Metaphor and Vocabulary Acquisition

Overview

• The study investigates whether awareness of metaphor enhances retention of unfamiliar figurative expressions
• It proposes classroom activities to enhance metaphor awareness for vocabulary acquisition.
• Various figurative expressions trace back to a common metaphoric theme or source domain.
• Organizing lexis along metaphoric themes/source domains facilitates retention of unfamiliar figurative expressions.
• Classroom activities enhance language learners' metaphor awareness, turning it into additional vocabulary acquisition channel

Introduction to Metaphorical Language

• Figurative language in everyday conventional discourse is widely recognized since Metaphors We Live By publication
• Language learners face figurative discourse during language learning
• Mastering conventional figurative language is inherent to learning
• Metaphors vary across cultures
• Polysemous lexical items more frequently occur in derived figurative senses than literal senses
• Paying attention to literal senses enhances in-depth comprehension of figurative usage

Benefits of Recognizing Metaphorical Themes

• Figurative language can be motivated and traced back to limited source domains/metaphoric themes
• Recurring metaphoric themes act as an alternative lexical field type, revealing structure in figurative language

Experiments Overview

• Reports three EFL language learning experiments to measure the potential benefits of organizing figurative expressions by their underlying metaphoric themes
• Experiments corroborate a lexical organization along metaphoric themes/source domains facilitates retention of unfamiliar figurative expressions while pointing out the approach's limitations

Experiment 1: Emotions and Metaphorical Themes

• Participants: 118 Flemish secondary school pupils (16–17 years, Dutch L1, intermediate English)
• Two groups read "Managing the Emotions" text
• The text exemplifies "THE BODY IS A CONTAINER FOR EMOTIONS" and "ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER" themes
• One group got vocabulary notes organized by metaphoric themes. The other got same vocab organized along pragmatic/functional lines.
• Both groups did a cloze test.

Findings of Experiment 1

• The group with metaphorically organized vocabulary notes reproduced studied lexis more than the control group
• Awareness of metaphoric themes behind vocabulary can facilitate retention for emotions

Considerations for Experiment 1

• Metaphoric themes existed in participants' L1, aiding learning process via transfer from L1
• Transfer strategies risk erroneous L1 interference
• Dutch equivalent of "Biting someone's head off" is 'Biting someone's nose off'
• The Dutch equivalent of "To add fuel to the fire" is ‘To add oil to the fire'.
• L1 interference caused some to incorrectly use 'oil' instead of 'fuel'.

Experiment 2: Economic Vocabulary and Imagery

• 73 university business/economics students (19–20 years, French L1, intermediate English)
• List provided to describe upward/downward economic trends
• Experimental group introduction: Linking expressions to images, Control: Speed of change
• Focus on encouraging imagery during word list processing
• Participants wrote essays describing provided economic graphs, up-down lexis variation prompted

Results of Experiment 2

• The group encouraged to use imagery reproduced targeted expressions more actively
• Lexical items were listed in a table without explicit imagery and highlighted in intro paragraph
• The control group had more cases of semantic incoherence

Experiment 3: Phrasal Verbs and Orientational Metaphors

• 74 university students did it, focus on phrasal verbs, cognitive semantic approach
• Inspired by Kövecses and Szabo's EFL experiment on phrasal verbs
• Group 1- Explanatory Alphabetical Notes,Group 2- Multi-Word verbs with orientational metaphors
• Students did gap-fill exercise inspired by Goleman's Emotional Intelligence in text

Results of Experiment 3

• Experimental group scored higher on items from vocab notes and they are more likely to have a correct answer
• It validates many other studies
• Cognitive semantic approach had successful transfer
• Enhanced awareness of orientational metaphors did not improve novel multi-word verb comprehension

Discussion of Findings Across All Experiments

• Superior retention was witnessed for figurative expressions organized along their underlying metaphoric themes
• Imagery processing and cognitive effort to identify source domains helps memory

Limitations of the Studies' Approach

• Not all figurative language is equally suited to the approach (opaque idioms) Mastery isn't guaranteed from metaphoric themes
• Learners cannot 'generate' figurative expressions in the target language
• Native Language is too close to the target language, may not be relevant to 'distant' language

Small-Scale Categorization Experiment

• Participants: 64 university students, tested learner's ability ti identify metaphoric themes
• Participants had 5 minutes categorize 15 expressions under MACHINERY, HEALTH, WAR, fourth category

Results of the Categorization Experiment

• Most of the students were able to get the answers right

Enhancing Metaphor Awareness in the Classroom

• Make learners aware of the common aspects of metaphor in everday language
• Have them focus on the differences between love and friendship The language of the students will reflect a lot of the same ideas of spatial and business aspects

Additional Classroom Activities

• Enhancing metaphor awareness means the learner recognizes how wide the varity of figurative language is when comparing to random lists
• Understanding the metaphoric theme can be 'explained' and referenced experientially
• Knowing that they have a symptom can reflect into a metaphoric conception which results in a language
• Using the correct instantiations that helps to give it context
• Understanding the backround of a historical culture can help in understanding the deeper meaning behind the imagery
• Compare the target language with LI