TeachingMetaphorsL2Learners EJ Mar04
TeachingMetaphorsL2Learners EJ Mar04
TeachingMetaphorsL2Learners EJ Mar04
Yu Ren Dong
The author details the challenges of teaching metaphorical language to English language learners.
Yu Ren Dong shares lessons to provide students with “opportunities and resources to gain this
A
language and thinking power.”
my’s ninth-grade students, espe- for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Learners, I
cially the English language learners, have often found that even graduate students have a
had difficulty understanding a pas- limited understanding of metaphorical language.
sage by Jesse Stuart. The passage be- They see metaphor as a literary device to compare
gins by reminiscing about his childhood experience two unlike things. A phrase is buried in the litera-
with his dad’s alarm clock but shifts to an abstract ture, waiting for the teacher and students to dig it
and metaphorical discussion of the significance of out. Reading and discussing Metaphorical Ways of
time in one’s life. Knowing challenged the students’ existing knowl-
Time was something to me, when I was a child, like
edge about metaphors. According to the authors,
wind and water. Time was flowing and eternal, like metaphor is more than a rhetorical device used in lit-
an invisible river. We could divide it into seconds, erature. It is an integral part of language, which
minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, but shapes thinking and helps us construct knowledge.
that didn’t bring us any closer to it. There were yes- To demonstrate that our language is metaphor-
terdays, and time was with us now, and there would ical, I distributed a list of conventional metaphors
be tomorrows. (124) using the word bread and asked students to identify the
Although Amy tried to explain the message to contexts and cultural significance of these metaphors.
the students, she concluded from their blank stares Give us this day our daily bread.
that they did not understand. “But how can you My landlord wants his bread now.
teach someone who has not grown up in this culture
Man cannot live by bread alone.
to think at this deep level?” Amy asked.
Megan, a tenth-grade English teacher who re- His curve ball is his bread-and-butter pitch.
ferred to herself as one big cliché, was surprised to This is the bread of life.
find that many of her newly mainstreamed second- He knows which side his bread’s buttered on.
language learners often took her witty and idiomatic Cast your bread upon the water.
sayings literally. She had to reduce her use of these His invention will take bread out of many
sayings to avoid confusion. Megan wondered, “Why mouths.
don’t my students know any basic metaphorical lan- We found him standing in a bread line.
guage, such as ‘The honeymoon is over’ when what
Please stay and break bread with us.
I mean is that the fun and games are over and it is
time for serious work?” Students discussed how bread in American
Amy, Megan, and other graduate students culture signifies power and authority and how the
shared these concerns while reading Pugh, Hicks, word is entrenched in social, historical, religious, and
and Davis’s Metaphorical Ways of Knowing. In teach- cultural contexts. Nonnative English-speaking stu-
ing a graduate-level course, Reading and Writing dents who have not been exposed to bread ’s use in these
Copyright © 2004 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
EJ-MAR2.QXD 2/17/2004 5:15 PM Page 30
Don’t Keep Them in the Dark! Teaching Metaphors to English Language Learners
contexts—or who eat a different daily food, such as rice 1,000 metaphors per day at the rate of a 4-hour
or plantain—might not have this cultural knowledge. speaking day (8). To raise awareness of metaphorical
Metaphorical language is often problematic in language, I asked these graduate students, who were
second-language acquisition and learning and in En- at the time public school English teachers, to com-
glish literacy instruction. L1 learners who grow up in pile a list of metaphors that they encountered in one
the mainstream American culture, immersed in oral day and write a reflection on their findings based on
language and schooling, acquire cultural and linguis- a paraphrase of Lakoff and Johnson: We cannot live
tic competence in metaphorical language. However, one day without metaphors (3). Students were sur-
L2 learners are asked in their adolescence to acquire a prised to find a sea of metaphors. Some had to limit
new language for which they have no cultural refer- their counts to one conversation, song, or TV pro-
ences or natural oral immersion. Two or three years of gram. Three teachers wrote:
ESL education can prepare them only for the surface
Before I began this reflection I did not think this
features of English, providing basic reading and writ-
statement was correct. For me, metaphors were
ing skills, but that is hardly adequate for meeting things found in poetry, textbooks, and great litera-
challenging language and literacy demands. ture. I didn’t think people “spoke” in metaphors in
Metaphorical language is seldom taught in the everyday language. Once I began recording all of the
beginning stage of second-language acquisition for metaphors I used in a day, I realized that metaphors
fear of overwhelming L2 students with the complex- are ingrained in our everyday language and concep-
ity of understanding multiple layers of meaning. tual system. Before I began recording I thought “Can
Thus, students acquire one meaning of a word, often I live a day without metaphors? Sure I can.” On the
the meaning associated with concrete, sensory refer- contrary, I found that I could not finish a day with-
ents, without knowledge of other meanings or abstract out metaphors. (a seventh-grade English teacher)
and metaphorical referents. When second-language Looking at the list of metaphors that I collected
learners are mainstreamed into the English classroom, over the period of a day, I realized how many meta-
teachers often find that limited experience with phors I use on a daily basis. For most of the day, it
metaphorical language severely affects students’ read- was even difficult to distinguish the difference
ing comprehension and writing performance. between sentences that used metaphors for descrip-
Metaphors are tools for insight—poetic, con- tive purposes and sentences that didn’t use meta-
ceptual, and cultural—and without acquiring knowl- phors at all. Using semiotics in our language is so
edge about them, nonnative English-speaking students common, that we unconsciously do it to convey
meaning. It is interesting to take a look at where
will always be cultural and language outsiders, de-
some of our language comes from and you need to
spite advanced language and have an awareness of history and the culture to fully
Metaphorical language is cognitive skills. Conventional understand how some of the language develops. It
often problematic in metaphors are those that have must be extremely complicated for second language
second-language become part of everyday En- learners to be able to decipher meanings of sentences
acquisition and learning glish. According to Lakoff, even that use metaphors. (a ninth-grade English teacher)
and in English literacy imaginative or poetic metaphors
Ignoring the fact that everyday I encounter lit-
instruction.
are governed by cultural con- erature packed full of metaphors I was never really
ventions and our beliefs and val- aware of how frequently I used metaphors in con-
ues. We use these cultural conventions and conceptual versation, lesson planning, scolding, and instruct-
systems to create and understand the imaginative or ing. To not use a metaphor in my daily life would be
poetic metaphors. Therefore, metaphorical-language like omitting vowels from my writing; it’s just im-
acquisition must involve both conventional and imag- possible. (an eleventh-grade English teacher)
inative metaphors, which offer insights into the culture
and provide rich, authentic opportunities for learning
How Do We Teach Metaphorical
creative and critical reading and writing skills.
Language to Nonnative English Speakers?
It is almost impossible to avoid metaphors in
daily life. According to Pollio and his colleagues, an Research on L1 acquisition and learning has revealed
average native English speaker uses about 5 meta- that children learn metaphorical language through
phors per minute, 300 per hour, and more than immersion in early-childhood language and literacy
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Yu Ren Dong
experiences (Geller; Nippold; Nippold and Martin). her students a chance to share their metaphors and to
By adolescence, native English-speaking students compare and contrast the metaphors in English and in
have acquired the basic and appropriate cultural cus- another language. Because she cultivated an environ-
toms that form the basis of conventional metaphors ment for learning about cross-cultural metaphors, her
and are able to use prior knowledge to comprehend second-language learners no longer feared metaphors
and create imaginative or poetic metaphors. How- or felt inferior about their language skills. They also
ever, increased language and cognitive abilities do felt that they had something important to share with
not necessarily guarantee metaphoric language ac- the class.
quisition in L1, let alone in L2 (Brinton, et al.; Comparing and contrasting metaphor use
Cooper, “Processing” and “Teaching”; Olson). Teach- across languages is important for helping second-
ers’ inclusion of metaphorical language in classroom language students not only
The teacher does not
discussion by scaffolding and providing meaningful acquire metaphors but also con-
situations for such language use plays an important cepts in English. One example need to know all the
part in L1 students’ metaphorical-language acquisi- is the metaphorical concept of native languages that
tion and learning (Vygotsky). Therefore, English argument. Lakoff and Johnson students speak. Only the
teachers of second-language learners who are bilin- maintain that arguments are a talk about metaphorical
gual or nonnative English speaking should incorpo- healthy and welcoming activity language and the cultural
rate both conventional metaphors and imaginative or in American culture and people
conventions behind the
poetic metaphors in instruction to develop second- tend to treat arguments like a
language and literacy skills. The following strategies war (4). However, in Chinese metaphors is important.
show how this could be done. culture, arguments are not viewed as war but as a sign
of failure or ignorance, or a detriment to social har-
Cross-Cultural Comparisons mony and, therefore, should be avoided (see fig. 1).
of Metaphorical Language The comparison in the figure reveals differ-
Research in transfer and contrastive analysis in second- ences in attitudes resulting from cultural beliefs and
language acquisition has suggested the benefit of ac- values. Students who speak a language other than
tivating adolescents’ metaphorical knowledge in their English can use this comparison to gain cultural in-
native language through comparison and contrast to sights and greater understanding of reading and
help them transfer knowledge into English (Cooper, writing in a second language.
“Processing” and “Teaching”; Irujo). This can raise stu-
dents’ general language awareness and crystallize key FIGURE 1. Comparison of Argument Use
issues related to language, thought, and culture in both in America and in China
languages, thus accelerating their second-language
acquisition. The teacher does not need to know all ARGUMENT ARGUMENT
the native languages that students speak. Only the IN AMERICA IN CHINA
talk about metaphorical language and the cultural Your claims Truth is in the open, and
conventions behind the metaphors is important. are indefensible. you don’t need to argue.
Sally, a ninth-grade English teacher in the class
He attacked every Because of his wrongdoing,
I taught, learned firsthand from her two newly main- weak point in my he has to argue his way
streamed Chinese students that they struggled with argument. out.
metaphorical language in reading assignments as well
Her criticism was No matter how good your
as in school interactions. Inspired by our class discus- right on target. argument is, away from
sions, Sally assigned her students to go on a hunting the truth is not right.
trip for metaphors. She asked them to collect all the I’ve never won an Due to lack of intelligence,
metaphors that they saw, heard, and used in a day and argument against him. he has to use argument.
then to create a collage of these found metaphors. She
She shot down all You should give in to the
also asked them to explain the meaning of the meta- of my arguments. argument to maintain
phors in captions. Sally encouraged her second- harmony.
language students to hunt for metaphors in their native
language as well. A class presentation afterwards gave (Lakoff and Johnson 4)
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Don’t Keep Them in the Dark! Teaching Metaphors to English Language Learners
Etymological Study of Metaphorical Language tive English-speaking students reported that they
When teaching a class of linguistically and cultur- learned from and enjoyed tracing the roots of the
ally diverse students, English teachers cannot take metaphor as well.
for granted that students have acquired English
metaphorical language and share the teacher’s cul- Theme-Based Metaphorical-Language Learning
tural conventions. An explicit study of the evolution Lakoff and Johnson argue that a metaphor is an ab-
of conventional metaphors can be productive for En- straction derived from human conceptual systems.
glish language learners to learn language and cul- Metaphors are not a random collection of words but
ture simultaneously. For example, “pull your leg” a deliberate reflection of the conceptual systems of a
was originally thought to be used to shorten the suf- culture (3). These reflections are often centered on a
fering of a person who was being hanged. In the early theme. For example, the concept of love as a journey
twentieth century, O. Henry used the expression to is “a fixed part of our conceptual system” (208). This
mean to tease or fool someone when he wrote “A Lit- “explains why new and imaginative uses of the map-
tle Local Color” (Ammer 312). Tracing the origin of ping can be understood instantly, given the onto-
a metaphorical expression such as “pull your leg,” logical correspondences and other knowledge about
students, especially second-language learners, ac- journeys” (210). To demonstrate this idea, a teacher
quire not only the language but also the culture and could pair imaginative or poetic metaphors in liter-
interrelatedness of conventional metaphors and ature with metaphors used in daily life to highlight
imaginative or poetic metaphors. the conceptual system. For instance, “The course of
Sharon, an eleventh-grade English teacher, had true love never did run smooth” in Shakespeare’s A
noticed that her ELL students often felt frustrated Midsummer Night’s Dream can be explored by invit-
about repeated use of conventional metaphors and ing students to discuss the theme of love as a jour-
idioms in class discussions and readings. These high ney and how this theme governs our view of talking
school students wanted to use the same expressions and writing about love. Lakoff offers several exam-
their native peers did; however, because of their lim- ples demonstrating how this theme is reflected in
ited English proficiency and culturally specific back- conventional metaphors.
ground knowledge, the metaphors that they used We’re at a crossroads.
had nonnative traits, such as “pull your arm” and
“You cannot teach an old bird new tricks.” In prepar- We’ll just have to go our separate ways.
ing her students for the upcoming English Regents We can’t turn back now.
exam, Sharon was keenly aware of how a lack of un- I don’t think this relationship is going any-
derstanding of metaphorical language could put where.
her nonnative English-speaking students at a dis-
We’re stuck.
advantage. Sharon assigned an
An explicit study of the It’s been a long, bumpy road.
etymological study of the con-
evolution of conventional ventional metaphors that stu- This relationship is a dead-end street.
metaphors can be dents collected in their reading. Our marriage is on the rocks.
productive for English Using Gregory Titelman’s Ran-
dom House Dictionary of America’s We’ve gotten off the track. (206)
language learners to learn
language and culture Popular Proverbs and Sayings,
Daphne M. Gulland and David Ethnographic Study of Metaphorical Language
simultaneously.
Hinds-Howell’s The Penguin Both native and nonnative English-speaking students
Dictionary of English Idioms, and Christine Ammer’s are curious about authentic metaphorical language
The Facts on File Dictionary of Clichés, the students use but may not realize the connection to teen slang.
demonstrated their understanding of the metaphor One way to capitalize on students’ excitement is
by drawing pictures of the evolution of the meta- through an ethnographic study. An English teacher
phor. Sharon expected this activity might help only can invite students to select an area of interest, such
her second-language learners; to her surprise, the na- as sports, popular music, computer games, TV com-
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Yu Ren Dong
mercials, cartoons, and so forth, or a place they like The woman with the cold voice left with the sound
to visit, such as a firehouse, a doctor’s office, a car of the door closing like a heavy prison door, leav-
dealership, a restaurant, and so forth; immerse them- ing me alone in the dark with 30 other prisoners
selves in the surrounding spoken language; and col- with a bear-headed [sic] old man guarding us.
lect metaphors. Students note not only the meaning Kim’s first draft was skimpy and lacked sup-
of the metaphor but also the context in which the port. Following Sean’s lead, she added more details
metaphor was used. Because students are studying and images, creating a sense of anxious anticipation
metaphors onsite, they learn and use metaphorical before she learned that she was accepted into an ad-
language in a meaningful and authentic context. Pur- vanced class.
suing an area of interest engages and empowers stu-
dents. Student-generated reports offer a rich resource All of a sudden, the phone rang, which sounded like
for the teacher to use in helping other students with [a] fire alarm ringing. I felt like a century past [sic]
comprehension and interpretation. when [the teacher] hung up the phone and told me
to go down to the Guide Counselor’s Office. My
Using Metaphorical Language in Context heart bumped as fast as a rocket. I walked so slowly
Learning metaphorical language in a meaningful like a turtle because I thought I was in trouble.
and authentic context also serves as an invitation for
students’ metaphoric creation (Geller). Process writ- Class Discussions of Metaphorical Language
ing that emphasizes use of metaphorical language Research has shown that class discussion of meta-
offers students opportunities to think critically and phorical language can cultivate critical and creative
creatively as they elaborate and synthesize. Sean, a thinking and language skills (Ortony, et al.; Thomp-
middle school English teacher, guided three Korean son). Anna, a tenth-grade English teacher in my
students to create metaphors describing their jour- class, tried to raise students’
To demonstrate this idea,
neys to America. After their first drafts, Sean en- awareness of the power of meta-
couraged them to focus on one telling moment by phors while teaching The Catcher a teacher could pair
circling or highlighting it. Then, Sean nudged them in the Rye. Before the class, imaginative or poetic
to use an analogy to show their strong feelings Anna was concerned about an metaphors in literature
about that moment. Sean showed what he had writ- explicit discussion on the con- with metaphors used in
ten about his childhood and a list of words about ventional metaphors, wonder- daily life to highlight the
nature that Sharon L. Pugh and her colleagues used ing about their value and conceptual system.
to help create imagery and metaphors (86). He told whether high school students
his students that if they got stuck at any point would be interested in them. After reading Metaphor-
in trying to think of a metaphor, they could use ical Ways of Knowing, she decided to give conven-
some of these terms to make comparisons. Sue’s tional metaphors a try.
first draft was about how she hated reading, and
In my afternoon class, we discussed the novel
her revised paper transformed her view using meta- Catcher in the Rye and one of the students, Maria,
phors like these: commented that Stradlater is “the big cheese” at
Reading is an onion. Each time I get stuck on a Pencey Prep. He always makes Holden feel like
word, I only keep staring at it and end up in tears. “small potatoes.” (It was lunchtime so I suppose we
My teacher thinks reading is a miner looking for were all a bit hungry!) We spoke about the fact that
treasure. Each time she picks out a book, she finds Stradlater seems to have “a big head.” After this
interest in it. went on a bit longer, I finally started making a list
on the board of all of these expressions. I asked the
Myoung included many details about her jour- class, “Why did you guys use these expressions?”
ney to America in her first draft; however, the de- They looked puzzled. I asked Maria, “Why did you
tails revealed little about her feelings. In the revision, call Stradlater the ‘big cheese’?” “Because he is,”
she expressed her feelings of isolation and fear when Maria replied. “He is what?”I asked, pressing her
a woman sent her to gym class on her first day of to explain the expression. “Stradlater is like, the
school in America. leader,” another student, Tom, commented, “the
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Don’t Keep Them in the Dark! Teaching Metaphors to English Language Learners
34 March 2004
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Yu Ren Dong
Ortony, Andrew, Terence J. Turner, and Nancy Larson- Stuart, Jesse. The Year of My Rebirth. New York: McGraw-
Shapiro. “Cultural and Instructional Influences on Hill, 1956.
Figurative Language Comprehension by Inner City Thompson, Stephen J. “Teaching Metaphoric Language: An
Children.” Research in the Teaching of English 19.1 Instructional Strategy.” Journal of Reading 30.2 (1986):
(1985): 25–36. 105–09.
Pollio, Howard R., Jack M. Barlow, Harold J. Fine, and Mar- Titelman, Gregory. Random House Dictionary of America’s Pop-
ilyn R. Pollio. Psychology and the Poetics of Growth: Fig- ular Proverbs and Sayings. 2nd ed. New York: Random
urative Language in Psychology, Psychotherapy, and House, 2000.
Education. Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1977. Vygotsky, Lev. Thought and Language. Trans. Alex Kozulin.
Pugh, Sharon L., Jean Wolph Hicks, and Marcia Davis. Cambridge: MIT, 1986.
Metaphorical Ways of Knowing: The Imaginative Nature
of Thought and Expression. Urbana: NCTE, 1997.
Yu Ren Dong is associate professor in the English education program at Queens College, CUNY. Her professional interests in-
clude English teacher education and teaching English to linguistically and culturally diverse students. email: [email protected].
For a book-length study of this concept, we invite you to submit an article for publication. Topics you might
consider from the point of view of a professional author include:
> How do we help students to make a personal connection to authors?
> How do we help students to hear an author’s voice?
> How does an author exert his or her personal force, through the text to the reader, though sometimes
separated by cultures and centuries?
> What author(s) do we recognize as an indispensable part of our teaching?
> How do we bring in the authorial voices of minorities, underrepresented groups, and writers from
outside of the Western canon?
Regarding student authorship, you might consider some of the following topics:
> How do we help students to see themselves as authors?
> How do we help students to develop a voice?
> How do our student authors develop forceful confidence as they develop texts for their readers?
> What author(s) do students look to for inspiration and emulation?
> How do we help to develop the authorial voices of our students who are from minorities,
underrepresented groups, and from a diversity of cultures?
Manuscripts related to one or both of these topics will be carefully considered for publication. Approaches to
the topic could include research, case studies, theory, reflections, or pedagogical investigations. Manuscript
length should be 8–25 double-spaced pages. Manuscript deadline: May 1, 2004, for a publication date of Sep-
tember 2004. Send manuscripts to: John Harmon, Editor, New York State English Council, 49 East Eliza-
beth Street, Skaneateles, NY 13152.
English Journal 35