Haya metaphors for speech

Abstract

Metaphorical statements about speech are shown to embody implicitly certain indigenously named semantic dimensions. Hayas use these dimensions to conceive of and evaluate their own speech behavior. The dimensions are specified first through indigenous literal statements about speech, then through one-word metaphors applied to speech, and finally through ten proverbs about speech interactions that link metaphorically a named category of speech act with the alimentary act of expelling a flatus. (Metaphor, humor, componential analysis, folklore, proverbs, speech acts, ethnography of communication.)