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From
Metaphor to Metalanguage
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All language-learning models can be regarded as
metaphorical since no one knows for sure what the process involves. But metaphors should
not just be left to the theorists. Pictorial metaphors can provide a useful vehicle for
getting L2 learners at all stages to make explicit their own view of language learning.
This is particularly helpful at the beginner or pre-intermediate stage when learners lack
the metalanguage in the L2 to explain their own theories of language learning, and for the
learners in this study their metaphors proved to be related to their experience as Third
World women.
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Before any learner-training programme can be
activated, it is necessary to clarify what the language-learning process consists of for
both the teachers and the students. The problem is that no one knows exactly, so elaborate
metaphors have been constructed to explain the mysterious process. All applied linguistic
theories, therefore, from the behaviorists to cognitive voyages of discovery can be seen
as changing metaphors to suit the current climate. Currie (1973:73) comments that
Chomsky's LAD or little black box presents us with:
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a useful, imaginative, if highly
abstract basis from which to rationalise our problems of mother-tongue acquisition
andteaching. But we would do well to recall that, at this stage in our knowledge of both
linguistics and psychology, we accept these proposals as an elaborate metaphor, rather
than in any sense proof positive of the nature of language or the human mind.
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Flower and Hayes's (1980) model of the writing
process is another plausible example, and Wenden (1987:5) says that the invention of the
computer has provided psychologists with a fruitful new metaphor with which to study the
mind since computers can do many of the same things that humans do store, manipulate, and
remember information as well as solve problems, reason, and use language.
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If, in an academic/teaching context, such
constructs are required to make explicit the current view of language learning, why should
this device not also be used in an intuitive/learning context? Again, as Wenden (1987:3)
says, all studies on universal language processing strategies and communication strategies
focus on the cognitive aspect but they do not examine the learners perception of what they
do to learn or manage their learning. They do not seek to present the process of L2
learning from the learners viewpoint.
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We need to help students make explicit their
covert beliefs about language learning because these beliefs may influence which
strategies they use in their learning and how effectively they use them. The ultimate goal
of autonomous learning cannot be reached if there is an inherent mismatch from the
beginning between how students think they learn and how they are being asked to learn.
Learners test out their hypotheses of what a language course should be and what they
should attain in a given time span. When, as Horwitz (1987:119) says:
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language classes fail to meet
student expectations, studentscan lose confidence in the instructional approach and
theirultimate achievement can be limited.
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Pictorial metaphors such as the ones described
in the study below are one way of gaining insight into students inherent beliefs. Unlike
other techniques such as thinking aloud protocols or direct interviews, which claim to be
windows into the mind (another metaphor!), student drawings are more like framed
photographs of their current view of language learning. Horwitz says that when learners
enter upon a course of instruction their assumptions are often based on limited knowledge
usually reflecting their previous language-learning experience; therefore, teachers should
challenge these beliefs as a way of raising awareness about the nature of learning
(Horwitz 1987:160).
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Metaphors in the classroom
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Before any learner training can begin, the
learners will have to define, at least provisionally, what language is for them.
Metalanguage is the language needed to explain this concept in the classroom. However,
talking and thinking about language and language learning is paradoxical because in so
many language-learning classrooms, it is necessary to employ the language being learnt at
a greater level of precision and complexity than the learner possesses. Faerch and Kasper
(1983:55) ask:
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Would it be feasible to have
learners engage incommunicative situations in the classroom which require amore extensive
knowledge of L2 than that which the learnerscan be expected to have? On the one hand,
there is a risk offrustrating the learners by making too strong demands ontheir ability to
communicate. On the other hand, there couldbe considerable gains in teaching learners how
to compensatefor insufficient linguistic resources by using the totalityof their
communicative resources creatively andappropriately.
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One way out of this dilemma is the use of
metaphor. For a great many people pictures and visualisation are the most accessible
metaphoric representations of ideas. Both this problem and this solution are particularly
applicable at the elementary stage of language learning where attempts to consider the
process are frequently abandoned because learners lack the necessary vocabulary and
technical framework.
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Twelve beginning-level adult female students at
the British Council in Dubai took part in a study I conducted: three Iranians, one Qatari,
two Somalis, two Sri Lankans, and four from the United Arab Emirates. They were asked to
draw a set of cartoons which would illustrate the way they thought a language was learned
and then to describe them. Before I saw the drawings, I had speculated about what insights
they would provide. Would these possibly naive conceptions correspond to any
professionally developed theory of language learning empirical or theoretical? Do learners
see language learning primarily as something organic which grows (developmental) like
Strevens's (1977:41) description of a child's progress in L1 acquisition:
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a series of successively closer
approximations towards adultcommand of the language, a series of stages of interlanguageor
of provisional grammars of the language.
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Or is it regarded as separate components which
are assembled like lego bricks (incremental)? The answer, predictably, was both. Ten
students chose to represent the process as developmental: Mathi (Sri Lanka) drew the Four
Ages of Women in which quantity of language in the early stages becomes quality. The
ultimate goal is operational command of the language.
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Fatima (Somalia) chose the idea of a baby
crawling slowly towards proficiency guided by the mother/teacher.
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Elahah (Iran) also used this theme of dependence
becoming independence and for her, language and education were undifferentiated ( Figure 1
). She had left school early to get married and regretted not having continued her
education as she had always wanted to be a doctor.
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Kadria (Iran) likened the growth of language to
that of civilisation whereby a near-naked caveman finally dons a western business-suit (
Figure 2 )!
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Roya (Iran) depicted the gradual growth of a
village.
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Moodhy (U.A.E.) and Jazeera (Sri Lanka) both
drew the growth of a strongly rooted fruit-bearing tree from a seed ( Figure 3). Halima
(Somalia) and Adeeja (U.A.E.) used enlightenment metaphors of darkness (ignorance) giving
way to sunlight (knowledge) ( Figure 4 ).
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Marwa (U.A.E.) saw language learning as a form
of irrigation whereby the desert changes to a lake as a result of rain. This water
metaphor shows the limitless nature of learning and in her text she suggested that
students should continue their language studies until they were 100!
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Only two students opted for incremental
representations of the process. Mona (U.A.E.) drew building blocks ( Figure 5 ) and her
text stressed the step-by-step mode of learning.
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Moza (Qatar) drew seven discrete steps (Figure
6) and emphasised the need to listen to advice to take the right direction; she viewed
language learning as a tutored experience.
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This study arose in the context of Third World
women's classes and, although very limited in its scope, it perhaps underscores the
validity of women's views of their education. There are noticeably no machines, no
communication metaphors, and no pictures of the mind as a computer. All the drawings are
firmly rooted in natural elements land, village life, and family. This obviously relates
closely to their own political and social experience as women in Third World countries.
Encouragement of students to elaborate such metaphors is one way of encouraging ownership
of the language-learning process and empowering them as users of English for their own
social needs.
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Initially, I had expected the study to yield
much more evidence about learner strategies, whereas the pictures and texts strongly
pointed to the role that learning English played in personal education and development.
Indeed, for some of the students, economic development and world citizenship are seen as
coming about through the medium of English.
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To sum up, I feel that this small-scale study
goes beyond foreign-language-learning concerns. It also gives insight into students views
of education in general and, as such, it supports Wenden's (1987:11) assertion that,
before learning/ training can take place:
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the network of ideals, values,
and beliefs, the abstractsocial, political, and educational concepts that areconstituent
elements of their cultural assumptions, need tobe critically examined and reinterpreted or
re-created.
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In order to increase its validity, this initial
study needs to be extended to find out whether men and women in different cultural
contexts would produce the same metaphors as my sample. This might have important
implications in practice for, as Horwitz (1987:119) suggests:
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In the typical ESL classroom
where there is a native teacherand students of many cultural backgrounds, differing
beliefsabout language learning may well be a significant source ofculture clash.
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The cartoon metaphors can, of course, be used at
higher levels where metalanguage is more sophisticated. Students can describe, discuss,
and write about other students metaphors and match them against their own conception of
the language-learning process. This could be the springboard for a full learner-training
programme.
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Use of metaphors is not limited only to language
learners. Teachers use them extensively (whether consciously or not). Metaphors can give
valuable insights into teachers own theories of language learning, which inevitably affect
their classroom practices. I asked some colleagues about their personal metaphors. One
visualised a postal system where language was thrown into a post-box brain and sorted out
automatically according to structural and semantic post codes. Another conjured up the
human body as a system of systems: bone structure, musculature, the digestive system, and
so on. Each system can be analysed separately and yet the interaction of all parts is
required to sustain life and human activity. This view is both analytical and holistic.
Each system must be well formed with almost complete structural integrity for the body to
work. Bones could be regarded as grammar, digestion as the acquisition of vocabulary, and
the muscles as theory!
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Developmental, incremental; field-dependent,
field-independent. The interpretations and metaphors themselves are limitless. Both
teachers and students should be encouraged to create their own in coming to terms with how
a foreign language is learned.
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- Currie, W. B. 1973. New directions in teaching English language. London: Longman.
- Faerch, C. and G. Kasper. 1983. Strategies in interlanguage communication. London:
Longman.
- Flower, L. S. and J. R. Hayes. 1980. In Cognitive processes in writing, ed. L. W. Gregg
and E. R. Steinberg. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Horwitz, E. K. 1987. In Learner strategies in language learning, ed. A. Wenden and J.
Rubin. Cambridge: Prentice-Hall International.
- Strevens, P. 1977. New orientations in the teaching of English. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
- Wenden, A. L. 1987. In Learner strategies in language learning, ed. A. Wenden and J.
Rubin. Cambridge: Prentice-Hall International.
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Suzanne
Swales has taught in several British Council D.T.O.'s and at the universities of
Moscow and Jordan as well as having been a teacher trainer with the Ministry of Education
in Qatar. Her main interests lie in the teaching of writing and learner-training. |
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