1. Metaphorical motivation

The theoretical principles of cognitive linguistics, including the theory of metaphor, were soon extended in the context of applied linguistics, especially in language teaching methodology.

Perhaps, the most popular field where the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor can be applied in foreign language teaching and learning is the study of idiomatic expressions. The traditional view of idioms is that they ”consist of two or more words and that the overall meaning of these words cannot be predicted from the meaning of the constituent words” (Kövecses, 2002:199). Thus, a certain idiom is merely a matter of language, an arbitrary pairing of form and meaning, an entry in the mental lexicon, with its specific meaning and syntactic properties, independent of the other entries. Idioms (e.i., their linguistic meanings) can stand in the same relationship with other entries as any non-idiomatic entry (word or expression): synonymy, antonymy, homonymy, polysemy.

However, the cognitive linguistic view goes beyond the arbitrariness of the linguistic level, and finds motivation for the meaning of various elements of language, including most idioms, in the underlying conceptual metaphors (CMs). The meaning of an idiom is thus not just special in relation to its constituting parts, but it arises from the knowledge of the world as presented in the conceptual system. Thus, most idioms are conceptual and not linguistic, in nature. At this point we should distinguish motivation from prediction. By motivation it is not claimed that the meaning is exactly predictable, given the non-idiomatic meaning of an idiom, but that the more general meaning of the idiom is based on the target domain that is applicable to the idiom in question, and the more precise aspects of the meaning are based on the relevant conceptual mapping.

For an example of conceptual mapping, let us see the correspondences, connecting source and target in the conceptual metaphor: LOVE IS A JOURNEY (the examples are taken from Kövecses, 2002:7):

For another example, the concept of time is structured according to motion and space, so the conceptual metaphor behind expressions such as time flies, those days are gone is TIME IS MOTION. This has consequences for our understanding of time: we understand it in terms of physical objects, their locations and their motion. Also, we think of present time as being at the same location as the speaker. So the following mapping of the target and source applies structuring our notion of time:

Times are things.
The passing of time is motion.
Future times are in front of the observer; past times are behind the observer.
One thing is moving, the other is stationary; the stationary thing is the deictic center.

In English there are two special cases of the above conceptual metaphor:
TIME PASSING IS MOTION OF AN OBJECT (with the observer fixed)

The time will come when…
The time for action has arrived.
I am looking ahead to Christmas.
In the week following next Tuesday.

TIME PASSING IS AN OBSERVER’S MOTION OVER A LANDSCAPE
We are getting close to Christmas.
There is going to be trouble along the road.

2. Metaphorical motivation in foreign language teaching

In the following part the literature representing the problems and lines of empirical research that has been carried out in this field, with a special focus on Hungarian contributions will be reviewed.

The major questions which should be answered to pave the road to didactic application include the following: Is there a way to utilize the metaphorical motivation of linguistic elements to enhance language learning? What are the ideal conditions and methods for the most effective use of this motivation in vocabulary acquisition? Can we put our finger on a particular metaphorical competence which helps native speakers to understand and produce figurative language in a way which is specific to the given language? Is the transfer of this competence possible when we are learning a foreign language?

Besides reviewing theoretical answers and empirical evidence on these issues, in order to provide examples of practical application, a short description of some experimental procedures and suggested classroom techniques will be also included.

2.1 Early theories about didactic application

Graham D. Low (1988) was aiming at the adaptation of theoretical findings to set up a framework which would suit the course designers, setting some criteria for the design of teaching materials. We will see below how the issues raised at this early stage were taken up and answered by empirical research. At the same time, some problematic issues have stayed with us, for example the difficulty involved in the definition of metaphor (Cameron and Low 1999), and drawing hard boundaries, especially between metaphor and metonymy (Barcelona 2000).

Low (1988) contends that metaphors should be given a more important place in language teaching, as they make it possible to talk about certain abstractions, entities, relations, they are used for compelling attention, controlling the personal distancing and explicitness in an argument, making it easier to discuss emotionally charged subjects, compressing an argument. The development of native-like metaphoric competence, the metaphorical programming of discourse emerges as a number of skills for language learners to master. To develop native-like metaphoric competence learners should be able to construct plausible meanings for utterances which contain semantic anomalies, and recognize the boundaries of a conventional metaphor, its extensions or new metaphors being produced, along with the recognition of the intentions of the speaker. Some difficulties lie in the fact that some features of the source are transferred, while others are not; some sources are used to describe more than one topic, and some are more acceptable employing a particular word class. Sometimes metaphors may also be mixed, while in other cases not. The partial overlap in the metaphoric structure of L1 and the target language seems to cause most problems. These cross-linguistic problems are dealt with in a complex framework fifteen years later by Kövecses (2005) discussing the relationships of conceptual metaphors and their linguistic expressions.

The interpretation of “hedges”, the development of sensitivity for acceptable source and target combinations, socially sensitive metaphors and multiple layering in metaphors requires even more of the student, and of the course designer.

Low (1988) also predicts some learner difficulties, such as the inefficient use of metaphor as a compensatory strategy in cases when learners try to overcome gaps in their L2 knowledge, or on meeting “suspicious” cases the decision on whether a word is used literally or metaphorically. Sometimes learners meet a metaphoric use of a word before the literal one (e.g., buttressing an argument), and this may complicate the evaluation of complex metaphoric utterances.

It is also still a question if learning to cope with metaphor is a similar process in the cases of L1 and L2, and from person to person. While most analyses of metaphor comprehension are based on L1 observations, Cooper (1999) suggests another alternative for L2 processing.

Low (1988) suggests that L2 learners should develop the above metaphor-related skills, and that a one-by-one learning of metaphoric expressions is not effective enough. He finds that explicit analytic discussion about underlying metaphors, limits and other aspects is useful. He also recommends some exercises for teaching innovatory metaphor, recognizing that innovative metaphor could be best handled building on conventional metaphor. For teaching conventional metaphor he proposes sequences of multi-text exercises (for example comparing versions of advertisements, discussing the metaphors and allusions involved), multiple activities and jumps of function, genre or formality. There are also some suggestions on how dictionaries and thesauri should deal with metaphorical meanings.

Although standing without any empirical confirmation at the time, the issues raised by Low represent the major lines of investigation and analysis of the significance of metaphors in the field of foreign language education: the cross-linguistic differences, recognition of metaphors, the ideal presentation of metaphors, ways of processing and acquisition, the possibility of creative use.

2.2 Focus on metaphorical competence

Danesi (1992) elaborated on the concept of metaphorical competence. He claims that grammatical and communicative knowledge constitute aspects of verbal fluency, which may be highly developed in learners. Still, their discourse texts lack the conceptual appropriateness of native speakers’ texts, which he calls conceptual fluency. To be “conceptually fluent in a language is to know how that language reflects or encodes its concepts on the basis of metaphorical structuring” (Danesi, 1992:490).

He states that this “metaphorical competence” (which is his term, analogous to grammatical competence and communicative competence) is “almost completely lacking from the discourse programming abilities of SL learners.” (Danesi, 1992:491) In his view, conceptual fluency is a mostly unconscious strategy, a kind of cognitive mapping operation, which is linked to the ways in which a culture organizes its world conceptually.

In an attempt to see to what extent metaphorical competence develops in classroom learners, Danesi carried out several experiments involving SL learners and native speakers (Italian). Measuring the comprehension of metaphors, he found that SL learners performed 26% worse on a sentence-interpretation task than native speakers. Results of a paraphrase task of literal and metaphorical texts were about the same: good paraphrases of the literal text and poor results on the metaphoric text. The translation task proved difficult for both groups, non-native students came up with 23% acceptability level and natives a 34% one. Based on the poor results of SL learners he concludes that the level of metaphorical competence is inadequate in typical classroom learners, and this must be due to the fact that they had “never been exposed in formal ways to the conceptual system of the target language,” and were not able to “convert experiences into conceptually and linguistically appropriate models” (Danesi, 1992:495). At the same time, the results improved from elementary through intermediate to advanced levels in both groups, which seems to prove that there is a competence which develops gradually in both L1 and L2. The results show that there are individual differences, too.

In another experiment he compared the number of metaphors in essays written in Spanish by native speakers and non-native learners. Here again, the significantly lower “metaphorical density” index of learners shows that they have little access to the conceptual system of L2. Even when using metaphors, they used ones that are alike in both languages, and did not show much of thinking in “new ways” (Danesi, 1992: 497). Later research proved that explicit instruction on metaphorical language, for example vocabulary learning tasks can improve the use of such language in open-ended writing assignments, also (Boers 2000).

Danesi also checked ten textbooks in elementary, intermediate and advanced French, Italian and Spanish FL courses, and found that none were dealing explicitly with metaphorical concepts as such. Metaphor occurred in dialogues, texts and the like, but overall the books showed a low metaphorical density (less than 10% on average). Danesi contends that metaphorical competence must be extracted from the continuum of discourse, and should be studied and practised in ways which are similar to how grammar and communication are taught. Similar ideas have inspired researchers – including myself – to carry out empirical research on how this could be done.

2.3 Empirical research in Hungary

In Hungary, Tóth (1998, 1999) took up the question of the development of conceptual fluency and metaphorical competence in the process of L2 acquisition. As we have seen, theoretical considerations for the role of metaphor had existed, but empirical research had been mainly concerned with native speakers. As the concept is missing from models of L2 acquisition, and even authors in cognitive linguistics are rather vague about it, Tóth (1999) makes an attempt at the definition of metaphorical competence:

egy olyan fokozatosan kifejlődő, folyamatosan módosuló, összetett
képesség (…), mely a fogalmi metaforák kialakulására és ezek körének
folyamatos bővülésére alapozva konvencionális képszerű kifejezések
megértését, illetve létrehozását teszi lehetővé. (Tóth,1999: 3)

It is a complex competence, which develops gradually, and is
constantly changing. It is based on the appearance and
continuous expansion of the range of conceptual metaphors, and it
makes possible the understanding and creation of conventional
imageable expressions. (translation by me)

Tóth identifies two stages of development: the recognition of similarities in different domains of experience and metalingual awareness. Findings of research in child language acquisition have revealed that metaphors appear in spontaneous speech already at the age of two in pretend action plays, and they are based on the ability of re-naming (Winner 1978). Gibbs (1980) found that the mechanism of understanding metaphors is basically the same as understanding literal language. He also pointed at the significance of the context in the interpretation of metaphors. Based on all these findings, Tóth (1999) proposes an inductive instructive approach in L2 teaching from the very early stages. This view is noteworthy especially because other researches usually focus on explicit instruction at later stages of FL learning. She also describes some classroom activities to illustrate ways of inductive development. For example, the students may collect English expressions used to denote someone they love (e.g., sweetheart, apple of one’s eye), and then find something common to them. In this case, the common metaphoric theme is THE LOVED PERSON IS FOOD.

Tóth also carried out an experiment with intermediate level English learners. She found that her subjects were able to identify the common metaphorical source (FIRE) in 16 sample sentences, find common themes (target domains) and group the sentences according to these (LOVE, CONFLICT). Then she explained the conceptual metaphor lying behind the chosen expressions. The following day the students received a gap-filling exercise. The researcher had compiled sentences containing idiomatic expressions (not connected to conceptual metaphors presented earlier), and removed the idioms from the sentences, so the students had to choose them from a list. The hypothesis was that the students who were exposed to explicit instruction on a certain group of conceptual metaphors would follow a similar strategy on meeting new idioms (finding common elements, trying to find a conceptual metaphor) and achieve better results in the gap-filling exercise. The control group had to do the task without any explanation of conceptual metaphors. The results of the experimental group were better indeed (82% vs. 44%).

So she found that students at intermediate level had developed certain skills necessary for the recognition and interpretation of metaphorical expressions, and with a relatively short exercise and explanation they could develop their meta-lingual knowledge into a strategy for interpreting new expressions. Production of metaphors was not required and measured.

Kövecses and Szabó (1996) represent important Hungarian empirical research into the implications of cognitive linguistics for language teaching. Their subjects were intermediate level adult learners of English. The experimental task involved filling in sentences with the missing adverbial particles of phrasal verbs, all containing up and down. The procedure for the control group included teaching ten phrasal verbs with their Hungarian equivalents. In the experimental group the ten phrasal verbs were taught with their orientation metaphors, with explanation and illustrative examples. Then the subjects filled in 2x10 sentences with the missing adverbial particles. The experimental group produced 9% more correct responses in the first ten sentences (where the phrasal verbs had been taught, so memorization was the basic factor), and 25% better in the other ten sentences. In the latter case, five sentences contained new phrasal verbs which were instantiations of the pre-taught conceptual metaphors, so the students might have used their knowledge of these conceptual metaphors. In the remaining five sentences the phrasal verbs were not connected to those metaphors. Here the students may have used the strategy of thinking in conceptual metaphors. In most cases these metaphors are shared by English and Hungarian (e.g., HEALTH IS UP), so the students in the control group could have had access to them. However, it seems necessary to make people aware of the metaphor-approach before they can use it. As the authors conclude, the mere presence of conceptual metaphors in the mind, the “passive existence of metaphorical motivation” does not seem to be sufficient for their use when learning a foreign language.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that while universality in metaphor facilitates the learning of idioms, cross-linguistic variation makes it more difficult. Kövecses (2001, 2005) points out that even when two languages share the same conceptual metaphor, one-to-one correspondences or “mirror translations” (which would be the only correspondences significantly aiding acquisition if we did not consider deeper connections of vocabulary) form only a small part of the linguistic expressions rooted in the given conceptual metaphor. Some examples for words and expressions with the same fire-related primary sense and metaphorical sense in English and Hungarian are to smoulder ‘füstölög’ or to burn the candle at both ends ‘két végén égeti a gyertyát.’

In other cases, the two languages use words with different primary senses to denote the same metaphorical sense: e.g., to spit fire ‘tüzet hány/okád.’ In these cases when understanding and remembering the expressions, learners rely on the mappings within the scope of the source (in this case, FIRE). So on one hand, the mappings guarantee that certain idioms in L1 have common and systematically connected elements in their meaning. On the other hand, similar mappings in L1 and L2 make it probable that the connected idioms in L1 and L2 will share much of their meaning.

As it can be seen, the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic aspects of metaphorical language have major relevance in the pedagogical applications.

In another outstanding Hungarian study, Csábi (2004) explores how the motivated meaning structure of polysemous words can be used in vocabulary teaching. Her subjects were intermediate level secondary school students. She used Lexical Network Theory (Norvig and Lakoff 1987) to map the structure of the meanings of hold and keep. (The theory shows how various senses of polysemous words are connected by different links: image-schema transformation links, metaphoric links, metonymic links, frame-addition links, semantic role differentiation links, and profile shifts.) In the experiment, different senses of hold and keep, phrasal verbs and idioms containing these words were taught and their retention tested. In the experimental groups motivations for the various senses were demonstrated and explained with representative example sentences, containing keywords (like hand, control) indicating the motivation for the meanings (but without the use of linguistic terminology such as metaphor, profile shift, etc.). For the control groups, only the Hungarian equivalents were given. The experimental groups reproduced a significantly higher number of the targeted vocabulary items on the test. The differences between the experimental groups and the control groups increased in the post-tests, so probably traces in the long-term memory were stronger in the case of the experimental groups, due to the cognitive mechanisms and activity involved.

So Csábi finds that “awareness and acquisition of the cognitive structure of word meanings aids teaching and learning” (2004:235) and “motivation for the meanings of polysemous words and the idioms in which they occur promotes better learner performance” (2004:250). She recommends the method to complement traditional ways of teaching vocabulary, and suggests that the effectiveness of memorizing words can be enhanced by using keywords referring to conceptual metaphors, schematic drawings to indicate meanings, mental pictures and teaching vocabulary in a systematic way. She also found that the method generated interest in learning new vocabulary. She thinks that the cognitive approach can be employed in all stages of language learning, from the very beginning. Another advantageous aspect is that probably language awareness facilitates the development of interpretative, inferential, and analytic skills.

Beréndi’s (2005) experiments compared the consequences of various ways of presentation and consciousness-raising on the comprehension and learning of metaphorically motivated idioms in four groups. They also tested the learners’ ability to identify conceptual metaphors and categorize idioms according to these, and the significance of the idioms’ connectedness to CMs. She also examined some “side effects” of learning vocabulary along metaphoric lines, the long-term efficacy of learning and the strategic use of the method. The hypotheses were that the recognition of motivation of vocabulary items can facilitate understanding and acquisition, and that a certain metaphor awareness can be developed in foreign language learners, which can be the basis of conscious learning strategies.

Her subjects were Hungarian students majoring in English. The idioms chosen were 22 English expressions of anger, 19 related to four CMs, and three that were not related to these. In each group, for the presentation procedure there was a text containing the idioms, providing context for them, and then a separate list of the highlighted vocabulary items. The way of presentation was different in all four groups. In the control group, the expressions were listed in order of appearance in the text, and no information was provided regarding the metaphorical nature of the idioms. In the metaphor group there was an interactive verbal introduction on the non-arbitrary nature of idioms and the underlying CMs, and the expressions were grouped around their CMs on the task sheet. As an extra task, in the metaphor-finder group the students were asked to identify common themes (CMs) behind the expressions listed in order of appearance (two CMs were provided with examples). In the image group, illustrations representing some major mappings of CMs were provided with the idioms. The comprehension of the idioms was evaluated based on the translations provided by the students, and acquisition was measured by a gap-filling exercise.

The experiments have proved that conscious awareness-raising is beneficial to the understanding of L2 idiomatic language: the metaphor group understood 87.5% of the idioms correctly, vs. 78% in the control group, which is a significant difference (p=0.5, ?=0.5, Paired Samples Test). Presentation of vocabulary grouped around CMs also aided short-term and long-term retention and recall (the metaphor group had better results in the gap-filling exercise, p=0.003, ?=0.05), and resulted in the creation of a more elaborate conceptual structure of the target domain (more idioms expressing degrees of intensity were recalled by subjects who had studied them grouped around their CMs). The metaphor-finder group had serious difficulty in identifying metaphors, and the image group did not have any better results than the control group, either, which suggests that we cannot count on the automatic transfer of metaphorical competence from L1 to L2. Beréndi found that the various ways of presentation and differences in the learners’ various parameters heavily influenced the success of utilization of metaphors. Some conditions which should be taken into account when considering the applicability of the method in particular classroom situations are: the characteristics of metaphors we want to teach, their connectedness to particular CMs, cross-linguistic considerations, materials, the students’ age, level of proficiency, individual differences.

2.4 Further evidence on the benefits of using metaphor

Carol MacLennan (1994) focuses on the role of metaphors and prototypes in teaching grammar and vocabulary: the metaphoric and prototypic aspects of prepositions, adjectives and other word forms. She states that the associative networks which link the word forms on the basis of semantic categories could be activated to simplify and accelerate ESL/EFL learning processes. Besides the function of metaphor in linguistic change and language extension, she also discusses its significance as a means of cognitive growth and concept development. She also deals with problems of concretization and abstraction, and the drawbacks of paraphrase as the most common technique to get at the meaning of non-literal language. Another advantage of the focus on metaphor is that the procedures encourage learner independence. With this observation MacLennan shows a perspective towards improving learning procedures, and more efficient and cost effective teaching programmes.

Frank Boers provides plenty of useful experimental evidence on pedagogical issues. In Boers (2000) he reports four experiments. These illustrate ways of raising metaphor awareness and provide evidence on the effects of utilizing metaphorical motivation in the learning process. He worked with 64-118 Dutch, Flemish and French-speaking subjects studying English, which is quite a substantial number compared to the usual population of 24-50 in experiments reported by other authors, so the reliability of the results is higher.

His first experiment proved that lexical organization along metaphoric themes/sources, and metaphor awareness can facilitate retention of figurative expressions. An experimental group and a control group were asked to read a text, and study vocabulary notes with it. For the experimental group the notes were organized along metaphoric themes, while for the control group along pragmatic/functional lines. After a guided discussion a cloze test of ten items was filled in by the learners. Boers found that on average the experimental group reproduced 4.41 items correctly, while the control group only 3.67. He comments that the metaphoric themes underlying the expressions are present in the learners’ L1 (Flemish), and as they perceive English to be close to their native tongue, they may have widely applied transfer, often with the risk (and result) of erroneous “direct” translation.

In another experiment Boers (2000) examined the reproduction of novel vocabulary in active usage. In this case a list of vocabulary describing trends in economics was given to students. For the experimental group, the introductory lines included examples of specific images that the expressions called up (e.g., rockets or airplanes: soar, skyrocket, crash). Drawing attention to the source domains and encouraging students to apply imagery in their processing of the word list proved fruitful: in the essays written by the students later the experimental group used 7.1 of the targeted economics expressions on average, while the control group only 4.9.

There are some points interesting to note: the findings hold for items merely listed as well as those explicitly illustrated with imagery in the introduction. So a more intense production of the students’ own imagery must have taken place. Also, while the number of inaccurate uses of the targeted expressions was about the same, there was only one case of semantic incoherence in the experimental group, compared to five in the control group, which shows that the metaphors must have made the semantics of the idioms more transparent and clear.

The third experiment focused on phrasal verbs, introduced with headings of orientation metaphors (like MORE IS UP, LESS IS DOWN) to the experimental group, and traditional grammar notes for the control group. After studying the vocabulary notes, the students did a gap-filling exercise containing 20 sentences. The first ten contained verbs that had been presented in the notes, and the researchers found that the experimental group produced 5.65 correct answers, while the control group only 4.23. The other ten sentences had to be filled in by verbs which had not been pre-taught, just included in the list of options without any explanation. Boers found that here the experimental group did not perform better than the control group (average of 4.07 and 4.2 respectively), that is, they probably did not use their enhanced awareness of orientation metaphors in handling unknown words. So while Kövecses and Szabó (1996) found that a successful transfer of the cognitive semantic approach took place in a similar experiment, Boers’ results did not show this transfer. There could be several reasons for this, most probably the differences in the procedure itself, with Kövecses and Szabó having more explicit explanation.

The transfer of the strategy is a very significant issue, so let me elaborate on this point by presenting further possible reasons for the differences. These may be especially important, because they carry evidence on the conditions of presentation necessary for the transfer of the strategy for different tasks. Phrasal verbs vary in degrees of semantic transparency, some are easily guessable and imaginable, which may have affected the results. Also Kövecses and Szabó included only up and down expressions in the test, whereas Boers included other particles, too, which were outside the range of imagery presented to the participants earlier.

If we consider the transfer of metaphor-related strategies in the general framework of vocabulary-learning strategies, we can see that the transfer of strategies to similar tasks “is based on a patter-matching condition in which the learner recognizes similarities between new tasks and tasks involved in former strategy applications” (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:53). When Boers measured the degree of metaphor use in compositions, the production task was rather different from the original presentation of the vocabulary and metaphors, it was more demanding, creative and open-ended than filling in prepositions. So, probably, task similarities were not recognized and alternative strategies were used.

The principles and activities that Boers (2000) offers for classroom use may serve as means to channel theory to classroom practice. A simple activity which could raise awareness is asking students to think about their own language about an abstract phenomenon. Speaking about the difference between love and friendship, for instance, draws attention to the metaphoric themes involved, such as spatial metaphors (e.g., Love is deeper than friendship.), body-part metaphors (Love is a matter of the heart.) and so on. An extension of this exercise can be turned into a wider thematic project, for example comparison of gender differences regarding emotions.
Boers and Demecheleer (1998) conducted research into ways of employing the cognitive semantic approach to teaching prepositions. They found that “the cognitive semantic analyses of prepositions could be used to anticipate comprehension problems, and facilitate comprehension of unfamiliar figurative senses” (1998:197). Drawing the learners’ attention to aspects of a preposition’s spatial senses and the conceptual metaphors through which the figurative senses have evolved from them is useful for the learners.

Based on their experiments centred round the words behind and beyond (with French-speaking subjects), they also have suggestions for classroom techniques, for example series of examples with graded levels of abstraction:

I. The man behind the wheelbarrow.
II. The man behind the wheel of the company.
III. The people behind the strike.
IV. The reason behind the crisis.
V. The assumption behind the theory (1998:200).

The awareness of the conceptual metaphor at play can also be enhanced by eliciting other instantiations of it (e.g., ABSTRACT INACCESSIBILITY IS DISTANCE: they’ve taken me off the case, the decision is out of my hands); or expressions reflecting just the opposite metaphor (ABSTRACT ACCESSIBILITY IS PROXIMITY: we were close to a solution).

We have to note that for such an approach to work best, first the comparative cognitive semantic analyses of the prepositions must take place. Several English prepositions have been dealt with, but similar work in other languages is scarce.

Boers (1997, 2000a), Boers and Demecheleer (1997) have also taken the cognitive semantic analysis of discourse one step further, into the field of ESP. They traced linguistic expressions representing various economic models in western economic discourse. Boers concludes that there are certain conceptual metaphors that the expressions belong to (e.g., HEALTH, WAR, PATH), and found in a problem-solving experiment that these metaphors may affect the participants’ decision-making processes. He also found that in ESP, too, “enhanced metaphoric awareness may offer an additional and alternative framework for the organization of figurative lexis” (2000a:143).

Lazar (1996) analyzes types of figurative language that might be encountered by the language learner: figurative extensions of a word, idioms, original metaphors, metaphors extended through a text. She suggests that grouping vocabulary around metaphorical sets could enhance the effectiveness of the procedure of grouping vocabulary in lexical sets, which is an established way of teaching vocabulary. She also argues that “understanding figurative language involves a process of inference,” “a ‘linkage’ is established between the two disparate elements being compared” (1996:45). Lazar thinks that this decoding process is applicable to many instances of figurative language, not only to poetic or literary. She proposes exercises which would explicitly take the students through the stages of decoding figurative language (1996:46):

– comprehending that two things which do not normally collocate together are being
compared or brought together,
– deducing which features of the one are salient in the comparison,
– reinterpreting how the meaning of the other is altered when these salient features are
applied to it.

She also points out that the teacher should provide students with strategies for decoding figurative language, and also make clear which forms are standardized in dictionaries. She presents sequences of exercises that lead students through stages of recognition, comparison and creation of metaphors, and draws attention to the significance of awareness of cultural differences.

3. Summary and conclusions

The present paper has portrayed the significance of application of cognitive linguistic principles in L2 teaching and learning, with a focus on metaphor and vocabulary acquisition. In the following the main features and comments on some white spots will be outlined.

Research has been made on a wide spectrum of vocabulary from idiomatic expressions to phrasal verbs to polysemous words. In different fields various cognitive linguistic theories have been put to use, such as Lexical Network Theory, prototypes, the cognitive semantic views of metaphor and metonymy.

A certain “metaphorical competence” seems to be part of a native speaker’s linguistic knowledge, and language teaching should develop this competence of metaphorical understanding and discourse programming in L2. There have been some suggestions for operationalizing metaphor awareness, i.e., breaking it up into more specific aims, which can be turned into particular exercises for the classroom (Boers 2004).

Empirical research has proved that organization of vocabulary along lines proposed by cognitive linguistics improves this competence, and makes vocabulary learning more effective. When a given sense of a word or expression is linked to a conceptual domain or another sense, the cognitive mechanisms are activated, resulting in better comprehension and retention. Exploring and labelling the underlying conceptual metaphors (metaphoric themes, or source and target domains), and linking the expressions according to these has proved to be beneficial for retention.

The language which has been described best in terms of lexical networks and conceptual metaphors is English, and with a few exceptions, empirical research has been carried out with participants learning English. Their native languages were mainly French, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Chinese and Hungarian.

Although several researchers are convinced that metaphors and teaching metaphors could and should be present from the very beginning of language learning, the experiments are usually carried out with learners of intermediate or advanced level. With a few exceptions (Tóth 1999, Lindstromberg 1997), the sample exercises are also aimed at this level. No detailed description of the long-term strategic development and application of metaphor awareness has been proposed, which would run through the material or course from beginner to advanced level.

In fact, there is a research gap in investigating children’s awareness, understanding and use of metaphors in a second or foreign language and formal educational settings, and in materials (Cameron and Low 1999a). So the process of developing and using metaphorical competence in L2 has hardly been studied, and the data collected in L1 provide the basis for the theory of metaphor acquisition and processing (with the notable exception of Cooper 1999). It has been shown that the comprehension and creation of metaphors go along with conceptual development in children, and is connected more closely to their cognitive abilities than linguistic level, but no similar research has been done in L2. Most experiments and suggestions focus on a narrow range, 14-25-year-old subjects. Often the population is too small for a statistical analysis.

Still, most researchers agree that explicit instruction on the metaphoric nature of language is required, and that the approach is most effective in promoting the recognition of metaphors and retention, but less useful for the generation of L2 utterances. This is due to the historico-cultural differences, the different mappings between domains and other differences such as semantic, syntactic, pragmatic features of expressions, value-judgements, associations in various languages. The danger of negative L1 transfer can be reduced by a conscious approach to metaphors in L2.

The cross-cultural and cross-linguistic variety of figurative language is indeed one of the most influential constraining factors as far as the pedagogical applications of metaphor are concerned, so the description and analysis of these differences (such as Kövecses 2005) is a crucial contribution to the field of language pedagogy, too.

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Some parts of the present paper were included in an earlier publication on a similar topic (Metaphors in Foreign Language Teaching, In: Benczes, R., Csábi, Sz. (eds.) Metaphors of Sixty, ELTE: BP. 2006.)