Abstract

Obituaries are, primarily, announcements of death through which members of the public are informed of the loss, demise or death of persons. These obituaries tend to go beyond mere announcements to reveal important information on the life of the person and certain aspects of his/her socio-cultural world view. In discussing death which has been a taboo from time immemorial certain forms of linguistic cautions are employed in communicative situations that reflect the taboo associated with death. This is apparently because of its bluntness, unpleasantness and vulgarity. Using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the theoretical framework for the analysis, this paper looks at obituary posters from the point of view of metaphoric and Euphemistic usages in some selected Nigerian posters.

Keywords: Death, Euphemism, Metaphor, Nigerian posters, Obituaries, Taboo

How to cite

Odoemenam, Temple Chibueze (2026). Metaphoric Euphemism in the Nigerian Obituary Posters. NATELCEP Journal of Languages and Communication Studies (NJLCS), 19(1), 64–72. https://www.natelcep.org/journal/articles/6aa872031d01c8b79d2f14f7