Metaphor in learner and expert argumentative writing: A comparative corpus-driven study

Metaphors, it is well acknowledged by now, are fundamental in thought and in language, since they reflect the way we understand and organize the world. Conceptual metaphors underlie linguistic metaphors, which are ubiquitous in language. However, speakers use them very often unconsciously and most metaphors in our everyday language go unnoticed. This volume focuses on the use of metaphor in reallanguage. Bearing very much in mind that a complete study of metaphor has to reflect its actual use by speakers rather than being based on introspection alone, and being aware of the danger of presenting decontextualized examples, Chapetón combines a cognitive and a corpus-based applied linguistic approach and analyses the metaphoric expressions of three different corpora of argumentative texts. Willing to frame her research in an applied linguistic context and driven by her pedagogical interest in the teaching of English, she compares the differences and similarities of metaphoric production in a learner corpus of Spanish EFL students, a native corpus of American university students and an expert corpus of American newspapers editorials. This book is an important contribution to the study of metaphor. It offers not only a deep analysis of the characteristics and complexities of metaphor in actual use, but also a model of research methodology. This publication will be of great interest to a wide readership including expert metaphor researchers, English Teachers, and postgraduate students.