Alternation Special Edition No 13 (2014) 191-208 191 ISSN 1023-1757 IsiZulu Metaphor as a Vehicle for Terminology Extensions in isiZulu Academic Language: Lessons Learnt in Postgraduate Language and Media Education Modules at a South African University Thabisile Buthelezi Bonakele Mhlongo Tholani Hlongwa Abstract Research reports (for example, Akinnaso (1993), Kamwangamalu (2000), Cummins (2001), Khubchandani (2003), Schroeder (2004) and others) indicate that language problems largely influence and determine students’ success in both the school and higher education sector. The promotion of African languages as languages of learning and teaching in South African universities is deemed as important in ensuring access and success for a number of students who do not speak English as their first language. This paper uses the new metaphor theory that, well-renowned cognitive linguists, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) developed, to analyse the metaphorical meanings that students used to access information and meanings of difficult concepts in the learning of postgraduate language and media education courses that were taught in isiZulu. IsiZulu is the first language of both the academics and students who were involved in the modules. In the new metaphor theory, it is conceived that the generalisations that govern the metaphorical meanings are not in fact embedded in the language, but in thought and the way we conceptualise one mental space in relation to another. Thus, in the new metaphor theory, the word metaphor has come to mean a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system and these conceptual mappings apply not only in novel and poetic language but also in ordinary everyday language;