Anthropomorphic Metaphors in Iban Proverbs: A Semantic-Inquisitive Analysis

Abstract

The current study assesses anthropomorphic metaphors in Iban proverbs (Jaku Sempama) to determine how physiological symbolism encodes indigenous cognition, moral reasoning, and sociocultural insight. A qualitative methodology, namely the documentbased approach, was employed to scrutinise 54 proverbs extracted from Sempama Jaku Iban (Umping, 2010) using the semantic-inquisitive framework with three analytical tiers: script semantics, resonant semantics, and inquisitive semantics. Five metaphorical categories were examined, namely the head, face, eyes, fingers, and body, to uncover how these anatomical parts could serve as conceptual mediums for communicating distorted perception, moral burden, impulsive demeanour, emotional fragility, and superficial social cohesion. Each metaphor demonstrated how the Iban community embedded cultural critique and ethical philosophy in corporeal imagery, transforming the human body into a semantic medium for encoding culturally shaped intelligence, or akal budi. The results corroborated the view that Jaku Sempama functioned as a cognitive rather than solely a stylistic medium, underscoring the pragmatic inference, evaluative stance, and epistemological logic inherent in indigenous oral traditions by applying conceptual metaphor theory and relevance theory. The findings also significantly contributed to the international typology of metaphors by incorporating Iban figurative language into the wider theoretical and cultural context. This study also recommended greater documentation and the integration of indigenous metaphor systems into linguistic preservation endeavours and intercultural communication models, as metaphors operate not only as linguistic heritage but also as cognitive artefacts for comprehending communal identity, emotion, and social order.