Tag: Biblical studies | Hebrew language | Linguistics
Kinship terms are used as forms of address both literally and fictively, i.e. addressing people whom the speaker is not related to neither by blood nor by marriage. A thorough analysis of the occurrences of kinship terms in the Hebrew Bible, with some remarks concerning contemporary Israeli Hebrew, demonstrates that fictive use prevails over literal use, playing a primary role in the definition of social relationships. The subject is approached from a discourse analysis perspective in the theoretical framework of the conceptual metaphor, exploring the relations between discourse and cognition as well as between discourse and power.