Geo-environmental Factors in Three Persian Folk Stories: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Stories mirror the essential function of human cognitive activity. In the present preliminary study, we hypothesized that the mental spaces that make up the stories can be influenced by the environmental conditions of their creators. For this purpose, three stories from three different climatic zones in Iran were selected and a content analysis method was used to analyze their components. Results showed significant differences between the mental spaces of different geographic regions in these three stories.  This finding could be considered as a step taken to show the extent to which an individual’s cognition and cognitive processing in general and the creation of meaning in particular, is an extension and representation of embodied experience. We have discussed the subject in the framework of narrative analysis as well as cognitive semantics.