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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Conventional and novel/creative metaphors: do differing cultural environments affect parsing in a second language? |
| Author: | Smit, Talita C. |
| Year: | 2012 |
| Periodical: | Journal for Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (ISSN 2026-7215) |
| Volume: | 1 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 93-108 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Namibia |
| Subjects: | English language language usage newspapers language instruction students |
| Abstract: | The effect of different metaphorical expressions in a business article in English on its readability to 29 English as a Second Language (ESL) readers from an African environment was examined. The readers were sampled from Namibian university classes reading the subjects Stylistics and Language Studies for Communicators. The source material for this small scale study was a business article in one of the Namibian daily newspapers, Republikein, of 18 May 2011. Three types of metaphorical expressions were distinguished: conventional metaphors, novel/creative metaphors, and orientational metaphors that presupposed meta-knowledge of the British English cultural environment. The author concurs with Gibbs (1999) that '[c]ultural models 'in shaping what people believe, how they act, and how they speak about the world and their own experiences' set up specific perspectives from which aspects of 'embodied experiences are viewed as particularly salient and meaningful in people's lives .... In short, 'social and cultural constructions of experience fundamentally shape embodied metaphor.'' The majority of the readers (69%) indicated that they had found the article fairly difficult to read as a result of the metaphors used. The possible implications for language teaching are discussed. App., bibliogr., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract] |