African Social Research Forum Tributes to Mwalimu Harold Isaacs: A Metaphorical Linguistic Analysis

Abstract

Tributes, which can be generally defined as sayings made to venerate or show regard and reverence for a person as clear indications of the faculties and accomplishments of that person, are given at various occasions, more often after a person dies. Paying tributes to the deceased is a common custom. Tributes are presented about a person the speakers/writers respect or as thank-you statements for what that person did in the past for them. Tributes are supposed to comfort surviving family members and friends during their period of grief; yet, it is not uncommon to hear/read tributes that are pregnant with disparaging metaphors: i.e. derogatory figures of speech in which words or phrases are applied to objects or actions to which they are not literally applicable. This paper offers a metaphorical linguistic analysis of the tributes
that have been paid to Mwalimu (Kiswahili for “Honorable Teacher”) Harold Isaacs by members of the African Studies and Research Forum (of which Mwalimu Issacs was a founding member and attended all of its meetings until his death on July 10, 2015)—which is an affiliate organization of the Association of Third World Studies (ATWS) founded by him—via the ASRF listserv (asrfmail@googlegroups.com). The tributes cover from July 12 to 14, 2015.