrounded by a text. This piece of research is both quantitative and qualitative. Quantitatively, frequencies and percentages of source domains are calculated and tabulated. Qualitatively, an explanation of the mapping between the source and target domains is provided.

Results and discussion
The metaphorical expressions which were identified in the Arabic subtitling of 150 English TV series were grouped according to their source domains (n = 13) from the most frequent to the least frequent. The total number of metaphorical expressions attested in all TV series is 138. Then, the specific meanings of these metaphors and their underlying conceptual metaphors are presented and discussed. Table 1 shows the number and percentage of these metaphorical expressions grouped by their source domains (n = 13).
A glance at Table (1) shows that there is a total of 13 source domains in the corpus of the English TV series. Having such a large number of source domains can be attributed to the fact that the TV series belong to a wide variety of genres, namely, Action, Drama, Adventure, Animation, Biography, Comedy, Crime, Science Fiction, Romance, Thriller, Horror, Family, Music, Mystery, and Fantasy. The metaphors used under these source domains were not equally frequent; some were far more frequent than others. The six most frequent source domains which occurred around seven percent and above were (1) Table 1 are explained and discussed separately with illustrative examples in the following sections. Table 1 shows that the source domain JOURNEY is the most frequent one in the corpus, yielding various metaphorical expressions. In particular, the metaphorical expressions realizing the source domain JOURNEY have a total frequency of 32 instances. The corpus analysis indicates that there are two main conceptual metaphors under the source domain JOURNEY, namely, LIFE IS A JOURNEY and LOVE IS A JOURNEY. Originally, Lakoff and Turner (1989) proposed the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, whereas the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY is first presented by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 44) who argued that the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY accounts for the following expressions such as "Look how far we have come"; "We aren't going anywhere", "We're at the crossroads", "Our marriage is on the rocks", etc. In this context, Charteris-Black (2004, p. 74) posits that a journey is considered "a prototype purposeful activity involving movement in physical space from a starting point to an endpoint or destination".

Journey metaphors
Conceptualizing LIFE and LOVE in terms of JOURNEY is considered a prototypical way to talk about life and love, and thus they are commonly used in the present corpus (Table 2). This goes in line with Setiawan (2015) who claimed that JOURNEY is used pervasively to conceptualize LIFE and LOVE in movies and series.
Example (1) reveals that ʔalħaja "life" is metaphorically conceptualized as a riħla "journey". The reason for using journey metaphors to conceptualize life is that travelers move in a certain direction to reach a certain destination and they may encounter some impediments on their way to reach their destination. In the same way, people in this life have their own goals which they try to achieve and they might face difficulties and obstacles on their way to achieving these goals. Conceptualizing life as a physical journey gives rise to the following metaphorical expressions, namely path, steps, destination, obstacles, moving forward, and moving backward.
Example (2) indicates the following conceptual metaphor PURPOSEFUL ACTION IS TRAVELING ALONG A PATH TOWARD A DESTINATION. This example used this mapping to show that the actions that a person carries out to achieve a certain goal in this life are metaphorically depicted as traveling along a certain masa:r "path" to reach a certain destination. In particular, the word "path" is considered a conventional way of describing progress towards a goal. This goes in line with Johnson (1987)  who claimed that in the path schema, the person has a starting point, an endpoint, and several locations along the way in addition to obstacles and detours. Accordingly, if the person reaches their destination or endpoint, then he/she must have achieved their objectives in life.

Example (3) reflects the following conceptual metaphor PURPOSEFUL ACTION IS A STEP TAKEN TOWARDS
A DESTINATION. The concert and physical xutuwa:t "steps" taken to reach a certain destination are metaphorically utilized to describe the actions that a person takes to achieve certain goals in life. Xutuwa:t "steps" is used pervasively to trigger the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY. It also denotes steady and successful progress toward attaining goals in life.
Example (4) illustrates the following conceptual metaphor OBJECTIVE IS A DESTINATION. The objectives and goals that a person wants to achieve in this life are metaphorically conceptualized as widʒha "destination" that a traveler wants to arrive at.
The fourth subcategory of journey metaphors includes metaphorical expressions that describe "movement forward" and "movement toward" which are important aspects of journey metaphors. A journey is described as a movement from point A to point B. Thus, any movement towards B is considered a movement forward. Any movement forward is considered a positive step toward reaching the destination. Example (5) indicates the following conceptual metaphor PURPOSEFUL ACTION IS A MOVEMENT FORWARD TOWARD A DESTINATION. In other words, "moving forward" is a conventional way of talking about progress toward a goal. Spatial source domains such as forward and backward reflect the following orientational metaphors, namely, FORWARD IS GOOD, and BACKWARD IS BAD.
In a journey, we may encounter dangers, or we may stumble or get lost. Accordingly, we may choose not to "move forward" in the right direction but to retreat backward or to change our path. Similarly, in life, we face problems and difficulties which let us turn back and change our goals and plans. Example (6) shows the following conceptual metaphor FAILING TO ACHIEVE A GOAL IS MOVING BACKWARD.
The subcategory of journey metaphors includes metaphorical expressions that depict the impediments that travelers face during their journey. In this regard, journey metaphors imply that achieving one's goals and objectives in this life is not an easy task. Accordingly, journey metaphors "highlight the need for patience since it will take time and effort to reach a destination" Charteris-Black (2004, p. 93). Example (7) shows the following conceptual metaphor DIFFICULTIES ARE OBSTACLES. The difficulties that a person encounters during their life are depicted as ʕaqaba "obstacle" that a traveler comes across during reaching their destination. Journey metaphors have a positive connotation even when negative concepts are shed light on by the metaphor such as impediments, obstacles and detours since the efforts made to attain one's goals are considered worthwhile. Thus, any hardships have to be tolerated.
Example (8) reveals the following conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY. Love is metaphorically depicted as riħla "journey". In this example, lovers are conceptualized as travelers who experience difficulties on their way to reach their destination, i.e., happy marriage. Kövecses (2010a) posits that there is a systematic set of correspondences or mappings that characterizes the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY. For instance, the travelers, the vehicle, the journey, the distance covered, the obstacles encountered, decisions about which way to go, and the destination of the journey correspond to the lovers, the love relationship itself, events in the relationship, the progress made, the difficulties experienced, choices about what to do, the goal(s) of the relationship, respectively.

Building metaphors
The source domain of building is the second most frequent source domain. Building is a very popular concept in people's life. In the current corpus, building metaphors are motivated by the following conceptual metaphors, namely, LIFE IS A BUILDING, FUTURE IS A BUILDING, REPUTATION IS A BUILDING, and HOPE IS A BUILDING. The building metaphors are illustrated by the following metaphorical expressions, such as "build", "create", "rebuild", and "ceiling", etc, as Table 3 shows.
Example (9) shows the following conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A BUILDING that a person tries to jabni "build". This is in accordance with Gong et al. (2008) who claimed that Life is metaphorically conceived as a building that can be reconstructed. Charteris-Black (2004, P.96) maintains that building metaphors "highlight the need for patience since it also takes time and effort to construct a building". Building metaphors also imply "a need to make sacrifices and not to expect instant outcomes" (p. 96). Constructing a building requires effort, patience, time, and collaborative effort. Similarly, building a successful life is a difficult task that requires making a lot of sacrifices and exerting a lot of time and effort. It also requires patience since a person cannot achieve success in their life immediately. Building a successful life is worth waiting for patiently since the success you will enjoy in your life is valuable and worthwhile. Building metaphors "carry a strong positive connotation because they express aspiration towards desired social goals" (Charteris-Black, 2004).
Example (10) shows the following conceptual metaphor REPUTATION IS A BUILDING. ʔassumʕa "reputation" is metaphorically conceptualized as a building that a person attempts to ʔiʕa:dat bina:ʔ "rebuild" after being destroyed. This lends support to Gong et al. (2008) who posited that "reputation is understood as a building because buildings are demolished when a physical attack occurs and reputation is demolished when a verbal attack occurs" (p. 10). Reconstructing a destroyed building needs a lot of time, effort, and collaboration. Likewise, rebuilding one's reputation especially after being destroyed requires a lot of time, effort, and patience since instant results are not immediately obtained.
Example (11) indicates the following conceptual metaphor TRUST IS A BUILDING. ʔaθθiqa "trust" which human beings try to jabni: "build" between each other is conceptualized as a building that someone tries to build. Constructing a building requires a lot of time, effort, and patience. In the same way, people do not trust each other easily, and thus it takes them a lot of time and effort till they start trusting each other. Example (12) reflects the following conceptual metaphor HOPE IS A BUILDING. This conceptualization goes in line with Šarić (2020) who stated that hope is metaphorically conceived as an object with specific features. More specifically, HOPE can be metaphorically conceptualized as a BUILDING (P. 14). In particular, ʔa:ma:l "hopes" in example (12) are depicted as a concrete building which has saqf "ceiling". Any physical building has a ceiling that limits the height of the building. Similarly, our hopes have a limit that we cannot go beyond.
Example (13) also indicates the following conceptual metaphor HOPE IS A BUILDING. ʔa:ma:l "hopes" are described as a building that can be destroyed and smashed. Likewise, One's hopes can be destroyed and damaged.

War metaphors
Metaphors from this source domain include words such as war, battle, fight, and confront, as Table 4 shows. Charteris-Black (2004, p. 69) posits that war metaphors can be classified into the following categories, namely "metaphors of defense, metaphors of attack, and metaphors of struggle". The war metaphors illustrate the mapping of the source domain of physical war and onto the target domain of abstract war.
Example (14) reveals the following conceptual metaphor A PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM IS AN ENEMY. Psychological problems such as anxiety which a person might suffer from are metaphorically construed through WAR source domain. In particular, a psychological problem is depicted as an enemy who attacks the sufferer. This lends support to Semino and Steen (2008) and Coll-Florit et al. (2021) who maintained that depression as a psychological problem is mostly conceptualized through WAR source domain. More specifically, they posited that depression is metaphorically conceptualized as an enemy or an opponent in a struggle. The sufferer fights to defeat the psychological problems which try to defeat the person. In this example, the sufferer tries to make use of music to get rid of his psychological problems. Accordingly, music is conceptualized as a weapon that the person uses to defeat his psychological problems. This example shows that the sufferer does not surrender. Instead, the sufferer fights bravely to defeat his psychological problems.
Example (15) shows the following conceptual metaphor CUSTODY IS A BATTLE. In a battle, every party wants to win over the other party. Similarly, every parent wants to win and get guardianship of his/her children.
Example (16) reveals the following conceptual metaphor PAIN ARE HORROR ARE ENEMIES. The metaphorical expression muwa:dʒaha "confrontation" reflects the physical confrontation to overcome an enemy in a battle. Pain and horror are depicted as enemies who could be confronted and fought courageously. Conceptualizing PAIN in terms of AN ENEMY is in accordance with Diaz-Vera (2012, p. 257) who maintained that PAIN is metaphorically represented as an enemy to beat.
Example (17) reflects the following conceptual metaphor ADVANCEMENT IS AN ENEMY. The metaphorical word Muħa:rabat "fighting" implies a physical fight to overcome an enemy. In this example, advancement is depicted as an enemy which has to be fought gallantly in a battle.

Illness metaphors
Illness metaphors are employed to represent crises, problems, disasters, and catastrophes in terms of diseases that have to be treated and combated. Accordingly, there is a mapping between the source domain of illness and the target domain of crises, disasters, problems, and catastrophes, as Table 5 shows.
Example (18) reflects the following conceptual metaphor TRAGEDY IS A DISEASE. A tragedy is metaphorically construed as a serious disease that needs muʕa:ladʒa "treatment" and medical intervention. A tragedy has to come to an end as a disease that has to be treated.
Example (19) reflects the following conceptual metaphor DISASTERS ARE DISEASES. ʔalkawa:riθ "disasters" are metaphorically depicted as a disease that has to be combated, implying that disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods, etc. are extremely critical problems that have a terribly negative impact on the country as a whole. Consequently, the country should juka:fiħ "combat" it. Conceptualizing disasters as a disease has a negative connotation since diseases impair the normal functioning of the human body. Similarly, disasters result in catastrophic consequences that destroy the country at all levels. According to Charnley et al. (2021), a natural disaster, e.g., earthquakes, floods, and droughts is metaphorically construed as a disease outbreak, reflecting the vulnerabilities in interacting with natural hazards (p.1). In  (19) shows that depicting disasters as a disease also indicates the difficulty in controlling such natural disasters as it is difficult to control the outbreak of some diseases.
Example (20) shows the following conceptual metaphor BAD MARKET IS A SICK PERSON. The well-being of a sick person might deteriorate severely, and thus he/she needs more intense medical intervention. Likewise, the economy of the market might witness tadahwur "deterioration" in a bad and dramatic way. Consequently, such a bad economic situation needs taking immediate actions to improve it. This goes in line with (Charteris-Black & Ennis, 2001;Zibin 2017) who maintain that weak economy can metaphorically be described as an ill person who needs medical treatment.
Example (21) reflects the following conceptual metaphor A WELL-PROTECTED CASTLE IS AN IMMUNIZED PERSON. A well-protected castle is metaphorically conceptualized as a person who is immunized against diseases. Likewise, this castle is fully protected against any danger.

Plant metaphors
Metaphors from this source domain include the following metaphorical expressions, namely, grow, plant, fruits, flourish, and rip, etc, as Table 6 shows.
Example (22) reveals the following conceptual metaphor HUMAN CHARACTER IS A PLANT. The beginning of the life cycle of plants starts with seeds which are spread before growing into a plant or tree, and then it bears branches, buds and blossoms, and fruits. Finally, it is harvested or dies. Each of these stages is similar to the organic growth of human beings who pass through different stages. In this context, the stages in the organic cycle of plants growth are used to metaphorically describe stages of human growth. In particular, the human character develops and goes through several different stages starting from early childhood to adolescence, and then to old age during which changes take place in a human being including his/her character.
Example (23) reflects the following conceptual metaphor KNIFE IS A PLANT. The plant is planted inside the soil. In the same way, the knife can be tuzraʕ "planted" inside someone's chest.
Example (24) reveals the following conceptual metaphor DEVELOPMENT IS A PLANT THAT FLOURISHES. Development is grown and becomes advanced as a plant which jazdahir "flourishes" and blossoms. The metaphorical expression flourish has a positive connotation since it shows growth and advancement.  Rumman et al., Cogent Social Sciences (2023) Example (25) reflects the following conceptual metaphor HUMAN BEING IS A PLANT. When a plant grows up, its fruits become ripe. The metaphorical expression "ripe" has a positive connotation which shows that the person becomes mature, wise, and more rational like a ripe fruit that is fully grown. The following conceptual metaphor HUMAN BEING IS A PLANT goes in line with (Charteris-Black, 2004;Goatly, 1997) who claimed there is a transfer from the inanimate domain of plants to the animate domain of humans in metaphor studies. Example (26), in Table 7, reflects the following conceptual metaphor TORTURE IS A MACHINE.

Machine metaphors
Torture that becomes no longer effective is metaphorically construed as a malfunctioning machine that doesn't jaʕmal "operate" effectively and efficiently, implying that torture doesn't function properly as it has to.

Body part metaphors
Metaphors from this source domain include words such as soul, heart, and head, etc, as Table 8 shows.

Example (27) reflects the following conceptual metaphor CITY IS A HUMAN BEING HAVING A SOUL.
A human being has a soul which can display high or low spirits according to certain surrounding conditions. Similarly, the city can be in a high or low position according to different economic, political, and commercial conditions. Example (28) shows the following conceptual metaphor CITY IS A HUMAN BEING HAVING A HEART. As a human being has a heart which is located in the central part of the chest and is considered the most important organ in the human body. Similarly, the central part of the city is the most important part since most commercial and economic activities are carried out there. Example (29), in Table 9, reflects the following conceptual metaphor HUMAN MIND IS A TOY.  When someone controls and manipulates another person and makes him/her behave and function in a certain way, the mind of the controlled person is metaphorically depicted as a toy that one can jalʕab "play" with. Zibin (2018, p. 269) argued that Metaphorical expressions reflecting GAME source domain could be used to show amusement or sarcasm. Similarly, depicting someone's mind metaphorically as a toy is used sarcastically to show the stupidity and foolishness of such a manipulated person. Example (30), in Table 10, reflects the following conceptual metaphor EXCITEMENT IS WATER. Water has certain sources from which it flows. In the same way, excitement has certain sources, i.e. reasons from which it builds up. Example (31) reflects the following conceptual metaphor VOICE IS WATER. Sound is metaphorically represented as an influx of water that flows hugely, implying that the voice is so loud and big.

Supernatural creature metaphors
Supernatural creatures present a mysterious, unnatural threat and provoke great fear in those who believe in them. Thus, fear is the essential idea conveyed by this source domain (Zibin, 2017).
Example (32), in Table 11, shows the following conceptual metaphor HUMAN BEING IS A MONSTER. Supernatural creatures such as monsters are strong, terrifying, threatening, frightening, and difficult to be defeated. Similarly, Leonardo is depicted as a great monster, implying that he is strong, terrifying, and difficult to be beaten, and thus the is considered a threat to his opponents. Example (33), in Table 12, reflects the following conceptual metaphor HUMAN BEING IS A FABRIC. People vary in their inherent characteristics and traits.  In particular, some people are considered good and virtuous, whereas other people are bad and corrupt. Likewise, some fabrics are expensive and of good quality, whereas other types of fabrics are cheap and of bad quality. Accordingly, a despicable person is metaphorically described as cheap fabric, suggesting that he is a bad person. Example (34), in Table 13, reflects the following conceptual metaphor TEXT MESSAGES ARE BOMBS THAT EXPLODE.

Fire metaphors
Too many text messages are metaphorically conceptualized as bombs that explode on a mobile phone. Charteris-Black (2004, p. 215) posited that the main metaphoric usage of fire is to conceptualize the human emotion of anger. Anger does not cause fire, but when the body experiences anger, it undergoes changes such as feeling heat and redness which are comparable to those of fire. Accordingly, this conceptual metaphor TEXT MESSAGES ARE BOMBS THAT EXPLODE has negative connotations which show the intense anger of the person. Charteris-Black (2004, p. 100) stated that the source domain of light has traditionally been associated with the target domains of understanding. For instance, Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 48) formulated the following conceptual metaphor UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING as in "I see what you're saying". In the same vein, Lakoff and Turner (1989, p. 190) formulated the following conceptual metaphor knowing is seeing. Table 14 shows an Example of a Light Metaphor Light is contrasted with darkness which is strongly linked with ignorance. Example (35) reflects the following conceptual metaphor IGNORANCE IS DARKNESS. In the darkness, we cannot see, recognize or perceive things around us. In the same way, when we are ignorant, we cannot see, recognize or understand facts and reality. In the dark, we cannot see, and thus we cannot know. Accordingly, light is necessary to see, know, and not get lost. Light has positive connotations since light symbolizes knowledge, good, and wisdom, whereas darkness has negative connotations since darkness symbolizes ignorance, evil, and fear. The following conceptual metaphor IGNORANCE IS DARKNESS goes in line with  Charteris-Black (2004, P. 188) who formulated the following conceptual metaphor RELIGIOUS IGNORANCE IS DARKNESS in his research study on analyzing the conceptual metaphors used in the bible.

Reflections and conclusions
The present study has explored the conceptual metaphors used in the Arabic subtitling of 150 English TV series , adopting Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) for data analysis. The results revealed that several metaphors are used in the corpus under the following source domains: JOURNEY, BUILDING, WAR, ILLNESS, PLANT, MACHINE, BODY PART, GAME, WATER, SUPERNATURAL CREATURE, FABRIC, FIRE, and LIGHT, respectively. The large number of source domains identified in the corpus can be attributed to the fact that the TV series belong to a wide variety of genres. The following conceptual metaphors were evident in the corpus, namely, LIFE The analysis of metaphors in the corpus showed that the vast majority of metaphorical expressions are lexicalized and conventional which are used extensively in Arabic, and this makes subtitling more easily accessible to the reader. This lends support to Sobola (2019) who posited that the metaphors used in films are frequently used in everyday language. In particular, the most commonly used type of conceptual metaphors is structural metaphors. This lends support to (Baza, 2021, Dessiatri, 2022, Yicai and Xueai 2021 who maintain that the most frequently used type of conceptual metaphors in films and TV series are structural metaphors. It has also been found that the majority of conceptual metaphors identified in the corpus are also found in various metaphor studies (Charteris-Black & Ennis, 2001;Charteris-Black, 2004;Charnley et al. 2021and Coll-Florit et al., 2021Diaz-Vera, 2012;Goatly, 1997;Gong et al., 2008;Semino and Steen, 2008;Šarić, 2020;Zibin 2017), implying the existence of near-universal conceptual metaphors in which there is a similarity between human beings in terms of their actions, thoughts, emotional, physical and bodily experiences. Accordingly, these concepts are metaphorically perceived in the same way regardless of the language under scrutiny (Kövecses, 2010b). This also indicates that conceptual metaphors are widely used in everyday life, and this goes in line with Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 4) who claimed that "metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action'. One major limitation of the current study is the limited number of TV series (n = 150) included in the corpus. Accordingly, future research may investigate conceptual metaphors in a larger number of TV series since this may reveal more metaphorical expressions reflecting a wider variety of conceptual metaphors. Future research may also examine how subtitlers translate the metaphorical expressions in English TV series into Arabic.