Publications
Publication details [#55985]
Idström, Anna and Elisabeth Piirainen, eds. 2012. Endangered Metaphors. (Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 2). John Benjamins. vi+376 pp.
Publication type
Book – edited volume
Publication language
English
Keywords
Annotation
When the last speaker of a language dies, s/he takes to oblivion the memories, associations and the rich imagery this language community has once lived by. The cultural heritage encoded in conventional linguistic metaphors, handed down through generations, will be lost forever. This volume consists of fifteen articles about metaphors in endangered languages, from Peru to Alaska, from India to Ghana. The empirical data demonstrate that the assumptions of contemporary cognitive linguistic theory about “universal” metaphors and the underlying cognitive processes are still far from plausible, since culture plays an important role in the formation of metaphors. Moreover, that theory has been based on knowledge of metaphors in some standard languages. Indigenous and other minority languages, especially mainly orally used ones, have been disregarded completely.
Besides researchers and students in linguistics, especially in metaphor and figurative language theory, this compilation provides food for thought for scholars in large fields of cultural studies, ranging from anthropology and ethnology to folkloristics and philosophy.
Articles in this volume
Rice, Sally. Our language is very literal”. Figurative expression in Dene Sųłiné [Athapaskan]. 21–76
Pasamonik, Carolina. “My heart falls out”. Conceptualizations of body parts and emotion expressions in Beaver Athabascan. 77–102
Lovick, Olga. Walking like a porcupine, talking like a raven. Figurative language in Upper Tanana Athabascan. 103–122
Kleef, Sjaak van and Jacqueline van Kleef. The use of a conceptual metaphor in the Siroi language of Papua New Guinea. Narrative is climbing a mountain. 161–184
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Iraide. The importance of unveiling conceptual metaphors in a minority language. The case of Basque. 253–274
Idström, Anna. Antlers as a metaphor of pride. What idioms reveal about the relationship between human and animal in Inari Saami conceptual system. 275–292