Idström Anna et al (Editors). Endangered Metaphors

John Benjamins, 2012. — vi, 376 pages. — (Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 2). — ISBN: 978-90-272-7492-2.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.Endangered metaphors: Introduction
“Our language is very literal”: Figurative expression in Dene Sųłiné [Athapaskan]
“My heart falls out”: Conceptualizations of body parts and emotion expressions in Beaver Athabascan
Walking like a porcupine, talking like a raven: Figurative language in Upper Tanana Athabascan
Are Nahuatl riddles endangered conceptualizations?
Bodily-based conceptual metaphors in Ashéninka Perené myths and folk stories
The use of a conceptual metaphor in the Siroi language of Papua New Guinea: Narrative is climbing a mountain
Kewa fiures of speech: Understanding the code
Metaphors in Dimasa and Rabha – A comparative study
Numbers that Chumburung people count on
The importance of unveiling conceptual metaphors in a minority language: The case of Basque
Antlers as a metaphor of pride – What idioms reveal about the relationship between human and animal in Inari Saami conceptual system
Metaphors of the Finnish Roma in Finnish and Romani
“Bhio’ tu dìreach ga ithe, bha e cho math = You would just eat it, it was so good”: Music, metaphor and food for thought on Scottish gaelic aesthetics
Metaphors of an endangered Low Saxon basis dialect – exemplified by idioms of stupidity and death