The metaphorical naming of selected dreaded diseases and medical conditions in Igbo language and thought

Kamalu, Ikenna

doi:10.2478/topling-2020-0008

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Linguists and other scholars in the field of ethnography/anthropology have studied names and naming in different societies from diverse theoretical orientations. Onumajuru and Eze (2019) and Kamalu (2020) are linguistic studies on the naming of nonhuman entities in Igbo language and their social meanings in contexts. Onumajuru and Eze is a morpho-sociolinguistic study of calques and coinages in Igbo, while Kamalu is on the metaphorical naming of dreaded diseases in Igbo language and thought.…”

Section: Review Of Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural–Cognitive Study of Selected Death-Oriented Personal Names in Igbo

Kamalu,

Onumonu,

Udisi

2024

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Working chiefly within the tenets of Cultural Linguistics (CL), this study examines the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie selected death-oriented personal names among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria. Based on the cultural linguistic perspective, the analytical tool for the study is shaped by insights from cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors as signifiers of ideation and social meaning. The cultural frames enable the language user to have a better understanding of the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie the conceptualization of names and naming among the Igbo. Much has been done on the structure and sociological forms of Igbo personal names and their meanings, but only a few studies have been undertaken on the names that express the notions of death and dying in Igbo. More importantly, no previous study has used insights from Cultural Linguistics (CL) or the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to explain the motivations for the preponderance of death-oriented names among the Igbo people. Thus, this study specifically aims to address the lacuna. The study reveals that the Igbo, like most African and other human societies, recognize and accept the inevitability of death. Consequently, they use language in diverse forms and contexts to express their perceptions of the horrors and pains associated with the inevitability of death. Songs, proverbs and ritual practices are some of the verbal and social semiotic forms through which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitude toward death and dying. However, names and naming are the most vivid cultural cognitive patterns by which the Igbo show their understanding of the nature of death and dying and their psychological effects on the living. Constrained by space and scope, this study identified and classified six major death-oriented names among the Igbo, as follows: names that depict the overwhelming power of death; names that make an appeal to death; names that depict death as wicked/evil/terror; names that depict death as no respecter of wealth/social class; names that challenge/mock the assumed power of death; and names that depict death as an insensitive entity. Thus, the above frames constitute the major paradigms by which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitudes toward death and dying.

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Section: Review Of Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%