Metaphor A
Metaphor A
Abstract
This article discusses the pervasiveness of metaphors in ezvii/dm/ Shona language.
It argues that metaphorical expressions are not mere ivonis, but they are part of a
much bigger way of conceptualizing tilings. Examples me given to shoiv how
everyday metaphorical expressions are based on a much larger set of conceptual
metaphors. The article takes a cognitive view ivhich sees metaphors as one of the
basic human strategies for dealing with our environment in that we use existing
physical concepts in our environment to conceptualize more abstract concepts.
This kind of metaphorical extension from one domain to another plays a very
important role in the extension of the lexicon.
Introduction
Metaphor has been studied from a number of different perspectives, from
time immemorial. It is studied in a wide variety of disciplines including,
linguistics, philosophy, literary studies, psychology and education among
others. Some scholars have traced the study of metaphor to as far back as
the Aristotelian era. In Aristotle's well-known works Poetics and Rhetoric
most studies focus on his discussion of the place of metaphor in language
as well as its relationship with communication. For a long time the dominant
view of metaphor was that it is the "exclusive domain of literary scholars
and the odd linguist who was interested in rhetoric or stylistics"(Ungerer
and Schmid 1996: 114). This traditional view of metaphor in which it is
regarded as a linguistic phenomenon which falls largely in the realm of
"poetic" or "figurative" language relegates this very important phenomenon
to the level of an "ornamental device used in rhetorical style" (L'ngerer and
Schmid 1996: 114).
Lately many works have been written that question this traditional notion
of metaphor. No attempt is made in this article to chronicle the development
of metaphor research. This article focuses on what we call the "everyday
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N. E. Mberi 73
standing for honesty or moral purity. She also says that this system of
metaphorical uses of colour terms is not based on a systematic correlation
between colours and morality in the world but is present in the speakers'
linguistic and cultural models.
Most students of Shona would give the following examples of metaphor:
Table 1
(1) Tendai ishumba Tendai "a name" shumba "lion" anoshanda chaizvo
pabasa "he is hardworking"
(2) mukomana uyu mukomana "boy" nguruve "pig" "ane hutsvina"
inguruve "he is a dirty person"
yemunhu
(3) murume uyu murume "man" bere "hyena" anotya chaizvo
ibere remunhu "lie is a coward"
OR
anoda nyama
zvakanyanya
"he likes meat a lot"
metaphor was defined as "a novel or poetic linguistic expression where one
or more words for a concept are used outside of their normal conventional
meaning to express a "similar concept" (Lakoff 1993: 02). This brings us to
the third assumption of the traditional approach to metaphor. There has to
be literal language first, for us to have metaphor.
We argue that there are instances in Shona, in which we have metaphorical
language that does not seem to start from literal language. We will come
back to these assumptions later on after we have discussed the levels of
metaphor.
Levels of Metaphor
It is not possible, in this article, to discuss all levels of metaphor. By levels of
metaphor we are referring to the following types of metaphor as was
suggested by Dirven (1985: 88) that are determined by the level of linguistic
structure that we will be looking at as shown in Table 2 below.
Table 2:
Levels of Linguistic Structure Type of Metaphor
Dirven uses the term sound metaphor to refer to this phenomenon where
"given sound combinations are used in a great number of words with
specific meanings" (Dirven 1985: 88). He gives the example of the
combination sw- in English which is used in motion words that show
'curved' or 'swift' action and he gives the examples of words like swewe,
swing, swipe, swift, swell, swirl and szvarm. In Shona, there are verbs which
start with the combination dh- in words like,
-dhuguka, "come out or go out quickly-making some noise"
-dhuma, "strike against", -dhubuka "come out quickly from small mouth
(liquid)",
-dhuuka, "loud explosion", -dhovhora "pierce soft object", -dhonora
"constant hitting with hard object on a hard surface" where the sound / d /
in this set of words meaning something making a heavy sound.2
Word metaphors are those words that are used as "new vehicles for
already familiar or newly experienced tenors." In Shona, for example, the
word ziso "eye" is the vehicle of many different tenors as can be seen in
Table 3 below. Two examples are given below:
"soft dogs are the ones that chew the animal skins"
"quiet people can do the unexpected"
In the above proverb the expressive power of imbwa nyoro "soft dogs"
only comes out as a result of the combination of the two vehicles imbwa
"dogs" and nyoro "soft".
As for the discourse metaphors, there are many animal stories in Shona
which are "anthropomorphized" in the same fashion as George Orwell's
Animal Farm. It should be pointed out that any attempt to divide these
metaphors into discrete levels will always be arbitrary because boundaries
between these levels are fuzzy.
This article focuses on word metaphors because they clearly illustrate the
pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday Shona language and they also show
how metaphor plays an important role in extending the lexicon. This article
builds on Pongweni (1989)'s work on figurative language in Shona.
Pongweni (1989) is the only "odd linguist" who started abandoning the
traditional view of metaphor and analyses metaphors in a number of Shona
novels. In our view, Pongweni (1989) does not go far enough in showing
the pervasiveness of the "everyday metaphor."
And in the process, everyday abstract concepts like time, states, change,
causation, and purpose also turn out to be metaphorical.
Table 3 below illustrates how a single word; ziso "eye" can be used
metaphorically in a number of ways to show how everyday language is rife
with metaphorical expressions.
Table 3
Metaphor Literal Translation Meaning
3. The anthropomorphic model uses human body parts as source models and the
zoomorphic model takes the animal body parts as source models while the
environmental landmark model takes such landmarks as the river, the sky, the
house, and others as the source models in metaphorical extension. For a detailed
discussion of these models see Svorou (1994).
N. E. Mberi 79
(b) matama cheeks matama enzira "the cheeks of the path" i.e "edges
of the path"
(c) huma forehead huma yechitima "the forehead of a train" i.e. "the
front face of the engine"
(d) mwoyo heart mwoyo wechibage "the heart of a maize seed" i.e.
"the nucleus of the maize seed"
-tora mwoyo "take someone's heart" i.e. "fall in
love with that person"
-rasa mwoyo "throw away one's heart" i.e. "get
disheartened"
(e) ziso eye ziso regumbo "the eye of tht leg'' i.e "ankle"
(g) gumbo leg gumbo rechigaro "the leg of a chair or stool" i.e.
one of those parts of a stool or cliair that enables it to
stand"
(h) muromo mouth muromo wegejo "the mouth of the plough" i.e.
"the part of the plough that cuts into the soil" or "the
ploitghshave"
(i) dumbu stomach dumbu rechitima "the stomach of train" i.e. "the
middle carringes of the train"
(j) muswe tail kumuswe kwechitima "the tail of a train" i.e. "the
last carriages of the train"
80 Metaphors in Shona: A Cognitive Approach
Table 5: Shona Landmark Terms and Other Terms from Our Environment
as Sources of Metaphorical E x p r e s s i o n s
a) denga sky denga remba "the sky of the house" i.e. "the roof of
the house"
b) nyoka snake nyoka yemunhu "a person who is a snake" i.e "a
dangerous double dealer"
c)zizi owl zizi remunhu chairo "he is a real owl" i.e. "he
works all ii:-;ht"
d) rwizi river ropa rakaita rwizi "the blood was like a river" i.e.
"a lot of blood was spilled"
f) mhepo wind musha wapinda mhepo "a wind has got into the
village" "a quick spreading disease or problem has
gripped a village" e.g. a series ot deaths
i) mutara a type of tree nyaya yakwira mutara "this issue has climbed a
mutara tree" i.e. "the issue has become more difficult"
In this metaphor the TRAIN-IS-A-BODY, the train is the target and the
body is the source. There is a movement from the source domain to the
target domain. The body that is referred to here is obviously not that of a
human being but most likely that of a reptile like a snake or it can be that of
a millipede. There are a number of other metaphorical expressions that
would fit into this conceptual system. Some of them are found in the set of
examples that are given in Table 4. Examples 4(c), 4(i) and 4(j) are
metaphorical expressions, which have body-parts as source domains, and
they are all coming from this conceptual metaphor where the train is a
body.
4 (c) huma yechitima "forehead of the train" i.e. " thefrontface of the train"
4 (i) dumbu rechitima "the stomach of the train" i.e. "the middle carriages
of a train"
4 (j) kumuswe kwechitima "the tail of the train" i.e. "the lastfeiv carriages
of a train (from the engine of the train )"
time. In this case we are using our existing knowledge about the human
body in order to reason about the family unit. Using the metaphorical
expression baba musoro wemba "the father is head of the family", we are
not just substituting one word with another but it also means defining the
roles of other members of the family. For example, the position of the
mother and the position of the children within that family is reasoned using
our knowledge about the body. The whole structure of the family can easily
be decoded from the mappings that we find in these metaphorical
expressions. Metaphor as we have pointed out earlier ceases to a matter of
just words. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1999: 60) metaphors form "a
huge part of our conceptual system and affect how we think and what we
care about almost every waking moment."
The next metaphor that we get from the metaphorical expressions in
Table 4 is that which takes a STORY-IS-A-BODY as we find in the expression
musoro wenyaya "the head of the story" .i.e. "the main issue." As we saw in
the other body metaphors above, there is a mapping from a story, which
has episodes or events. The mapping as mentioned above involves
"ontological correspondences" between our knowledge of a STORY and
our knowledge of a BODY. The main correspondence in this metaphor is
the one we get from the metaphorical expression musoro wenyaya "the
head of the story" i.e. "the main issue." Other correspondences would involve
other parts of the body. Take for example the last concluding episode (that
is if the episodes are arranged linearly) would correspond to the tail of the
story.
There are so many metaphorical expressions involving the head that one
finds in everyday Shona language. A few of these examples are found in
Table 4 above and two of these are given as examples (7) and (8) below.
Sadunhu "Subchief"
Conclusion
In this article we argue that the pervasiveness of the "everyday metaphor"
has not been recognized in Shona linguistic studies because of the traditional
view of metaphor in which it is regarded as merely a linguistic phenomenon.
We take a contemporary cognitive view of metaphor which sees metaphors
not just as words but as part of a much bigger way of conceptualizing
things.
In our efforts to show that metaphors are not a property of language but
a property of our conceptual system we gave examples of metaphdrical
expressions as well as the bigger conceptual metaphors from which these
metaphorical expressions are derived. We showed that in these metaphorical
N. E. Mberi 87
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