Metaphor of Fire in Malay Text as a Manifestation of Values: New Hybrid Model Analysis

The dynamic nature of fire often leads language users to use it as a symbol to express metaphors that support certain meanings and profile specific values. This study is conducted to elucidate the meanings supported by fire metaphors and the values implied by fire metaphors while outlining the process of interpreting fire metaphors. Specifically, this study reveals the interpretation process that occurs when processing the meaning offire metaphors, ultimately allowing the interpretation of fires' value in Malay thinking. This study utilises content analysis methods and data generated from the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Corpus, analysed using St & ouml;ver s' (2010) New Hybrid Model to achieve this goal. The Three Processing Model, which is more modular and systematic, is proposed in this model. A total of 2400 lexical concordances related to fire were examined, and 94 data were identified as fire metaphors. The study findings show that fire metaphors are used to emphasise emotions, explain the intensity of emotions, enhance affective effects, and criticise individuals'states, attitudes or actions. Based on the analysed data, it was found that the frequency offire metaphors implying negative values is 63.9%, while the frequency of positive values is 36.1%. The collocation and context of the discussed metaphors determine the categorisation of these values. It turns out that religion, culture, and social factors have a significant influence on Malay peoples'perception of fire. This study is expected to provide fresh insights into the power of metaphor interpretation procedures that emphasise more systematic cognitive semantic and pragmatic considerations for uncovering the meaning of metaphors and highlighting the values manifested by the fire lexical and cluster offire lexical.