Author:Dr. Sani Dauda Ibrahim & Dr. Ashiru Yusuf Adamu
Date: 05/07/2026
This paper examines the aspects of hiding in selected Hausa conceptual metaphors. The study explores how abstract concepts in Hausa are cognitively structured through embodied and culturally grounded source domains focusing on the hidden aspects of the latter. The study adopts the intrepretivism research paradigm, hence, it is a qualitative study and the data were purposely selected from the Corpus of Hausa Structural Metaphors developed by Ibrahim (2024). Using the conceptual metaphor theory of Lakoff & Johnson (1980), the study reveals that Hausa metaphors are deeply rooted in bodily experience, environmental interaction, and socio-cultural knowledge. They selectively foreground relevant experiential features such as healing, blindness, flow, illumination, facial recognition, and temporariness, while suppressing irrelevant aspects of the source domains. The study further demonstrates that metaphor in Hausa functions not merely as a stylistic device but as a cognitive mechanism for organizing thought, interpreting experience, and transmitting cultural values. The paper provides significant insight into the relationship between language, cognition, embodiment, and culture. It contributes to broader scholarship in cognitive semantics, African linguistics, and metaphor studies by showing how indigenous African metaphors embody culturally grounded systems of though.
Keywords: Hiding, Conceptual Operation, Hausa X is Y metaphor, Cognitive, Semantics.
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