Metaphoric Conceptualisations of Knowledge among Students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana.
Harriet Appiah Kyeremeh 
& Esther Serwaah Afreh
Issue: Vol.3 No.5 May 2022 Article 3 pp. 188-198
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2022353 | Published online 27th May 2022.
© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This study aimed at identifying any underlying conceptual metaphors of knowledge in the written expressions of students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), within the framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory proposed by George Lakoff & Mark Johnson. It sought to explore the types of metaphors and to discover if they are motivated by any of the Ghanaian cultures or the class levels of the students. One hundred and five students were purposively sampled from the Department of English to provide their descriptions of knowledge. The analysis revealed thirteen conceptual metaphors of knowledge out of which six were structural and eight were ontological. It also showed how the students’ conceptualisations of knowledge are entrenched in Ghanaian cultures. Lastly, it revealed that many of the students recognize knowledge’s ability to render economic success more than its ability to help in critical thinking. This paper concludes that studies into conceptual metaphors are helpful in revealing ideas that are deep-rooted in conceptualisations derived from experiences.
Keywords: Knowledge, Conceptual Metaphor, Conceptualisation
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Harriet Appiah Kyeremeh is an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of English, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). She holds an MPhil in English from KNUST, a BA in Linguistics with Spanish from the University of Ghana and a Diploma in Education from the University of Education, Winneba. She is particularly interested in how conceptual metaphor and other cognitive devices reflect in the language of people from different cultural backgrounds.
Dr. Esther Serwaah Afreh is a Senior Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Ghana, Legon. She holds an MA in Cognitive Linguistics from the University of Brighton, UK, and an MPhil in English from the University of Cape Coast. Her research has concentrated on issues in Cognitive Semantics, that is, on conceptual content and its organisation in language.
Kyeremeh H.A. & Afreh E.S., “Metaphoric Conceptualisations of Knowledge among Students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. ” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 3, no.5 (2022):188-198. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2022353
© 2022 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
