Abstract:
This study offers a critical application of Charles J. Fillmore’s Frame Semantics and George Lakoff’s Idealized
Cognitive Models (ICMs) to EkeGusii, a Bantu language spoken in southwestern Kenya, with the aim of
expanding the analytical reach of cognitive linguistics into African linguistic ecologies. Frame Semantics
posits that word meanings are comprehensible only in relation to background conceptual structures, or frames,
that represent culturally familiar experiences such as commerce, kinship, illness, and ritual. Lakoff’s ICM
theory complements this by arguing that such frames are rooted in idealized, schematic representations of how
speakers culturally and experientially model the world.
While these theories have been extensively applied in the analysis of Indo-European languages particularly
English their application to African languages remains underexplored. This study addresses that gap by
investigating how EkeGusii lexical items, idiomatic expressions, and culturally salient constructions evoke
distinct cognitive frames and ICMs that organize meaning through lived experience. Examples include kinship
terminology (makomoke, paternal aunt), agrarian verbs (koburuga, to weed), and euphemistic health
expressions (oborwaire obotari bw’abanto, ‘a disease not for people’), all of which reflect deeply entrenched
moral, social, and cosmological models of the world.
Using qualitative linguistic data, the analysis reveals that EkeGusii meaning-making is not merely referential
but experiential and relational, embedding concepts like social hierarchy, moral judgment, and environmental
interaction within culturally resonant frames. The ICMs activated in these contexts (for example, moral
causality, spiritual agency, social contamination, and restorative balance) demonstrate how cognition is shaped
by local cosmologies and normative expectations.
The findings extend Fillmore’s and Lakoff’s insights beyond Western-centric linguistic paradigms and affirm
the utility of frame-based semantics for African language analysis. In doing so, the paper contributes to the
decolonization of linguistic theory by advocating for the inclusion of African epistemologies and indigenous
knowledge systems in semantic modeling. The study concludes with a reflection on the methodological
implications of integrating Frame Semantics and ICMs in African linguistics, particularly for the purposes of
lexicography, language documentation, and culturally grounded language teaching.
