Interlingual cognizance of metaphors: a case study of selected experiential domains of English and Luganda

Abstract

ABSTRACT Metaphor is a tool so ordinary that we use it unconsciously and automatically, with so little effort that we hardly notice it. It is omnipresent: metaphor suffuses our thoughts no matter what we are thinking about; It is accessible to everyone: as children, we automatically, as a matter of course, acquire a mastery of everyday metaphor. Accordingly, the purpose of this report was to study the interlingual cognizance, translatability and how a bilingual’s communicative competence can be enhanced in the interlingual cognizance of metaphors in discourse. The study was conducted in 14 public secondary schools in Busiro County Wakiso District and the study population constituted lower secondary school teachers of English, English and Luganda and Luganda only. From a population of 85 teachers, a sample size of 70 participants was randomly selected. In order to achieve the study objectives, the test was the research instrument that was employed in data collection. The main statistical procedures employed in this study were a t-test and ANOVA. The findings indicated that the degree of interlingual cognizance of metaphors is significantly dependent on the teachers’ first language (L1). Specifically, English as a first language was found to have a high degree of influence on teachers’ cognizance of metaphors in discourse used in English and Luganda. However, L1 had no statistically significant influence in explaining teachers’ translatability of metaphors. The findings however revealed differences in the average scores obtained between the two parties: each party translated better the metaphors that originated in or caused by their L1s and the amount of variation was quite substantial within both groups. Lastly, in relation to enhancement measures of metaphors in discourse, the study failed to find any significant effect of the L1 on teachers’ use of metaphors. Based on these findings, recommendations were made key among these is that attempts should be made that the English and Luganda taught in schools are more relevant to the learners’ intercultural communicative challenges.