Embodied Lexicon and Cultural Conceptualizations in Swahili

The chapter discusses the role of embodied conceptualizations in the cultural model of the Swahili language with a focus on metaphoric and metonymic mapping from a source domain of the human body and its major parts onto various abstract domains. It is shown that although certain conceptualization patterns are drawn from a universal repertoire characteristic of many other languages, they have a particularly strong entrenchment in the Swahili cultural model (e.g., heart for courage, working is sweating, the community/family is one body). This is revealed by their high type and token frequencies (e.g., how often an extended sense occurs in text, how many different forms it takes), as well as by considerable lengths of metonymic chains extending the source meaning of the body part towards more and more abstract senses constructed in various contexts. Swahili also exhibits unique culture-specific conceptualizations (e.g., deriving from the humoral theory or faith in spirit possession). In line with the growing research on embodied cognition, it is also argued that linguistic structures of the embodied form are particularly suited to communicate emotions and cultural values due to the fact that the processing of such expressions co-activates the sensory and motor systems and causes co-simulation effects on part of a listener/reader. The illustrative linguistic material includes conventionalized prefabs (expressions, clichés, proverbs), as well as examples of creative usage excerpted from Swahili literature and other texts.