Mind, Metaphor and Language Teaching

Metaphor has become a topic of enormous research interest. It is now treated as central to our grasp of abstract meaning while providing insights into such important topics as the nature of learning and language change. It has also become part of that larger study of language and mind known as Cognitive Linguistics. However, metaphor studies have had little to say about the way teachers present language to their students or how they should view the processes of language learning to which they are trying to appeal. This book explores how these insights into figurative language can reshape what teachers do in the classroom. It reveals why some well-known methods work while others do not. Rejecting prescriptive pedagogical formulae, it recounts classroom episodes that help teachers rethink their own practice. Finally, the book sets out how we can use these episodes to re-appriase language learning theory in a way that treats it as consonant with the cognitive nature of language.

Table of Contents:
List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Introduction PART 1: THE STUDY OF METAPHOR Early Perspectives The rehabilitation of metaphor The problem of knowing when something is a metaphor or not Metaphor and relevance theory The cognitive view of metaphor Conceptual metaphor: how metaphors share common themes How we shape abstract concepts with the metaphors we use to group them The lack of a clear distinction between the metaphorical and the literal Metaphors as transfers of meaning from one domain to another: mapping and blending How abstract meaning is conceptualised through metaphor and image schema Some of the conceptual metaphors that produce abstract language are culturally-specific and some are universal Grammar as developing from metaphor over time Conclusions PART 2: USING FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE The language of metaphor Stretching the domain What categories mean What teachers and students can do with their understanding of categories Achieving greater freedom with meaning: describing things as other than themselves Layering Metaphors looking for a meaning Conclusions PART 3: TEACHING THE LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE OF METAPHOR Metaphor and parts of speech Metaphors that identify themselves: grammatical metaphor Elliptical metaphors Conclusion PART 4: ALLEGORY AND ANALOGY: TEACHING WITH EXTENDED METAPHORS Allegory Analogy Analogy, models and writing instruction Teaching with analogy: conclusions PART 5: TEACHING LEXIS THROUGH METAPHOR Bridging the gap between learning theory and language theory Using metaphor to teach abstract meaning Metaphor teaches students about language Using metaphor in the construction of discourse Expressing deductive and inductive arguments Cause-and-effect paths Conclusions PART 6: METAPHOR AND THE TEACHING OF GRAMMAR Phrasal verbs Tense and time Reference Expressing time Conclusions PART 7: THE METAPHOR OF LEARNING Linguistic theories of language acquisition There is no reliable way to distinguish acquired language knowledge from learnt language knowledge Generative theories of SLA The modular mind Cognivist and generative positions Student errors, CBT (cognitive blend theory) and the remodelling of second-language learning Towards a blend-structure model of second-language learning Cognitive blend theory and language learning How a CBT model can account for language learning A blend-structure model of language learning: understanding and correcting student errors Conclusions PART 8: CONCLUSIONS Cognitive not social relevance Cultural empathy Affective is effective A kinaesthetic pedagogy: understanding the physical basis of meaning A construction-based pedagogy: exploiting the spatial construction of meaning A participatory pedagogy Bibliography Index

About the Author :
RANDAL HOLME is Director of the Language Centre at the School of Language and Linguistics, University of Durham, UK.