Applied Linguistics Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Variation in Conceptual Metaphor

Since the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By in 1980, and subsequent books outlining Conceptual Metaphor Theory (e.g., Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987), a growing number of applied linguists also have begun to highlight the importance of metaphor and metaphor awareness in the field of foreign language learning (for an overview, see Cameron & Low, 1999). On the one hand, applied linguists have tried to identify the metaphoric models of language learning that lie behind different language teaching practices and language education policies (e.g., Block, 1992; Cortazzi & Jin, 1999; Thornbury, 1991). On the other hand, researchers have explored the pedagogical use of metaphor awareness to facilitate foreign language acquisition itself, and more specifically to help learners acquire L2 figurative expressions (e.g., Deignan, Gabrys, & Solska, 1997; Lazar, 1996). The general advantage of applying the notion of conceptual metaphor in the latter context is that it offers motivation and coherence to whole clusters of figurative idioms that may—at first sight—appear to be arbitrary and unrelated. We acknowledge that Conceptual Metaphor Theory is still contending with other metaphor theories (see, e.g., Katz, 1998; McGlone, 1996; Vervaeke & Green, 1997, for some of the ongoing debates), but experimental research has at least shown that the notion of conceptual metaphor can successfully be adapted for pedagogical purposes (Boers, 2000, 2001). If teachers cannot find motivation and coherence in sets of figurative idioms, then attention to them in the language classroom will mostly be confined to pointing out cross-linguistic differences at the METAPHOR AND SYMBOL, 18(4), 231–238 Copyright © 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.