Abstract
Although the Afrikaans word beker carries strong religious and other connotations, among them references to the Eucharist cup, the contribution of this article is to highlight, within a cognitive semantics framework, the role that cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor and metonymy played in the creation of this symbol. The article aims to illustrate the following: that the two signs of the Christian Eucharist, the bread and the wine, are grounded in conceptual metaphors of eating and drinking; that two conceptual drink metaphors are present when the symbol of the cup is analysed; that a related concept, that of metonymy, acts as a cognitive trigger, thus enabling the realisation of the symbol; and that other factors such as culture and religious symbolism played a significant role in the whole process. A corpus linguistics methodology is used to identify expressions containing the word beker. In analysing the expressions, Conceptual Metaphor Theory is used as a theoretical framework. It is found that conceptual metaphors such as nourishment is drinking and suffering is drinking underlie metaphoric expressions with beker. The metonymy container [the cup] for contained [the wine or blood] plays an important role in enabling the metaphors. In the images of the Eucharist cup and the broken bread, powerful metaphors arising from our bodily experience, denoting suffering and death on the one hand, and joy, nourishment and life on the other hand, are united to form the symbol.
Highlights
When a very severe drought in South Africa was broken in January 2017, the front page of one of the Afrikaans newspapers ran with the caption: Ons beker loop oor [Our cup runneth over]
The cup has received much attention in academic writing, with the majority of the work focusing on the Eucharist of the New Testament, the contribution of this article is to analyse the cup as symbol and metaphor from a cognitive linguistic perspective by making use of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)
Awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out (Is 51:17 KJV): 5.We find this same metonymy in the Afrikaans expression hy is lief vir die bottel [he loves the bottle], denoting a drunkard
Summary
When a very severe drought in South Africa was broken in January 2017, the front page of one of the Afrikaans newspapers ran with the caption: Ons beker loop oor [Our cup runneth over]. The semantic richness of figurative expressions in Afrikaans containing the word beker [cup] is explored, culminating in an account of how conceptual mechanisms like metaphor and metonymy enabled this word and its accompanying images to become such a powerful symbol in Western and Christian thought. Rooted deeply in age-old Judaic customs (the Pascha among others), the embodied source domains of eating and drinking are mapped on to the abstract target domains of (physical and spiritual) suffering and nourishment, death and grace These metaphors are integrated or blended with Jesus’ act and words and a new complex metaphor was created – salvation and everlasting life is eating the bread and drinking the cup. 31 Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; will I give her cup into thine hand
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