THE ACQUISITION OF ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Abstract

This article focuses on theoretical and applied aspects of cognitive linguistics, especially one of its main tools, conceptual metaphor, which is no longer seen as a literary device, but as an essential mechanism of human cognition that maps features of concrete domains onto abstract ones. The potentials of such a theoretical construct in foreign language teaching are infinite if students are educated and trained to recognize and understand metaphors and metaphorical expressions. This will eventually lead to the internalization of metaphor sets and will be consequently reflected in productive language skills, speaking and writing, where foreign language students will display their skills in metaphor use. The article offers an example from the teaching process, where it is shown how foreign language students react when they encounter the orientational metaphors „good is up/ bad is down” how they interpret the meanings of metaphorical expressions and how they eventually use the given linguistic input in their own speech. The potential of the research results is quite great: the findings could influence foreign language coursebooks in the sense of the development of figurative thinking with students. The aim would be to help students increase the knowledge of the foreign language and eventually make them independent and autonomous language learners.