SPECIFICITY OF THE USE OF METAPHOR BY OLD KABYLIANS (70-90 YEARS OLD) IN THEIR EVERYDAY SOCIAL INTERRACTION–CASE STUDY: THE KABYLIAN MINOR COMMUNITY IN ALGERIA

Abstract

Because of the significant role of metaphor in our everyday lives and in our culture, we almost all bring different interests to it, this is the reason why we tend and take the opportunity to check whether metaphors are much more powerful instruments dealing with our experiences rather than being ornamental. In other words, metaphors are not just a play with words or even a free play for ideas, but they should be in harmony with the social and historical settings with the beliefs and personal constructs of the society or micro society of the time. In this paper, we tend to demonstrate that metaphors not only make the Kabylian (the Berber minor community in Algeria) thoughts vivid and interesting, but they do actually structure their perceptions and understanding. Metaphor is pervasive in our everyday life, i.e., metaphors play a central role in defining the old Kabylians everyday realities. Our aim is to show clearly that our category of informants (70-90 years old) are not using metaphors just for shaping their views in life in present, but metaphors are setting up expectations for the future, i.e., metaphors are rooted in the beliefs, practices and intentions of language. Some hypotheses will be presented in this work. They will help pave the way to test, measure, argue and interpret the findings through observation and analysis on the bases of the Berber society (the Kabylians) and its environment.