Cover not available
Part of
Language, Culture and Identity – Signs of Life
Edited by Vera da Silva Sinha, Ana Moreno-Núñez and Zhen Tian
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 13] 2020
► pp. 181–202

Chapter 9
Embodiment, personification, identity

Metaphor and world view in a Brazilian Tupian culture and language

 | Federal University of Rondônia
 | University of East Anglia
 | Hunan University
In this paper we address ontological metaphorical linguistic expressions in a Brazilian Tupian language and culture, based on conceptual metaphor theory. We focus on metaphors of personification and body part constructions in the Amondawa language; analyzing examples from retellings of mythical narrative texts and from complex sentences and compound words. We explore the relations for the speakers of this indigenous language between their experience of physical and mythical domains and their linguistic conceptualizations, as a window to understanding the relations between language, thought, identity and culture. We offer a speculative interpretation of the pervasiveness of personification in this language in terms of an ontology claimed to be common in Amazonian cultures, that in anthropology goes by the name of perspectivism.
Keywords: conceptual metaphor, personification, Amazonian languages, Tupian languages, perspectivism
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The language-thought-culture-identity nexus
  • Metaphor, embodiment and personification
  • Personification in the everyday language of the Amondawa people
    • Personification of moon, stars and night in the retelling of the myth of the moon
    • The personification of the house through body part metaphor
    • Personification in nominal constructions
    • Figurative metaphors based on embodiment/personification
    • Descriptive nominalization based on similitude/association
  • Concluding reflections
  • Notes
  • References
  • Dictionaries
Published online: 30 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.13.09sam
References (45)
References
Brugman, Claudia. 1983. “The use of body-part terms as locatives in Chalcatongo Mixtec.” Survey of Californian and Other Indian Languages 4, 239–290.Google Scholar
Cabral, Ana Suelly A. C. and Rodrigues, Aryon Dall’Igna. 2002. “Revendo a classificação interna da família Tupi-Guarani.” In Atas do I Encontro Internacional do GTLI da ANPOLL, Ana Suelly A. C. Cabral and Aryon D. Rodrigues (eds). Brasilia: Universidad de Brasilia.Google Scholar
Casad, Eugene H. 1982. Cora locations and structured imagery [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of California, San Diego, United States of America.Google Scholar
Cherubin, Sebastião. 1989. “Estilística semántica.” Semina, 10 (3): 150–162. Londrina: Universidade Estadual de Londrina.Google Scholar
Christison, Mary Ann. 2010. “Negotiating multiple language identities.” In Language and culture: reflective narratives and the emergence of identity, David Nunan and Julie Choi (eds), 74–81. New York/London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. 1973. “Space, time, semantics and the child.” In Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, Timothy E. Moore (ed.), 27–63. New York: Academic Press.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Descola, Philippe. 2013. Beyond nature and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, Paul. 1979. “Poetic language and the imagination: A reformulation of the Sapir hypothesis.” In Language, Context, and the Imagination: Essays, Paul Friedrich and Anwar S. Dil, 441–512. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. 1994. The poetics of mind: figurative thought, language and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs Raymond W.Jr. 2006. Metaphor interpretation as embodied simulation. Mind and Language, 21: 434-458. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goschler, Juliana. 2005. “Embodiment and body metaphors.” In metaphorik.de 9, [URL]
Jensen de López, Kristine. 2002. Baskets and body parts: A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic investigation of children’s development of spatial cognition and language [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.Google Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltán. 2005. Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. “Metaphor, language and culture.” D.E.L.T.A. 26 especial: 739–757. [URL]
. 2015. Where metaphors come from: Reconsidering context in metaphor. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire and dangerous things: what categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. 1980a. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
. 1980b. “Conceptual metaphor in everyday language.” Journal of Philosophy 77: 453–486. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2002. Metáforas da vida cotidiana [Coleção As Faces da Linguística Aplicada]. Campinas: Mercado de Letras.Google Scholar
. 2003. Metaphors we live by. With a new afterword. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leontiev, Alexei N. 1980. “O homem e a cultura.” In O papel da cultura nas ciências sociais [Coleção rosa-dos-ventos, vol. 3]. Friedrich Engels, Clifford Geertz, Zygmunt Bauman, Aleixei N. Leontiev and Eduardo Marcarian, 37–72. Porto Alegre: Editorial Villa Martha Ltda.Google Scholar
MacLaury, Robert. 1989. “Zapotec body-part locatives: Prototypes and metaphoric extensions.” International Journal of American Linguistics 55: 119–154. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mussolf, Andreas. 2004. “Metaphor and conceptual evolution.” In metaphorik.de 7, [URL]
Norton, Bonny. 1997. “Language, identity, and the ownership of English.” TESOL Quarterly 31 (3): 409–429.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nunan, David and Choi, Julie. 2010. “Language, culture and identity: Framing the Issues.” In Language and culture: reflective narratives and the emergence of identity, David Nunan and Julie Choi (eds), 1–13. New York/London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polletta, Francesca and Jasper, James M. 2001. “Collective identity and social movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 27: 283–305. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rodrigues, Aryon Dall’Igna. 1986. Línguas Brasileiras: para o conhecimento das línguas indígenas. São Paulo: Loyola.Google Scholar
Sampaio, Wany Bernardete de Araujo and Anastassioy, Cristiane de Oliveira. 2006. Espaço, movimento e metáfora em Amondawa: análise de sentenças complexas [Unpublished research report]. Porto Velho: Universidade Federal de Rondônia.Google Scholar
Sampaio, Wany Bernardete de Araujo and Lamarão, Joeliza Bezerra. 2015. “Metáfora ontológica: a personificação na narrativa mítica e nos processos de formação de palavras tupí.” Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica 7 (1). [URL]
Sampaio, Wany Bernardete de Araujo and Chaves, Janaína Kelly Leite. 2006. Espaço, movimento e metáfora em Amondawa: análise de textos narrativos [Unpublished research report]. Porto Velho: Universidade Federal de Rondônia.Google Scholar
Sharifian, Farzad. 2011. Cultural conceptions and language: theoretical framework and applications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silva, Alba Valéria Tinoco Alves. 2011. “Metáfora e Metonímia: o traço de união entre os compostos.” RBLA, Belo Horizonte 11: 27–45.Google Scholar
Silva, Tomaz Tadeu. 2004. “A produção social da identidade e da diferença.” In Identidade e diferença: a perspectiva dos estudos culturais, Tomaz T. Silva, Stuart Hall and Kathrin Woodward (eds), 73–102. Petrópolis: Vozes.Google Scholar
Silva Sinha, Vera da, Sinha, Chris, Sampaio, Wany and Zinken, Jörg. 2012. “Event-based time intervals in an Amazonian culture.” In Space and time in languages and cultures II: language, culture, and cognition [Human Cognitive Processing Series 37] Luna Filipović and Kasia Jaszczolt (eds), 15–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sinha, Chris. 2015. “Language and other artifacts: socio-cultural dynamics of niche construction.” Frontiers in Psychology (Cognitive Science) 6: 1601. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sinha, Chris and Jensen de López, Kristine. 2000. “Language, culture and the embodiment of spatial cognition.” Cognitive Linguistics 11: 17–41.Google Scholar
Sinha, Chris, Silva Sinha, Vera da, Zinken, Jörg and Sampaio, Wany. 2011. “When time is not space: the social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture.” Language and Cognition 3: 137–169. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valsiner, Jaan. 2007. Culture in minds and societies. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. "Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 469-488. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “Some reflections on the notion of species in history and anthropology.” E-misférica 10 (1): BIO/ZOO [URL]
Witherspoon, Gary. 1980. “Language in culture and culture in language.” International Journal of American Linguistics 46: 1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yu, Ning. 2002. “Body and emotion: Body parts in Chinese expression of emotion.” Pragmatics and Cognition 10: 341–367.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. “Embodiment, culture and language.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture, Farzad Sharifian (ed.). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dictionaries
Lurker, Manfred. 1997. Dicionário de Simbologia. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.Google Scholar
Dubois, Jean. et al. 1993. Dicionário de Linguística. São Paulo: Cultrix.Google Scholar