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Article published In:
Metaphor in Education: A multilingual perspective
Edited by Katrin Ahlgren, Anne Golden and Ulrika Magnusson
[Metaphor and the Social World 11:2] 2021
► pp. 329–351

Mashi – this language was in my ears

Metaphors of ‘language’ in language autobiographies narrated by Congolese migrants in Norway

| University of Oslo
| Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences

In order to understand the process of learning new languages as adults, we need to take into account learners’ past experiences with all of their language(s), as such experiences shape attitudes and conceptualizations. In this paper, we present an analysis of metaphorical expressions in the narrated linguistic biographies of (former) refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Norway. The participants speak a multitude of languages, e.g., different local Congolese languages, Congolese national languages (Lingala or Swahili), French (the official language of the DRC), in addition to Norwegian (the language of the host society). Attention is paid to how the participants’ expressions align with conceptual metaphors emerged from work in Cognitive Linguistics, such as language is an object, language is a person and language is an identity marker, as well as specifications like language is a tool and language is a possession. We argue that awareness of conceptualizations of ‘language’ can contribute to the development of language training pedagogies that better reflect learners’ past experiences.

Keywords: conceptualization, conceptual metaphors, emic perspectives, Global South, language biographies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Use of metaphors
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.Language biographies
  • 5.Metaphors and conceptualizations
    • 5.1 language is air
    • 5.2 language is an object
    • 5.3 language is a person
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.00021.gol
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