The heart became hot

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative study of the conceptualization of ANGER in Dagbani and Dangme, classified as Mabia and Kwa languages respectively. We employ the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as an analytical tool for explaining the empirical facts on the conceptualization of anger in these languages. We show that the mental concepts of the Dangme and the Dagbani people reflect in their conceptualizations of ANGER. We demonstrate that although the two languages deploy varied body organs (especially the heart and stomach), to express anger, Dagbani tends to focus more on the use of the heart, the lungs and the chest to express anger, whereas Dangme uses the heart, stomach and the body or self. The two languages share a common conceptual metaphor of anger as ‘heat’ with other schematic nodes, such as ‘fire’, ‘fluid’ and ‘container’. We finally establish that although most of the expressions of anger in these two languages fit into cross-linguistic patterns, there are also salient cultural specifics that demonstrate how their physiological and experiential realities tend to play an important role in their conception of anger. Data for this study were collected from native speakers of these languages through spontaneous conversations as well as from literary works produced in the two languages under investigation.