A Comparative Cognitive Study of Happiness and Sadness Metaphors in Fante and English

Abstract

The advent of cognitive linguistics has resulted in a change in the way people previously perceived metaphor as purely a linguistic device. Metaphor is now studied as a cognitive instrument that shapes our language, thought and action (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Kovecses, 2002). Native speakers of a language employ metaphors to express abstract concepts of emotions. This paper does a study of the happiness and sadness metaphors in English and Fante, a dialect of the Akan language spoken in Ghana. It is underpinned by Lakoff and Johnsons’ (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory which is adopted as the framework for analysis. The study found that the two languages share some similarities with regard to the use of conceptual metaphors such as happiness is a fluid in a container, happiness is being off the ground, sadness is a fluid in a container and sadness is an object. The differences in the use of these conceptual metaphors are very minimal and can be ascribed to the different cultural practices that are prevalent in the two languages. The study recommends that teachers of language integrate metaphor awareness into their curriculum to help learners have a better understanding of metaphorical expressions to improve their communication skills. Additionally, there should be an expansion of studies on conceptual metaphors to cover more Ghanaian and African languages to enrich cognitive linguistic theory.