Cover not available
Article published In:
International Journal of Language and Culture
Vol. 11:1 (2024) ► pp.31–57

The heart became hot

A conceptualization of anger in Dagbani and Dangme

ORCID logo | Accra College of Education
ORCID logo | University of Education

This paper provides a comparative study of the conceptualization of ANGER in Dagbani and Dangme, classified as Mabia and Kwa languages respectively. We employ the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as an analytical tool for explaining the empirical facts on the conceptualization of anger in these languages. We show that the mental concepts of the Dangme and the Dagbani people reflect in their conceptualizations of ANGER. We demonstrate that although the two languages deploy varied body organs (especially the heart and stomach), to express anger, Dagbani tends to focus more on the use of the heart, the lungs and the chest to express anger, whereas Dangme uses the heart, stomach and the body or self. The two languages share a common conceptual metaphor of anger as ‘heat’ with other schematic nodes, such as ‘fire’, ‘fluid’ and ‘container’. We finally establish that although most of the expressions of anger in these two languages fit into cross-linguistic patterns, there are also salient cultural specifics that demonstrate how their physiological and experiential realities tend to play an important role in their conception of anger. Data for this study were collected from native speakers of these languages through spontaneous conversations as well as from literary works produced in the two languages under investigation.

Keywords: Anger, metaphor, metonymy, conceptualization, comparative
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework and methodology
  • 3.Anger metaphor constructions in Dagbani and Dangme
  • 4.Conceptualization of anger in Dagbani and Dangme
    • 4.1Anger is heat as applied to solids: Anger is fire
    • 4.2Anger is heat as applied to liquids: A heat of fluid in a container
  • 5.Findings and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations used in this paper include
  • References
Published online: 2 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00059.iss
References
Abubakari, K.
(2018) Segment deletion as a morpho-phonological process in Dagbani compound word formation. Journal of West African Languages 45(1), 155–176.Google Scholar
Ablorh-Odjidja, J., Tetteh, N., Apronti, E., Accam, T., Puplampu, E., & Atrokpa I, B.
(1990) Dangme ngmami bɔ. (The Writing of Dangme). Revised Edition. Accra: Bureau of Ghana Languages.Google Scholar
Adabah, J.
(2007) Ninyɛgu (Creative writing/Apongma). University of Education, Winneba. Department of Ga-Dangme Education. (Unpublished).Google Scholar
Adam, P.
(2010) Dagbaŋ Nam Piligu [The history of Chieftaincy in Dagbaŋ]. University of Education, Winneba. Department of Gur-Gonja Education. (Unpublished).Google Scholar
Agyekum, K.
(2015) Metaphor of anger in Akan. International Journal of Language and Culture 2(1), 87–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Akkök, A. E.
(2017) Turkish metaphors of anger. Ankara Üniversitesi, Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi 57(1), 302–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ansah, G. N.
(2013) Culture in embodiment: Evidence from conceptual metaphors/metonymies of anger in Akan and English. Compendium of cognitive linguistics research 21, 63–82.Google Scholar
Alhassan, Y.N.
(2022) Ti daa bi bang [We did not know]. University of Education, Winneba. Department of Gur-Gonja Education. (Unpublished).Google Scholar
Ansah, G. N.
(2011) The cultural basis of conceptual metaphors: The case of emotions in Akan and English. In eds. K. Kaufhold, S. McCulloch, and A. Tominc, Papers from the Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics & Language Teaching 2010, pp.2–25. Lancaster University.Google Scholar
Bible Society of Ghana
(2018) Bible in Dangme. Retrieved from [URL] on 30/07/2021.
Bisilki, A. K., & Yakpo, K.
(2021) ‘The heart has caught me’: Anger metaphors in Likpakpaln (Konkomba). Sociolinguistic Studies 15(1), 65–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Charway, M.
(2017) Asɛɛwe (Creative writing/Apongma). University of Education, Winneba. Department of Ga-Dangme Education. (Unpublished).Google Scholar
Dzokoto, V. A. & Okazaki, S.
(2006) Happiness in the eye and the heart: somatic referencing in West African emotion lexica. Journal of Black Psychology 32(2), 17–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Esenova, O.
(2011) Metaphorical conceptualization of anger, fear and sadness in English (Doctoral dissertation, Eötvös Loránd University).
Foolen, A.
(1997) The expressive function of language: Towards a cognitive semantic approach. In eds. S. Niemeier and R. Dirven, The language of emotions: conceptualization, expression, and theoretical foundation, pp.15–32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ghana Statistical Service
(2012) 2010 population and housing census, district analytical report. Accra: Ghana Statistical Service.Google Scholar
Hansford, G.
(2005) My eyes are red: Body metaphor in Chumburung. Journal of West African Languages XXXII.1–2 32(1), 135–180.Google Scholar
Ikegami, Y.
(2008) The heart: What it means to the Japanese speakers. In eds. F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, and S. Niemeier, Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages, pp.169–190. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
King, B.
(1989) The conceptual structure of emotional experience in Chinese. Ph.D. thesis. Ohio State University.
Kövecses, Z.
(2020) An extended view of conceptual metaphor theory. Review of Cognitive Liguistics 18(1), 112–130. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015) The “container” metaphor of anger in English, Chinese, Japanese and Hung arian”. In ed. Z. Radman, From a Metaphorical point of view: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Cognitive Content of Metaphor, pp.117–146. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014) Conceptualising emotions. A revised cognitive linguistic perspective. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 50(1), 15–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010) Metaphor, A practical introduction. (2nd ed.) New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2008) Metaphor and emotion. In ed. R. W. Gibbs, Jr., The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, pp.380–396. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2005) Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2002) Folk and expert theories of emotion and the disappearance of psychology. Theoria et Historia Scientiarum 6( 1 ), 332–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000a) The concept of anger: Universal or culture-specific? Psychopathology 33( 4 ), 159–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000b) Metaphor and emotion: Language, culture, and body in human feeling. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1991) “Happiness: A definitional effort”. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 6(1), 29–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1990) Emotion concepts. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kövecses, Z., Arika, A. E., Blanco-Carrion, O., Nucz, E., Szabó, R. & Szelíd, V.
(2015) Anger metaphors across languages. A cognitive linguistic perspective. In eds. R. Heredia and A. Cieslicka, Bilingual figurative language processing, pp. 341–367. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G.
(1993) How metaphor structures dreams: The theory of conceptual metaphor applied to dream analysis. Dreaming 3(2), 77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1987) Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.
(1987) The metaphorical logic of rape. Metaphor and Symbol 2(1), 73–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1999) Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic books.Google Scholar
(1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Kövecses, Z.
(1987) The cognitive model of anger inherent in American English. In eds. D. Holland and N. Quinn, Cultural models in language and thought, pp.195–221. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maalej, Z.
(2004) Figurative language in anger expressions in Tunisian Arabic: An extended view of embodiment. Metaphor and Symbol 19(1), 51–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsuki, K.
(1995) Metaphors of anger in Japanese. In eds. J. Taylor and R. E. MacLaury, Language and the cognitive construal of the world, pp.137–151. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McPherson, L. & Prokhorov, K.
(2011) Structural correlates of liver expressions in Dogon emotional vocabulary. In ed. G. C. Batic, Encoding emotions in African Languages, pp.38–56. Muenchen: Lincom.Google Scholar
Mikolajczuk, A.
(1998) The metonymic and metaphorical conceptualization of anger in Polish. In eds. A. Athanasiadou and E. Tabakowska, Speaking of emotions: Conceptualization and expression, pp.153–191. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Munro, P.
(1991) ANGER IS HEAT: Some data for a cross-linguistic survey. Unpublished Manuscript. Department of Linguistics, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Napari, M. S.
(2022) Yɛla nyaaŋa [Had I known]. University of Education, Winneba. Department of Gur-Gonja Education. (Unpublished).Google Scholar
Ogarkova, A. & Soriano, C.
(2014) Emotion and the body: A corpus-based investigation of metaphorical containers of anger across languages. International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics 5(2), 147–179.Google Scholar
Schaefer
(2015) Hot eyes, white stomachs: Emotions and character qualities in Safaliba met aphor. In eds. E. Piirainen and A. Sherris, Language endangerment: Disappearing metaphors and shifting conceptualizations, pp.91–110. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Semino, E.
(2008) Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sherris, A., Schaefer, P., & Kosiaku, E.
(2021) Resonating embodiment: Everyday metaphorical abstractions in Safaliba. Sociolinguistic Studies 15(1), 135–156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soriano, C.
(2003) Some Anger Metaphors in Spanish and English. A Contrastive Review. International Journal of English Studies 3(2), 107–22.Google Scholar
Sulemana, T.
(1970) Naa Luro mini o Bihi [Naa Luro and his Children]. Bureau of Ghana Languages. Accra.Google Scholar
Sweetser, E.
(1990) From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Newcastle, UK: Athenaeum Press Ltd. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taylor, J. R., & Mbense, T. G.
(1998) Red-dogs and rotten mealies: How Zulus talk about anger. In eds. A. Athanasiadou & E. Tabakowska, Speaking of emotions: Conceptua lisation and expression, pp.191–226. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tran, H. T.
(2018) Conceptual structures of Vietnamese emotions. University of New Mexico. UNM Digital Repository. [URL]. Last accessed: 20.05.2021.
Wierzbicka, A.
(2002) The body in description of emotion. Pragmatics and Cognition 10(1–2), 1–25.Google Scholar
(1999) Emotional universals. Language design. Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics 21, 23–69.Google Scholar
(1992a) Semantics, Culture, and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1992b) Defining emotion concepts. Cognitive Science 161, 539–581. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yu, N.
(2014) Embodiment, culture, and language. In ed. F. Sharifian, The Routledge handbook of language and culture, pp.227–239. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
(2008) Metaphor from body and culture. In ed. R. W. Gibbs, Jr., The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, pp.247–262. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) The eyes for sight and mind. Journal of Pragmatics 361, 663–668. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2002) Body and emotion: Body parts in Chinese expression of emotion. Pragmatics & Cognition 10(1–2), 341–367. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1995) Metaphorical expressions of anger and happiness in English and Chinese. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10(2), 59–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar