Abstract
Twenty-seven semi-guided conversations between lecturers and Spanish-speaking undergraduate
students were recorded at five different universities in Europe where English is the medium of instruction.
Examination of the metaphorical language used in these conversations revealed that SIGHT
plays an important role in academic mentoring in English. Lecturers often frame their advice to undergraduate
students in terms of what has been called “UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING,” on the face
of it a somewhat unsurprising finding. If one takes it that the correlation between mental and visual
activity is somehow “primary” (Grady, 1997; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Sweetser, 1991) then this
way of reasoning about learning and knowledge should be common ground in conversations between
English- and Spanish-speaking interlocutors. However, we found no such alignment between the two
groups of participants in an academic setting. The Spanish speakers not only used words and terms
associated with vision significantly less frequently than their English-speaking interlocutors, but also
with different meanings. We explore these quantitative and qualitative differences in metaphorical
uses of three of the terms used by all participants to talk about learning—see, look and focus—and
conclude that, although the “UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING” mapping might be available as a way
of reasoning about learning and knowledge to people from different cultures, discourse practices
influences how salient it is for different groups of speakers. In this regard, it appears to be culturally
salient for English-speaking academics, but not necessarily so for speakers of other languages.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 184-217 |
Number of pages | 34 |
Journal | Metaphor and Symbol |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 16 Jul 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- Metaphor; English as a Lingua Franca