WAYS OF CONCEPTUALISING MALE AND FEMALE GENITALIA IN SPANISH AND POLISH: A CONTRASTIVE STUDY

The article deals with the reconstruction of the ways of conceptualising male and female genitalia encoded in Spanish and Polish lexicon. In order to carry out our investigation we propose a 5-stage analytical procedure based on the ideas developed previously by Pragglejaz Group in 2007 and by the investigators from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in 2009. We pretend to demonstrate that the metalexicographic analysis applied to cognitive studies enables us to observe some interesting linguistic trends which reflect sociocultural attitudes towards, among others, erotic issues.


Introduction
This paper is inspired by the results of our previous investigation on Peninsular Spanish erotic lexicon realized in 2012 as part of my doctoral thesis entitled La imagen lingüísica de la relación erótica en el léxico español (Popek-Bernat, 2012).The study consisted in the reconstruction of cognitive domains in terms of which sexual intercourse is conceptualized by Spaniards depending on a particular erotic formulation they use.In order to do that we analyzed expressions semantically connected with the activity of copulation.They were selected from Diccionario del sexo y el erotismo [DSE] by Félix Rodríguez González (2011).
A thorough examination of the erotic meanings of each of those lexical units compared to the analysis of their sense resulting from the lexicographic definitions registered in general Spanish dictionaries (DRAE, 2001 andClave, 2004) allowed me to detect some source domains, that is conceptual spheres which provide means to understand the concept of erotic relationship grounded in Spanish and in the consciousness of its speakers.Following the premises of Cognitive Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), I assumed that the conceptual representations of a term stored in the minds of people belonging to a specific social group are reflected in their language and they are based on the transfer between the source and the target domain. 1In other words, I believe the linguistic forms we use to talk about particular ideas evoke concepts which belong to different areas of human experience.For example, the sentences You're wasting my time or This gadget will save you hours evoke the conceptual metaphor time is money, where money is the source domain in terms of which time, the target domain, is conceptualized (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, pp. 7-8).
My study on Spanish sex terms confirmed the veracity of the claims of Lakoff and Johnson on the systematic character of metaphors implicit in the language that shape the conceptual system of human beings (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, pp. 7-9).Only 23 from among 410 lexical units analyzed in my doctoral dissertation were not ascribed to any domain as it was impossible to reproduce the image of sexual intercourse implicit in them. 2 The rest of the expressions turned out to be the linguistic elaborations of the cognitive metaphors with 20 major overlapping source domains (see Figure 1, p. 135).That means that almost 95% of Spanish expressions referring to coitus constitute a coherent conceptual system.
It needs to be emphasized that the conclusions drawn from the research in question went further as the investigation revealed also some other observations of interest concerning, inter alia, the ways of conceptualising human genitalia typical of the Spanish language.In the following article, I propose to contrast these considerations resulting from the study on Spanish erotic lexicon with the analysis of Polish expressions related to sexual intercourse, which refer more or less explicitly to female and male genitals.Our aim is to compare the ways of conceptualizing human sex organs in both languages.
In my opinion, such a contrastive study between Polish and Spanish is fairly interesting not only from the linguistic but also sociocultural point of view.It should be remembered that sex topics were social taboos during Franco's dictatorship in Spain (cf.e.g.Regueillet, 2004) and under communist regime in Poland (cf.e.g.Sieczkowski, 2014).Although after political transformations (in 1975 and 1989, respectively) it ceased to be forbidden to publicly discuss about the sexual sphere in these countries, it is important to point out that the ideological changes in both societies have not evolved in the same way.While the Spanish have become rather liberal in their attitudes towards sex related issues (cf.Solsten & Meditz, 1988), the Polish have remained quite conservative and prudish (cf.Kościańska, 2012Kościańska, , 2014;;Tumiłowicz, 2004;Sosnowski, 2014).One of the evidences of that may be found in different legal regulations on abortion or homsexuality which are in force in Poland and Spain.It is worth to observe whether and to what extent these social trends are reflected in the language.Bearing in mind the previous points, it may seem that the Polish erotic vocabulary is not only less rich than the Spanish one, but also less daring when it comes to the ways of conceptualising the elements of reality connected with sex (such as genitalia) and encoded in linguistic forms.The following paragraphs will try to answer the question whether this presumption is indeed true.

Research material and methods
In order to carry out the study, I meticulously examined verbal and phraseological erotic expressions registered in Polish and Spanish dictionaries of sex terms, which are Słownik seksualizmów polskich by Jacek Lewinson (1999) and previously mentioned Diccionario del sexo y el erotismo by Félix Rodríguez González (2011). 3y erotic expressions I understand lexical units which are semantically connected with the activity of heterosexual intercourse.It would be certainly interesting to analyze as well the erotic expressions related to homosexual intercourse or other sexual practices and compare the obtained results with the research on lexicon used in heterosexual relationships context.Nevertheless, it would exceed the limits of this article due to the abundance of the vocabulary necessary to be investigated.
As for the methodology of the research, I applied the analytical procedures developed in my doctoral thesis, based on the ideas originally drawn up by the Praglejaaz Group (2007), which were posteriorly adapted by the investigators from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Siqueira et al., 2009).The main tool in their studies on metaphor, as well as in mine, were dictionaries.Although in my work I didn't follow all the criteria established by those groups of researchers (for example, I didn't search for the potentially metaphorical words in discourse, I didn't verify the productivity of metaphors nor the resistance of their linguistic elaborations to literal paraphrases), I pretended to demonstrate that the motivation of cognitive metaphors encoded in the lexicon may be found precisely in lexicographic definitions.
The procedure elaborated in my doctoral dissertation aimed at recreating the source domains of sexual intercourse implicit in Spanish erotic expresions consisted of 5 stages: 1. selecting the lexicographic units of interest from the specialized dictionary of sex and erotic terms by Rodríguez González (2011), 2. searching for their non erotic meaning(s) in general Spanish dictionaries (even if they seemed obvious), 4 3. comparing their erotic and non erotic meanings, 4. searching for the visual or typological analogies between the image of erotic and non erotic activities evoked by a particular lexical unit, 5. reconstructing metaphorical projection(s) of sexual intercourse possibly encoded in a particular expression.To give en example, the verb singar, which in the erotic context denotes the activity of having sex (Rodríguez González, 2011, p. 968) [stage 1], in general Spanish means "rowing with a paddle mounted on the stern of aboat, handled in such a way that produces a forward movement" (DRAE, 2014, the translation is mine 5 ) [stage 2].The comparison of erotic and non erotic meanings of this lexical item allows us to observe some analogies between the image of erotic and non erotic activities which it evokes [stage 3].The activity of rowing understood as described above does not resemble the most popular technique of doing so, i.e. when somebody causes a boat movement with two oars fixed on the left and right broadside, submerging them partially in the water and removing them up repeatedly.The lexicographic definition from DRAE suggests that the verb singar is semantically connected with a specific rowing technique called "over the stern sculling".It consists in propelling a boat by means of a single oar worked from the stern without removing it from the water and rotated vigorously in form of the figure of eight.Given that, the analogies between the image of this non erotic activity and sexual act are clearly noticeable.The analyzed lexical item encodes the vision of the phallus which receives attributes of an oar submerged in the water.On the other hand, the properties of water, like humidity, shall be associated with the properties of female vagina during the act of copulation [stage 4].It is important to note that the verb singar evokes the image of a penis introduced into a vagina rotating horizontally and thus making circles in the form of the the figure of eight.Taking everything into account, the image of the sexual intercourse projected by the lexical unit in question allude to one of the Kamasutra sex positions called the super eight 6  [stage 4].All of this provides us means to reconstruct the metaphorical projection of sex act implicit in the verb singar, based on its association with a specific sort of a MOVEMENT (which is considered as one of the source domains of sexual intercourse in Spanish) [stage 5].
It is necessary to highlight that when a lexical unit seleted from the erotic glossary by Rodríguez González had more than one definition in general Spanish dictionaries, we analyzed all of the elements of the entry related to it.The lexicographic consultations contributed to deeper analysis and better structurization of detected source domains.It turned out that some of the lexical units are linguistic elaborations of several overlapping and interrelated source domains at once.It demonstrates a strong connection with the claims of Langacker, according to whom all of the meanings of a particular lexical unit are correlated metaphorically or metonymically (Langacker, 1995, pp. 15-16).
The meanings I took into account when assigning the lexical units with many lexicographic definitions to the particular conceptual domains were not selected at random.If they raised doubts, they needed to be consistent in erotic and general context as to the criterion of transitivity and intransitivity.
Furthermore, when it comes to the analysis of compound expressions, I checked the meanings of each of the units they are formed of.I believe that the motivation of phraseological units should be searched in the meaning (or meanings) of their particular elements.It is useful to note that many cognitive linguists give a lot of examples which confirm that "the idiomatic expressions find their motivation in the interpretation of their parts [. . .] since they provide the clues necessary to unravel the global interpretation of the expression of interest" (Cuenca & Hilferty, 2007, p. 118, the translation is mine7 ).
Following the research methodology described above, for the purposes of the contrastive study presented in this paper we consulted the general Polish and Spanish dictionaries to establish non erotic meanings of the sex related lexical items selected from the glossaries by Lewinson and Rodríguez González.In case of Polish, we used Słownik języka polskiego PWN (2013, online version) [SJP].In case of Spanish, DRAE : Diccionario de la lengua española (2014, online version) [DRAE].The comparison of the erotic and general meanings of selected erotic terms realized according to the 5 stages procedure from my doctoral thesis allowed us to recreate the ways of conceptualizing female and male genitalia encoded in Polish and Spanish.
3. Quantitative aspects and study of selected cases Among 410 Spanish erotic expressions registered in Diccionario del sexo y el erotismo (Rodríguez González, 2011) and over 1.000 Polish ones registered in Słownik seksualizmów polskich (Lewinson, 1999) we found 153 Spanish and 279 Polish lexical items that encode some specific conceptualizations of human genitalia.These numbers may seem surprising, especially if we take into account the sociocultural factors described in the Introduction.They demonstrate that Polish erotic lexicon is not so poor as expected in comparison with the Spanish one. 8ll of the reconstructed metaphorical projections of male and female sex organs implicit in Spanish and Polish were based on visual analogies between human sex organs and different types of objects evoked by the lexicographic definitions of analyzed erotic expressions found in general dictionaries.Furthemore, they represented different levels of explicitness in both lexicons.

Cases of highly explicit conceptualizations of human genitalia
Many expressions referring to heterosexual intercourse in Polish and Spanish allude to male and/or female genitalia in a fairly explicit way.The lexicographical definitions of these lexical items registered in general dictionaries do not require deeper analysis to reconstruct the conceptual projections of human sex organs encoded in them, because they (or their particular elements, in case of compound expressions) have only one meaning grounded in Polish and/or Spanish, which suggest clearly a concrete way of conceptualising the genitals.The examples of such expressions with their literal translations into English (in brackets) are presented in Table 1.The study of general meanings of the expressions included in Table 1 followed by searching for the visual analogies between erotic and non erotic concepts evoked by particular lexical units enabled me to observe some similarities between Spanish and Polish when it comes to the type of attributes assigned to penis and vulva through the lexicon.In both languages male sex organ is conceptualized in terms of something narrow and long (e. , what demonstrates that the conceptual image of penetration encoded in Polish and Spanish lexical items is not only full of male violence (as it could seem taking into account some of the penis conceptualizations mentioned in Table 3) but also of woman's pleasure (vulvar humidity sensation is one of the symptoms of woman's sexual excitation).

Cases of less explicit ways of conceptualizing human genitalia
The most numerous group of erotic expressions selected from dictionaries by Rodríguez González (2011) and Lewinson (1999) is constituted by the lexical items in case of which the reconstruction of a particular conceptualization of human genitalia requires deeper metalexicographic studies.To illustrate, in the following lines I will describe the process of recreating some of these conceptualizations implicit in the lexical items included in Table 2.As for the Polish verb "bóść", it is a variant of the form "bodnąć" which, according to SJP, means "to hit with something sharp, pointed".9Without a meticulous analysis of the lexicographical definition it would be difficult to reconstruct a specific metaphorical projection of genitalia encoded in this lexical item.If we search for the analogies between the image of sex act and non erotic activity evoked by the verb in question, it turnes out that the phallus receives attributes of a dangerous instrument or a tool which causes pain or even injuries.In this case, the vagina is perceived as the object of the action of that instrument.Therefore, the sexual penetration, to which the verb "bóść" makes evident reference, is linguistically conceptualized in Polish as something violent and unpleasant (to woman).
It is interesting to observe that some lexical units may evoke different ways of conceptualizing human genitals.It is the case, among others, of the Spanish verb "arropar", which has more than one lexicographical definition in DRAE.One of its meanings is connected with the activity of "covering or wrapping with a piece of clothes".10Taking that into account, the image of covering the body with the clothing resulting from that definition shall be associated in a non erotic context with the image of covering the penis during the copulation with the vagina walls.The vagina receives then the attributes of a sort of outerwear.Nevetheless, according to another lexicographical definition of the verb "arropar", it can also mean "to cover the grafted vine with a mound of earth to preserve it from the action of heat and cold".11Provided that and following the stages 3 and 4 of our research procedure described in section 2, we detected some visual analogies between the grafted wine and penis.The shape and form of this plant remind a stiff penis in erect state.Having considered that, the image of the vagina projected through the lexical unit in question alludes to the image of the earth to which the grafted wine is introduced, like the penis during the penetration.
As for the idiomatic expression "medir el aceite", which in English literally means "to check the oil level", the possible references to human sex organs encoded in this lexical item are hardly noticeable.In order to detect them it is necessary to visualize a non erotic activity denoted by this Spanish idiom.Checking oil level is a standard control procedure recommended from time to time during the exploitation of vehicles.It consists in inserting a thin stick to the oil tank.The stick, provided with a special measure, indicates the oil level after pulling it out.The image of this activity projected onto erotic context constitutes an allusion to the heterosexual penetration, in which the vagina is conceptualized in terms of a container (oil tank) and the penis in terms of a tiny bar (dipstick) introduced inside.
In order to reconstruct the ways of conceptualizing human genitals encoded in the expression "nasadzić na prawidło", it is also necessary to study scrupulously its non erotic meaning and recreate the image of activity which it evokes.Taking into account the lexicographical definitions of the particular elements of this compound lexical item registered in SJP, we can translate it into English in the following way: "to put on a form in the shape of the foot, inserted to the shoe in order to maintain its shape".12This definition suggests clearly that the attributes of a stiff shoe stretcher are ascribed to the penis introduced into the vagina.The female sex organ is associated in this case with a shoe.We shall point out that the analyzed idiom alludes to a concrete position of lovers during the act of copulation, since the shoe (i.e.vagina) is put on13 a shoe stretcher (i.e.penis).Obviously the shoe stretcher may be also put in14 the shoe, which, in erotic context, would evoke the image of the penetration of woman passively submitted to the man, who introduces his penis into the vagina.In case of putting the shoe on a shoe stretcher we are dealing with a reverse image of the penetration, which is generated by the activity of a woman, who is probably sitting on her motionless sexual partner in the lying position.
It is interesting to note that in Polish as well as in Spanish we can find other lexical items which encode fairly similar conceptualizations of human genitalia to those evoked by the idiom "nasadzić na prawidło".For example, among Spanish erotic expressions there is a verb "calzar(se)", which, according to one of its lexicographical definitions included in DRAE, means "to cover a foot or sometimes a leg with a shoe". 15It should be treated as the equivalent of a Polish verb "obuć" / "obuwać" (in English: to put one's shoes on).Given that, there is no doubt that both expressions evoke the image of vagina provided with the attributes of a shoe, and the image of penis conceptualized in terms of a foot or leg (instead of a shoe stretcher).

Research results and conclusions
The study of cases presented in Section 3 demonstrates that the analysis of lexicographical definitions followed by the search for the analogies between different type of activities evoked by particular lexical items enables us not only to detect and identify the metaphorical projections encoded in the lexicon, but also to reconstruct precisely the elements of reality of our interest.
The research on Polish and Spanish erotic expressions carried out according to the analytical procedure described in Section 2 revealed that these two lexicons encode generally the same ways of conceptualizing male and female genitalia, although some specific linguistic elaborations of a particular metaphorical projection may differ.
As for the conceptualizations of the male sex organ, it turned out that in both languages there are many lexical items which evoke the image of the penis alluding to different types of weapons, musical instruments, writing or drawing tools, sharp and dangerous objects, paddles or oars, needle and candle (see Table 3)  Polish Spanish fact that there are some natural conceptual differences like that between Spanish and Polish, resulting mainly from different culinary cultures of Poland and Spain, we shall emphazize that there are some similarities as well.For example, both Spanish and Polish erotic expressions make reference to male sex organ in terms of EGGS [examples 6,13]   Another observation of interest resulting from our study is that sometimes male and female genitalia are conceptualized in a similar way.To illustrate, both Spanish and Polish abound in expressions which refer to the penis and the vagina in terms of different PLANTS and ANIMALS (see Table 6).We shall point out that there are some inter and intralinguistic differences referring to specific metaphorical projections of male and female sex organs.For example, in Spanish the vagina is associated with parsley root [example 3] and the penis with chives [example 2] or, metonymically, with broad been [example 1].In Polish, by contrast, female sex organ is conceptualized in terms of a bed [example 4] and male sex organ in terms of different flowers [examples 4, 5].As for the animal conceptualizations, in Spanish vagina receives attributes of a lobster [example 6] and in Polish of a rabbit [example 9].Penis, by contrast, is conceptualized in terms of a sardine in Spanish [example 7] and of a bird, like cuckoo or pelican, in Polish [examples 10,12].It is interesting to point out that in both languages male sex organ may be also associated with a horse [examples 8 and 11].It should be stressed that there are more parallels referring to the ways of conceptualizing male and female genitalia, which do not necessarily have interlinguistic but above all intralinguistic character.As it was mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are several Polish erotic expressions which evoke the image of human genitalia in terms of plants.Nevertheless, the types of these plants are different.While the penis is projected rather in terms of a flower [see example 4, Table 6], the vagina, by contrast, receives attributes of a bed [example 5, Table 6].In Spanish, on the other hand, male and female sex organs are often projected in terms of food but, as in the case of Polish, the specific metaphorical projections of the penis and the vagina are different.For example, we indetified some expressions which encode the conceptualizations of the vagina in terms of a jellybean or a clam (e.g.comer la gominola, comer la almejilla) and the conceptualizations of the penis in terms of a saussage or a sponge cake (e.g.mojar la salchica, mojar el bizcocho).
Another noticeable characteristic of the studied material is that there are some conceptual and lexical equivalences between the erotic expressions referring to male and female sex organs in both languages.To give an example, the dictionary by Rodríguez González registers a verb "enchufar".Its Polish lexical equivalent, the verb "gniazdkować", is included in the dictionary by Lewinson.Both terms are semantically connected in the non erotic context with the activity of plugging something in.The analysis of their erotic and non erotic meanings demonstrates that there is a conceptual equivalence between the metaphorical projections of the sex act evoked by these lexical items.The lexicographical definitions of these verbs in general Spanish and Polish dictionaries suggest clearly that they evoke the image of the vagina and the phallus which receive the attributes of electric socket and a plug, respectively.All of this confirms the observation made by Jacek Lewinson, according to whom "sex terms often form semantic pairs within particular semantic fields" (1999, p. 352). 19t must be noted that there are several Polish and Spanish erotic expressions that evoke some ways of conceptualizing of human genitals which do not exist in the second language.For example, in Polish the penis receives the attributes of a brush [see examples [3][4][5]   To conclude, it needs to be emphazized that the cognitive studies based on metalexicographic analysis have great research potential and may lead to some interesting inter and intralinguistic observations.
In the future it would be interesting to extend our study to other languages.It would be also worth to reconstruct the ways of conceptualizing human genitalia encoded in erotic expressions related, for example, to homosexual intercourse and in different types of discourse.
Figure 1: g. bar [see examples V and XII], stilt [examples VI and XIII], saussage [example IX]), often tapering towards the end (e.g.flute [examples I and VIII], pen [example II]), or ended with something sharp (e.g.nail or pin [examples IV, VII, XI]).Furthermore, in Polish as well as in Spanish penis is associated with some animals, like bird [example III] or sardine [example X].The vulva, in contrast, is conceptualized as a kind of an opening or a shelter (e.g.hole [example VII], nest [example III], cave [example XIV]).In both languages it receives also characteristics of something wet [examples I, II, IX] and in Spanish of a finger [see examples 1, 2].Furthermore, human genitals are often anthropomorphized in Polish [see examples 7-9].The Spanish lexicon, by contrast, includes expressions which contain unique references to the elements of tauromachia [example 6].

Table 1 :
Expressions with highly explicit conceptualizations of geniatlia -examples.

Table 2 :
Expressions with less explicit conceptualizations of geniatlia -examples.

Table 3 :
Some conceptualizations of PENIS encoded in Spanish and Polish lexicon.Examples of linguistic elaborations of detected metaphorical projections.

Table 4 :
Conceptualizations of penis in terms of food products encoded in Spanish and Polish lexicon.Examples of linguistic elaborations of detected metaphorical projections.
18 or meat products like saussage [examples 2, 9].Among Polish and Spanish expressions which refer in more or less explicit way to female sex organ, we detected some cases of vagina's concetpualizations in terms of a narrow hole, in which we may introduce a button or a shoelace [see examples 1, 3, respectively] or which is formed as a result of some destructive activity [see examples 2, 4], decorative object [see examples 5, 6], something wet [see examples 7, 8], or a sort of a cover [see examples 9-12].

Table 5 :
Some conceptualizations of vagina encoded in Spanish and Polish lexicon.Examples of linguistic elaborations of detected metaphorical projections.

Table 6 :
Some shared conceptualizations of penis and vagina encoded in Spanish and Polish lexicon.Examples of linguistic elaborations of detected metaphorical projections.

Table 7 :
Unique conceptualizations of PENIS and VAGINA encoded in Spanish and Polish lexicon.