ABSTRACT
The axiom that language propagates and sustains varied ideologies ranging from simple to ticklish issues in pursuit of speakers’ stardom does not only reside in Kenya but is also the blast-off point in unpacking meaning where “backstage cognition” fills a lacuna traceable to the apparent mismatch between the artists’ background and the consumer’s limited linguistic resources. The deficiency of grammar necessitates a cognitive linguist’s lens for a fuller explication of a text. Whereas the place of language in predicting strained relationships in a country has evoked international assiduity, there is a paucity of formally documented ethnic evidence in melodic compositions. Intellectual endeavours unclothing language and cognition cannot be controverted but the diligence paid to the study of zoosemy in Kenyan political lyrics within a cognitive-semantics perspective has hitherto been hemmed in. This chapter, therefore, analyses the Bestial Zoosemic labelling in Kenyan political songs. It identifies, classifies, and annotates the conceptual metaphors using descriptive research design within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The chapter establishes that animals are stratified source domains richly used to depict the characters in the songs. The authors conclude that culturally embodied zoosemic labelling in Kenyan songs fuels atrocity and need censoring before they are released to the public.
