Conceptual Metaphor and Language Learning
There is some evidence that an understanding of underlying conceptual metaphors can aid the retention of vocabulary for people learning a foreign language. To improve learners' awareness of conceptual metaphor, one monolingual learner's dictionary, the Macmillan English Dictionary has introduced 50 or so 'metaphor boxes' covering the most salient Lakoffian metaphors in English. For example, the dictionary entry for conversation includes a box with the heading: 'A conversation is like a journey, with the speakers going from one place to another', followed by vocabulary items (words and phrases) which embody this metaphorical schema Language teaching experts are beginning to explore the relevance of conceptual metaphor to how learners learn and what teachers do in the classroom.
Read more about this topic: Conceptual Metaphor
Famous quotes containing the words conceptual, metaphor, language and/or learning:
“Our acceptance of an ontology is, I think, similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific theory, say a system of physics; we adopt, at least insofar as we are reasonable, the simplest conceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and arranged.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Nature will not let us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come out of the caucus, or the bank, or the abolition-convention, or the temperance-meeting, or the transcendental club, into the fields and woods, she says to us, “so hot? my little Sir.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)