Learning and teaching languages: the role of “conceptual fluency”

Abstract

Despite considerable research in second language learning in classroom environments in this century, and despite the many pedagogical applications that such work has made possible, teachers and learners alike still complain about the fact that autonomous student discourse lacks the conceptual richness that characterizes native speaker discourse. The purpose of this essay is to suggest that the notion of “conceptual fluency”, which has been derived from the current research on the role of metaphor in language and cognition, can be used to draft a teaching curriculum around the notion that metaphor is the organizing principle of common discourse.