Enhancing metaphoric awareness in specialised reading

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!