Metaphor in Libyan dialect

Abstract EN

The present paper concerns the extra-linguistic phenomenon of "Metaphor" as being a dynamic conceptual device in human communication, and specifically, in Libyan speech community of Tobruk.

Metaphor has been handled from various perspectives; descriptive, linguistic, stylistic, semantic, or pragmatic.

Nevertheless, the concept of metaphor in relation to the conceptual processing underlying metaphorical language still forms a rich subject of debate in the current literature.

Apart from all those classical doubtful models working in the same field, this paper adopts a contemporary cognitively based theory established by the cognitive linguist George Lakoff (1993).

In this view, metaphor, the understanding of one idea (or conceptual domain) in terms of another (e.g.

'quantity' in terms of 'directionality': "prices are rising"), is a conceptual system underlying language use; conventional mappings (or conceptual overlapping) of an inheritance hierarchy across conceptual domains.

From this perspective, some metaphorical expressions in the Libyan dialect spoken in Tobruk community, and the neighbouring areas, are examined here in terms of conceptual metaphors underlying more surface concrete manifestations of subject matters categorized into six types of genre: proverbs, verses (poetic extracts), riddles, jokes, everyday speech, and epithets of names.

Offering a rich fertility of conceptual metaphors, these communicative varieties of discourse are well fitting for highlighting the tenet that metaphors are not simply a matter of language per se, but a matter of thought (and culture).

To reveal the extra-linguistic functions of metaphors involved, an attention to the cognitive-pragmatic motives behind the remarkable use of metaphors, by the dialect interlocutors in their daily communicative interactions, is presented here. At a large scale, Tobruk dialect community shows a considerable metaphorical bias, and this is presumably due to the richness of the social, cultural and cognitive background or heritage of the community members.