The dehumanizing metaphors in the culture of Acehnese in Indonesia

Abstract

This study investigated dehumanizing metaphors used in the daily life and collective memory of Acehnese people in Indonesia and how male and female persons are presented. The interviews were held with 20 people from six districts in Aceh province, Indonesia. Data were collected from elders aged 60 and above, and Acehnese is spoken as their mother tongue. Since they did not travel much (except for occasional holidays with families and Hajj pilgrimage), they are deemed untainted native speakers of Acehnese. For analysis, grounded by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, this study found that the metaphorical expressions in the Acehnese culture that dehumanize people mostly use animals' concepts, and the rests are of the inanimate entity, and plants. The negative meanings present human as animals are such as agam buya (crocodile man), kamèng keudèe (goat in the market), manok agam (cock), among others, and the positive ones that present human as plants are boh lam ôn (a leaf-covered fruit) and padé jum (wet rice). They negatively or positively describe a person's behavior where the negative ones are commonly associated with a person's corrupt behavior and the positive ones for good behavior. Most of the dehumanizing metaphors are genderless; only a few are gender-based. Acehnese is a genderless language that has no distinctions of grammatical gender. These metaphors inform the conceptual system or belief of the Acehnese society through language use.

Cognition and Ideology in the Irony of the Batak Toba Language

“…All of the source domains mostly represent the target domain in the form of human character, commitment, identity, nature, and behavior that are the basis for criticism or innuendo by the speaker against the interlocutor. Therefore, to better understand irony, it is worth differentiating metaphorical meaning from the literal meaning (Usman & Yusuf, 2020).…”

“…It is defined as a conceptualization of one thing to another, resulting from the creativity of human thought. Even now, the metaphor is no longer considered a stylistic and rhetorical resource but a cognitive mechanism that allows people to conceptualize the world (Preux & Blanco, 2021;Usman & Yusuf, 2020). In the same vein, Adams et al (2017) have defined it as the use of the abstract concept to describe the abstract concept.…”

Dehumanisasi dalam Peribahasa Sunda

“…Temuan dari penelitian yaitu peribahasa Sunda memiliki keterkaitan dengan nilai, kebudayaan, mitos, cara hidup, dan norma budaya yang berlaku di masyarakat, serta nilai-nilai kearifan lokal yang tercermin melalui leksikon yang digunakan dalam peribahasa tersebut. Usman & Yusuf (2020) dalam "The Dehumanizing Methapors In The Culture Of Acehness In Indonesia" dengan fokus penelitian yaitu peribahasa Aceh. Peneliti pun menganalisis dehumanisasi berbasis gender yang hasilnya diharapkan dapat menyoroti ketimpangan dan diskriminasi yang tertanam dalam interaksi sosial masyarakat Aceh.…”

The Transformation of the Beut Darôh and Kenduri Khatam Traditions in the Urban Community of Banda Aceh City

“…If they could not, they would be punished by the satirical expressions (full of metaphors), which were frequently used by people in which they would be considered socially and religiously not good. In Aceh, using metaphor as a form of social punishment has become a tradition (Jarjani Usman & Yunisrina Qismullah Yusuf, 2020).…”