“IF BORN A MAN, THEN BE A MAN”

Abstract

Masculine identity, role, discourse and social orientation are formed and passed on from an ancient system of symbols and metaphorical thinking through cognitive metaphors into everyday language as well as literary texts. The aim of the study is to discover how the notion of manliness is constituted depending on social, historical, cultural, literary and linguistic tradition. The patterns of description of manliness change according to the challenges of any given period, but the basic characteristics still bear traces of earliest social, human assumptions and schemes. Researching the metaphorical codes of manliness, studying the interactions of conceptual areas (mental regions), there are obvious new sources, which are nevertheless only contemporary manifestations of old images.