.
Teaching Emotion Metaphor to Young Learners with Authentic Literature
Learning the metaphor system is an important and often overlooked aspect of language acquisition. Emotion metaphors are
important for English language development, as well as the emotional and social development that accompanies language acquisition. Strong emotions can be difficult for children and adults to express. When learners acquire emotion metaphor, they gain conceptual access to emotional complexities and a rational means to express and examine powerful emotions. In second language acquisition, metaphor expedites the development of knowledge, allowing learners to transfer their understanding between overlapping domains.
This study was conducted to investigate how young English language learners talk about their feelings, whether they use emotion metaphor, and under what conditions they can acquire this aspect of the language. A collection of authentic children’s literature was analyzed to determine the frequency of metaphor types, chosen vehicles, and expressions used to evoke vehicles for young native speakers of English. Using the same selection of children’s storybooks, English language learners between the ages of 5 years, 1 month and seven years, 2 months enrolled in public school in the United States were exposed to emotion metaphors in a linguistically and visually supportive context. This paper discusses the results and implications of the study and suggests strategies for use in the English language classroom and directions for further study.
Published: December 22, 2007