Lexikalisierte Metaphern als Herausforderung im Fremdsprachenunterricht

Abstract

In the process of learning foreign languages, learners are confronted with a high number of metaphors. Especially lexicalized metaphors of everyday speech that have not been known to the learners before cause problems as for the learners they are, at first, innovative metaphors again. Even if the same conceptual metaphor exists in their mother tongue, the actual realization of it can be very different in the foreign language and may therefore demand a lot of cognitive processing from the learners. In order to decode metaphors, one often needs cultural knowledge, which the learners have to acquire consciously. Hence, one cannot deny that metaphors represent a challenge for foreign language learners. By using a productive approach, however, the difficulties can be transformed into advantages. The work with metaphors enables learners, for example, to derive the meaning of new metaphorical expressions on their own, to reveal cultural differences and to protect themselves against manipulative language use.