Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
III. International Conference Research in Applied Linguistics - ICRAL2019, Konya, Türkiye, 24 - 26 Ekim 2019, ss.70
Enhancing Conceptual Fluency through Conceptual Metaphor: A Case of Turkish EFL Learners
The most attempt at English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has been directed towards the
enhancement of linguistic and communicative competences. We have almost been
successful in training L2 learners to have a good command of grammar and communication;
however, there is something still not quite apparent in the actual L2-learner discourse;
something that goes beyond grammatical and communicative proficiency, i.e. something
that cannot be explained in precisely grammatical and/or communicative terms (Danesi
1992). While L2-learner discourse might show a high degree of verbal fluency, it invariably
seems to lack the conceptual appropriateness that typifies that of natives. L2 learners
usually apply TL words and structures as carriers of their own L1 concepts. This analysis is
conducted following the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), a model proposed by Lakoff
and Johnson (1980), the predominant framework in cognitive studies of metaphor in recent
years. Under this approach, the metaphor is not only an integral part of everyday
communication but also constitutes an important tool that helps gain an understanding of
the surrounding world. This paper illustrates how metaphors are employed in sports in the
English language and its importance in improving Turkish students' learning styles. Sports,
which is a cultural production and unites citizens within a nation, are always regarded as
an icon of a country, such as a game of soccer among European countries, baseball in the
USA and oil wrestling in Turkey. A set of selected English baseball expressions and idioms
from different sources are collected. These idioms are then applied to the controlled group
with traditional instruction and for the experimental one through a cognitive linguistic
approach for CMT awareness-raising. The results highlight the urgent need to explicitly
teach the notion of conceptual metaphor, in this paper regarding baseball idioms, before
students can actively comprehend and produce the target language naturally and
appropriately in this context.
Keywords : Baseball Idioms, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Fluency, Sports
Metaphors