VEJOH - VERITAS JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES

This study investigates the representation of death and grief from the perspective of conceptual metaphors in the biblical book of Job. It heightens the theory of conceptual metaphors as purported by Johnson and Lakoff that words are formed from our human cognitive systems which are functions of the world around us. This therefore implies that communication is not just the use of well-structured words and expressions by discourse participants, but the conscious employment of our cognitive systems which requires further our inferential systems to decode intentions in every utterance. This study aims to account for selected metaphorical expressions issued by participants during communication and to draw on their interpretive abilities in understanding speakers' intention for each selected utterance. A total of ten (10) utterances from ten verses have been selected for analysis with reference to themes such as death, evil, trouble, life, etc. The analysis puts forward that language users can unconsciously employ words during interactions which can result into lexical adjustments in the forms of broadening or narrowing. The study further implies that hearers are tasked with the responsibility of decoding utterances and telling whether words have been used literally or metaphorically because without this, meaning and interpretation can never be achieved.

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