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An Analysis of Metaphorical Idioms in South African Indian English*

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An Analysis of Metaphorical Idioms in South African Indian English* Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, Vol. 56, 2019, 1-12 doi: 10.5842/56-0-784 An analysis of metaphorical idioms in South African Indian English* Suren Naicker Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, University of South Africa E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This study looks at a selected number of expressions used in the variety of English known as “South African Indian English” (SAIE). Mesthrie (1992, 2010a) compiled a dictionary of expressions used within this language variety, which is the primary source of data for this study. Mesthrie has also published numerous scholarly works documenting various aspects of SAIE (cf. Mesthrie 1991, 1992a). A selection of five metaphorical idioms have been chosen for analysis, and the meanings as put forth by Mesthrie (1992, 2010a) have been cross-checked with 10 native speakers of SAIE, as well as the author’s native-speaker intuitions. The informants were all middle-class, professional, educated persons of Indian origin, who speak English as a first language; they were all between 30 and 60 years of age, and reside either in Johannesburg as internal economic migrants from Durban, or currently reside in Durban. As this analysis is undertaken through the lens of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the various metaphorical idioms are analysed as expressions of underlying conceptual metaphors, which confirms the idea that many entrenched idiomatic expressions are surface manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors, and therefore part and parcel of the same human conceptual system. The analysis follows an adapted format used by Kövecses (2010), whereby the metaphorical idiom is stated, followed by the meaning, then the underlying conceptual metaphor. A table illustrating how the idiom is typically mapped in context, followed by a brief discussion of the import, is also in line with Kövecses (2010). One of the key findings is that this is indeed a viable approach to the study of idioms in general, and a more comprehensive study should be made of more expressions like these to see whether or not all entrenched expressions can be viewed as emanating from underlying conceptual metaphors. Keywords: South African Indian English; Conceptual Metaphor Theory; Cognitive Linguistics; metaphorical idioms * The author would like to thank his colleague, Maxine Schaefer, for her valuable insights on an earlier draft of this paper. © 2019 The authors. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 2 Naicker 1. Introduction This study aims to look at a fairly marginalised variety of English spoken in South Africa, commonly known as “South African Indian English”. Following Trudgill (1999), the term “variety” will be used instead of “dialect”, since the latter may have a negative connotation for some. This variety of English is spoken by the approximately 1.3 million South African Indians residing in South Africa, who are descendants of the indentured labourers who were brought to the country by the British between 1860 and 1911 (Desai and Vahed 2010). Given South Africa’s unique history of racial segregation, South African Indians lived separately from other race groups, and therefore developed a variety of English over time which is uniquely South African. Often, linguistic and cultural stereotypes are parodied on South African “Indian” radio stations like Lotus FM, and there have been various “indi” movies made about this group as well. An example of the latter is White Gold1 (2005), which tells the story of the arrival of the first group of Indians in South Africa on 16 November 1860. Satirical comedies like Run for your Life2 (2002), Broken Promises3 (2001), and Keeping up with the Kandasamys4 (2016) also constitute sources of these linguistic and cultural parodies. Mesthrie has written fairly extensively on SAIE from various perspectives, including an analysis within the context of language shift (Mesthrie 1992a), and the compilation of two dictionaries documenting terms/phrases used in SAIE (Mesthrie 1992b, 2010a). Theoretically, this study looks specifically at five salient idioms used in SAIE from a Cognitive Linguistic perspective, using Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as a framework. The crux of the argument here is that idioms are not analogous to lexemes, which need to be learnt by rote because they are arbitrary words with contingent etymologies. The idioms analysed here should be seen as entrenched linguistic metaphors, which are manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors that are well-known and well expounded upon in the literature. Hence, the idioms are not as quirky and idiosyncratic as many assume, which begs the question as to why versions of “standard” English are frowned upon in the first place. 2. Theoretical framework The theoretical framework used here falls within the domain of Cognitive Linguistics, and more specifically within a branch of the enterprise known as Cognitive Semantics. The specific theory is known as Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), and is premised on the idea that many metaphors that are used in everyday speech are in fact surface manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) were the first to popularise this idea, which can be illustrated with the well-known LOVE IS A JOURNEY5 metaphor. What they found was that there are several metaphorical expressions about love pertaining to the domain JOURNEY, yet these metaphorical expressions were never really explicitly seen as being related until Lakoff and Johnson pointed out that LOVE is such an abstract concept that it needs to be construed in concrete terms, and the domain of JOURNEY is often used for this purpose (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 110). For example, the phrases off the tracks, on the rocks, and not going anywhere, though ostensibly saying different things, can all be seen as surface manifestations of the LOVE IS A JOURNEY 1 Moodley, J. (director). White Gold. Durban: African Lotus Productions. 2 Naidu, K. (director). Run for your life. Johannesburg: Garuda Motion Pictures. 3 Naidu, K. (director). Broken Promises. Johannesburg/Durban: Garuda Motion Pictures. 4 Moodley, J. (director). Keeping up with the Kandasamys. Durban: African Lotus Productions. 5 As is the norm in Cognitive Semantics, hypothetical conceptual domains are written in SMALL CAPS. http://spilplus.journals.ac.za An analysis of metaphorical idioms in South African Indian English 3 metaphor where the lovers are travellers, and the progress of their relationship is seen as progress on a journey taking place on a road, etc. Once a consistent source domain has been identified, the metaphor can be extended in various ways by adding elements from the relevant frame and manipulating it in various ways, as is the case with many jokes and novel extensions of metaphor. This is referred to as “metaphorical entailments”, and an example could be referring to a relationship as “going backwards”, which would only be used with a negative import. An entailment, then, is a predictable manipulation and extension of what is known about the source domain to shed light on various aspects of the target domain. The lower case, italicised examples are seen to be linguistic manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors which are part of the human conceptual system, and an inextricable part of higher order cognitive functioning. Kövecses (2010: 9–10) uses the following format to explain how metaphors are constructed, where the linguistic expression is mentioned first, followed by the conceptual metaphor, which is then illustrated as a table showing the mapping of the metaphor between two conceptual domains. With the current example, this can be illustrated as follows: Table 1: Mapping for LOVE IS A JOURNEY Source: JOURNEY Target: LOVE Travellers Lovers Vehicle The relationship The journey Events in the relationship Obstacles on the road/path Difficulties in the relationship Distance covered Progress made Reaching destination Culmination of the relationship (marriage?) Decisions about which way to go Choices about what to do Source: Author’s own work CMT has evolved over the years, and Lakoff (2014) summarises the various stages that the theory has been through. For the purpose of this study, the standard theory is used, as the nuances of the different versions over the years are not quite relevant, and will distract from the crux of this study – interested readers are referred to the source just cited for a more in-depth theoretical outline. A note regarding jargon in this study: the phrase “metaphorical idioms” seems unconventional, so it is necessary to clarify the use of such. Bergen (2012: 199) defines “idioms” as expressions with unique meanings, but adds that they “have metaphor built into them”. Gibbs (1992) concurs, pointing out that idioms are largely motivated by conceptual metaphors, and scholars such as Bergen (2012: 199–200) make use of the phrase “metaphorical idioms”, which the current study has adopted. This article aims to make a two-fold contribution: first, to shed some light on a few common sayings in SAIE, and second, to demonstrate from a cognitive linguistic perspective that these idioms are actually based on well-entrenched conceptual metaphors, and are therefore not as idiosyncratic as one may think. http://spilplus.journals.ac.za 4 Naicker 3. South African Indian English South African English as a whole is interesting for various reasons, given the unique multi- cultural and multi-racial make-up of South African society. The legacy of
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