Field and river

20th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES20)
Mekelle University, Ethiopia

"Regional and Global Ethiopia - Interconnections and Identities"
1-5 October, 2018

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METAPHORS IN BÄGÄNA SONG LYRICS: A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE [Abstract ID: 0204-02]

TADESSE Weldegebreal Baymot, PhD Candidate in Applied Linguistics at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

People can express their thoughts, feelings, emotions, religious affiliations, attitudes, values and norms directly or indirectly through different means. To do it in a more subtle way, human beings use different expressions like metaphors. A metaphor is one of the most important concepts in the study of linguistic meaning. A metaphor is the expression of an understanding or the conceptualization of one concept (target domain) in terms of another concept (source domain) where there is some similarity/correlation between the two. Metaphors are widely used in bägäna song lyrics. Bägäna, a ten-stringed box-lyre belonging to the musical tradition of the Ethiopia, is a paraliturgical lyre played by Christians in Ethiopia to perform spiritual songs. Songs have special characteristics in their lyrics. Beyond entertainment, the issues raised in the lyrics of songs have a lot of things to do with the linguistic, historical, cultural, religious, moral, ethical and philosophical realities of a given society. Each song lyric is generally meant to convey a certain messages and meaning and is emotionally expressive. Therefore, song lyrics are very important to be studied to see the extent of the flow of the language used and how well it is communicated to the performers and listeners. This study aimed at describing the metaphorical expressions used in bägäna song lyrics from a linguistic point of view.