I Mean What I Mean, Not What I Say: A Case of Double Entendres in
EkeGusii
Isaac Nilson Opande and Evans Gesura Mecha
Kisii University
opanilson@gmail.com, evans-mecha@kisiiuniversity.ac.ke
Words or phrasal constructions are indicative of the way given communities
experience and perceive their environment and exploit it to create meaning.
Meanings arise from creative cognitive processing of which polysemisation,
which involves in some way mapping of conceptual blends or integration, is
one of the means employed. This study investigates cases of double entendre,
a form of polysemisation, in EkeGusii with the aim of accounting for the
cognitive processes entailed in the conceptualization of the natal process (or the
maternity cycle) of human beings using conceptual integration theory. Corpora
for this study were elicited from two EkeGusii FM stations and analysed based
on the cognitive linguistic theory of Conceptual Blending. The information
gathered in this study could enrich EkeGusii semantics and understanding of
the conceptual component of the speakers of the language in order to make a
contribution to the teaching of the language and its maintenance.
Keywords: Concepts, Polysemy, Double entendre, Conceptual blending,
Cognitive Linguistics
Journal of Cognitive Science 17-4: 571-605, 2016
Date submitted: 05/20/16 Date reviewed: 11/12/16
Date confrmed for publication: 12/02/16
©2016 Institute for Cognitive Science, Seoul National University