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Article published In:
International Journal of Language and Culture
Vol. 2:1 (2015) ► pp.87–107

Metaphors of Anger in Akan

| University of Ghana

This paper addresses the semantic shifts, extensions, semantic patterns, and pragmatic nature of the metaphor of anger and its usage in different contexts. It looks at the conceptual relationship between the two words akoma, “heart” and bo, “chest,” and how they have been lexicalized in the Akan language to express anger. The paper concentrates on fossilized metaphorical expressions relying on the conceptual metaphor frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson (1980). I will discuss the body parts akoma and bo in terms of their physical, semantic, metaphoric, and cognitive representations. The data are taken from Akan literature books, the Akan Bible, and recorded materials from radio discussions. The paper illustrates that there is a strong relation between a people’s conceptual, environmental, and cultural experiences and their linguistic systems. We will consider the universal concepts of body part expressions and, in particular, Akan specific body part expressions of anger. In the end, we will be able to establish how body parts help us in the lexicalization of expressions of emotion.

Keywords: embodiment, emotion, anger, cognitive semantics, metaphor
Published online: 19 November 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.2.1.04agy
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