What Gets Mapped onto What in the SEX IS A FOOTBALL GAME Metaphor in Kenyan HIV/AIDS Campaign Posters?

Abstract

Susan Sontag, the prolific author of AIDS and its Metaphors, subscribes to the school of thought that life-threatening ailments such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis are rich in conceptual metaphors by which such ailments are expressed. Both conceptual and linguistic metaphors coined around the aforementioned ailments serve as cognitive reservoirs within which embodied experiences with such ailments are mentally registered and culturally framed. With specific reference to HIV/AIDS, the recurrent citation of the AIDS pandemic in the works of anthropologists, epidemiologists, behaviour change communicators and political analysts is synonymous with taboo topics slanted towards sexuality, morality and death. In sub-Saharan Africa, behaviour change communicators have either consciously or unconsciously capitalized on creatively using pictorial sports metaphors in AIDS prevention campaign posters. However, very few studies in cognitive linguistics have investigated cross-domain mappings of the sports metaphors in AIDS campaign posters within the African continent, and more particularly, the pervasive usage of the SEX IS A FOOTBALL GAME metaphor. It is against this background that our paper first and foremost cross-culturally examines the cognitive frames and cross-domain mappings upon which football metaphors are structured. Second, the paper examines the possible cross-domain mappings of the SEX IS A FOOTBALL GAME pictorial metaphors in 7 AIDS campaign posters which have been used by behaviour change communicators in Kenya between 1988 and 2010