Enhancing metaphoric awareness in specialised reading

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033 F[ Boers : En`lish for Speci_c Purposes 08 "1999# 026Ð036 Figure 4[ Gap _ll test used in the experiment[ for reasons of lexical cohesion or coherence[ In such cases\ an enhanced awareness of those metaphoric theme"s# may facilitate text comprehension too[ Finally\ an enhanced metaphoric awareness may provide students with a new critical perspective on economic "and other# {{scienti_c|| models and a new line of defence against argumentative discourse in general[ Students could be taught to
F[ Boers : En`lish for Speci_c Purposes 08 "1999# 026Ð036 034 Ships & Sailing , stay on course , a sense of drift in our policies , be blown off course , a capsizing bank , chart the right course , keeping the company afloat , to steer the company in the right , to rock the boat direction , to stave off the competition , the firm is in the doldrums again , a safe haven for investments Figure 5[ Phrases related to the metaphoric theme of ships and sailing "encountered in The Economiss#[ Plants & Gardening , flourishing companies , it sows uncertainty , withering plants , pruning costs , the roots of this thorny problem , trimming expenditures run deep , rooting out fraud , it carries the seeds of the next , dense tangles of regulation recession , thickets of bureaucracy Figure 6[ Phrases related to the metaphoric theme of plants and gardening "encountered in The Economist#[ question the validity of the metaphors they encounter by asking them to list ways in which a given target domain "e[g[\ economics# is NOT like the presented source domain[ For example\ students| attention could be drawn to the fact that the ECON! OMIC COMPETITION IS RACING metaphor builds on a {{loose|| analogy\ since in economics there does not seem to be a _nish line\ etc[ Students could be made aware of the {{loose|| analogy involved in the ECONOMIES ARE MACHINES metaphor by highlighting the unpredictable nature of human behaviour\ and so on[ Conclusions Is it worthwhile to draw students| attention to the source domain or origin of the _gurative expressions they come across in their specialised reading< While acknowl! edging the need to take various parameters into account\ the answer given here is yes[ I have argued in favour of enhancing language learners| metaphoric awareness\ i[e[\ their awareness of the source domain of _gurative expressions and its associated inference patterns[ Means of achieving this include explicit reference to the literal sense or origin\ grouping _gurative expressions under their source domains\ and questioning the validity of the underlying analogies[ A small!scale experiment examined the e}ect of explaining only the literal sense of certain English _gurative expressions in socio!economic discourse[ The results suggest that an enhanced metaphoric awareness may help students to "i# recognise the infer!
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Enhancing metaphoric awareness in specialised reading

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