The Discourse Trends of Metaphors of Customary Marriage Ceremonies in Burundi

Metaphors used in customary marriage ceremonies have continued to attract attention among scholars. However, little attention has been accorded to discourse trends of those metaphors. The main purpose of this paper was to investigate the discourse trends of metaphors used during customary marriage ceremonies in Giteranyi Commune, Burundi. A phenomenological design, observation and interview were used to gather the data. The target population was drawn from the people of Giteranyi commune involved in two customary marriage ceremonies that had been purposively sampled. The sampling techniques used were the purposive sampling and snowball to recruit sixteen participants to this study. Instruments used for data collection were a pen and a notebook as well as an audiovideo recorder. Guided by Fairclough (1995)’s CDA Theory, the data was analyzed and discussed. Results indicate that metaphors used during customary marriage ceremonies have particular discourse trends. Those trends are for instance the strengthening of the linguistic and literary identity metaphors, negotiation trend, and persuasive trend, role of metaphors in conflict resolution and maintaining of linguistic etiquette. This paper will be useful to language teachers, scholars and the general public who will get an understanding of metaphors used in their lives specifically in customary marriage ceremonies. Key Words: Giteranyi Commune, Customary marriage, Discourse trends, Metaphorical language, Metaphors.