The present study attempted to investigate the features of conceptual metaphor and metonymy and any differences between them in Iranian and American newspapers from a cognitive-semantic perspective. This research employed a mixed methodology based on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) typology of metaphor and metonymy in their book Metaphors We Live By. To do so, two Iranian newspapers intended for speakers of English as a foreign language, namely Iran daily and Tehran Times, and two American newspapers intended for native English speakers, namely The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were selected. 233 and 219 metaphorical headlines were identified in the American and the Iranian newspapers respectively. In addition, 320 and 502 metonymies were identified in the American and Iranian newspapers headlines respectively. In order to answer the research questions, the 22nd version of Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used with a descriptive-statistic approach. The results indicated that there are no statistically significant differences between metaphors in the Iranian and the American newspapers. Ontological metaphors were the most frequent type of metaphor observed in the American newspapers and orientational metaphors were seen more in the Iranian newspapers. However, there was a remarkable statistical difference between metonymy in the Iranian and the American newspaper headlines. Unlike metaphor, metonymy was more frequent in the Iranian newspapers. The results also showed that the newspaper headlines are systematic and conventional in both Iranian and American newspapers. In addition, no different cultural features were found among the Iranian and American metaphorical headlines. Finally, this study implied that EFL teachers can use metaphor and metonymy in teaching vocabulary, particularly in context, in order to make learning reading comprehension easier. Accordingly, a number of techniques to teach metaphor and metonymy in news headli
