The acquisition of metaphorical expressions from the domain of weather

• Main Author: Radić-Bojanić Biljana B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Philosophy, Kosovska Mitrovica 2012-01-01
• Series: Zbornik Radova Filozofskog Fakulteta u Prištini
• Subjects: cognitive linguistics; conceptual metaphor; human mood/ behaviour is weather; foreign language teaching; naturalistic inquiry; observation; journal
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0354-3293/2012/0354-32931201265R.pdf
• ISSN: 0354-3293; 2217-8082

This article focuses on theoretical and applied aspects of cognitive linguistics, especially one of its main tools, conceptual metaphor, which is no longer seen as a literary device, but as an essential mechanism of human cognition that maps features of concrete domains onto abstract ones. The potentials of such a theoretical construct in foreign language teaching are infinite if students are educated and trained to recognize and understand metaphors and metaphorical expressions. This will eventually lead to the internalization of metaphor sets and will be consequently reflected in productive language skills, speaking and writing, where foreign language students will display their skills in metaphor use. The article offers an example from the teaching process, where it is shown how foreign language students react when they encounter the metaphorical expressions from the domain of weather, how they interpret the meanings of these expressions and how they eventually use the given linguistic input in their own speech. The potential of the research results is quite great: the findings could influence foreign language course books in the sense of the development of figurative thinking with students. The aim would be to help students increase the knowledge of the foreign language and eventually make them independent and autonomous language learners.