4. Towards a taxonomy of metaphors of a curtailed language

Abstract

Waray is one of the spoken languages in the Philippine archipelago. It is spoken mainly in the provinces of Samar and in some municipalities of Leyte – islands in the eastern part of the country. The use of this language is curtailed due to government policy formulation, colonial consciousness, and cultural inferiority (Sugbo, 2003). This paper provides a taxonomy of Waray metaphors through the documentation of its occurrences in selected compilation of idioms, proverbs, narratives, folk songs, popular songs, lyric poetry, and internet blogs that are representative samples of linguistic data from the first few decades of the 20th century (1914–1920) to the onset of the 21st century (2000–2011). Analysis of metaphors was primarily based on the description of its vehicles (cosmological, geographical, zoological, botanical, somatic, social relation, and general tangible/intangible) and tenors (emotion, time, space, and other abstract domains). In exploring the source domains or vehicles, the properties attached to these domains were elaborated by looking into its structural aspects, positive-negative dichotomy, locative and locomotive features, causative and productive attributes, and abstract-concrete qualities. The analysis of tenors was primarily based on the neutrality, positivity, and negativity of the values carried by these domains. In the sectional analysis, the paper offers a mollifying proposition on the applicability of the four major metaphor theories: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Context-Limited Simulation Theory, Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models Theory, and Discourse Dynamics Theory.