EUPHEMISTIC-METAPHORS IN NZEMA DISCOURSE IN SEXUALITY

Abstract

This paper qualitatively examines the euphemistic means of mitigating vulgarity in Nzema discourse. The paper focuses on certain expressions that involve the activities of sex, sexual organs and menstruation; with the intent to discussing how the people of Nzema use a 'fair' and 'polished' means to engage in such 'tabooed' utterances in order to avoid unpleasant speeches. The paper adopts Goddard's (2006) Ethno-pragmatic model, which maintains that speech practices are best understood from culture-internal perspective. Data were collected mainly from a primary source, through recordings from interviews with native respondents. Some data were also tapped from spontaneous natural speech contexts as well as introspections based on the researcher's intuitions as an indigenous speaker. The paper reveals that the Nzema euphemistically describe the male genitalia as 'a stick/tree', 'a pestle', 'a gun' and 'a match', while conceptualising the female genitalia as 'mortar', 'Bible/book', 'property', and 'chief's palace' among others. It demonstrates that the Nzema as part of their culture do not plainly utter vulgar words; especially those related to sexuality and menstruation. Rather, they resort to culturally established euphemistic strategies to cover up the tabooed words and to strip off the discomforts and embarrassments that might be caused when a listener hears such 'plain' utterances. These polished means of discussing sexuality and its related notions are best understood by the people of Nzema as a cultural group. In essence, any member of the Nzema traditional society who explicitly makes such utterances without 'fairly beautifying' them is regarded 'uncultured' and lacking proper parental upbringing.