Conceptual metaphor and image schema representations of cancer-related deaths of selected prominent Kenyan personalities in the print media
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journal contribution
posted on 2020-07-04, 17:18authored byCellyne Anudo, Benard Kodak
Conceptual metaphors pervade
everyday conversations but are used unconsciously. A sample of metaphorical
expressions used to express the abstract entity death was collected from two
local dailies that is, The Daily Nation
and The Standard in Kenya. The deaths
that formed the point of focus for this study are those of three prominent
Kenyan personalities: Bob Collymore, the then Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom, Ken Okoth, the then Kibra MP
and Joyce Laboso, the then governor of Bomet County all of whom died in month
of July 2019. Conceptual metaphors of death were derived from the metaphorical
expressions and analysed using Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) theory of Conceptual
Metaphors and Johnson’s (1987) theory of Image Schemas. Steen’s (1999)
five-step procedure that assists in the identification of conceptual metaphor
was employed. The metaphorical expressions of death were extracted and
classified with regard to their connectedness. The data for the study was
thereafter analysed qualitatively. A descriptive research design was adopted
for the study. Findings indicate that the cognitive linguistics model used
dispenses devices for comprehending, interpreting and accounting for abstract
concepts in terms of concreteness. Conceptual metaphors are a cognitive means
for the society to conceptualize death as an abstract entity.