1

POLYSEMY AND CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN VOCABULARY

TEACHING:
AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

Márta Beréndi, Szilvia Csábi, Zoltán Kövecses

Introduction

In this paper we wish to provide additional support for the idea that, besides memorization of
word forms and meanings, awareness and acquisition of the cognitive structure of meanings
aids vocabulary teaching and learning. That is, we suggest that learners who know how
certain conceptual metaphors and metonymies structure the meanings of certain polysemous
words and idioms will acquire the meanings of these words and idioms more easily than
learners who are not aware of (familiar with) these mechanisms. Given this claim, it is
suggested that the motivations of word meanings should be made clear to students in the
language classroom to achieve better results in vocabulary acquisition.
The focus of the first section of the paper is on polysemy. Classroom research on
teaching (1) polysemous words such as hold and keep and (2) idioms including them appears
to support the validity of the claim that applying cognitive linguistic principles in language
teaching and learning aids vocabulary acquisition.
The second part of the article describes further experiments designed to elucidate
issues in raising metaphor awareness in vocabulary teaching and learning contexts. Our
hypotheses were that the recognition of the motivation of vocabulary items can facilitate
comprehension, in-depth comprehension and retention. In addition, we suggest that a certain
degree of metaphor awareness can be developed in foreign language learners, which can be
the basis of conscious learning strategies.
The experiments involved various ways of presentation and consciousness-raising of
metaphorically motivated idioms, and compared the consequences for comprehension and
learning. The first experiment (1) measured the effect of presenting lexis along metaphorical
themes. The second experiment (2) explored the possibility of learner-autonomy by testing the
learners’ ability to identify conceptual metaphors (CMs) and categorize idioms according to
these, and (3) compared the effects of the CM-finding task as a channel for deep processing
with the effects of presenting pictures, as a channel for dual coding. We also examined (4)
some “side effects” of learning vocabulary along metaphoric lines, (5) the long-term efficacy
of learning, (6) the strategic use of the method, and (7) the significance of the idioms’
connectedness to CMs.
The experiments showed that explicit awareness-raising is beneficial to the
understanding, short-term and long-term retention and recall of L2 idiomatic language and for
the creation of a more elaborate conceptual structure of a target domain. The experiments are
also analysed in a way which provides steps towards concrete classroom applications. As will
be seen, the various ways of presentation and learner differences heavily influenced the
success of the utilization of metaphors, in respects which have implications for the
applicability of the method in particular classroom situations: the characteristics of metaphors
we want to teach, their connectedness to particular CMs, cross-linguistic considerations,
materials, the students’ age, and level of proficiency.
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1. Experiment 1
1.1 Polysemy

Cognitive linguistic research suggests that the meaning structure of polysemous words is
motivated and can be accounted for in a systematic way. The claim proposed here is that
teachers’ and learners’ awareness of the motivation of senses and learners’ acquisition of the
cognitive structure of word meanings aid teaching and learning. To see whether this is indeed
the case, we report two experiments in which we examined whether the explicit knowledge of
conceptual metaphors, metonymies and conventional knowledge present as motivational
factors in the target language facilitate learning L2 word meanings. The question is whether
the explicit knowledge of the motivated senses of two polysemous words hold and keep1 and
idioms including these words helps learners to learn, remember and use these words better
than other learners who only memorize the words and their senses. It is hypothesized that
explicating the motivations for the senses of polysemous words and the idioms in which they
occur leads to better learner performance.
If we adopt Lakoff’s (1987) view of motivation, we can assume that language learners
will learn, remember, and use both polysemous words and idioms in which they appear more
easily whenever they come to understand their semantic motivation. Consequently, teachers
are advised to attempt to facilitate students’ metaphorical competence (cf. Low 1988). This
may be a challenging and intellectually demanding task both for the teacher and the learner –
but, as MacLennan (1994, pp. 105–106) claims, “[l]earners should not be protected from the
difficulties inherent in metaphor and other nonliteral language” since “[s]everal advantages
are to be gained from teaching learners about metaphor and several disadvantages are evident
when it is not taught”.

1.2 Method

The study consisted of two experiments both designed to investigate the effects of learners’
(lack of) knowledge of sense motivations2. The experiments employed the same materials and
similar, though not identical, procedures. First, a pilot study was conducted in the fall of 1997
in a Hungarian secondary school in Budapest (in the school where the later experiments were
carried out). The subjects of the pilot study were 11th-graders (age 17) who were on an
advanced level of English, and who had four English lessons a week. The aim of the pilot
study was to see whether the experiment was feasible, and if so, then which test items could
be used in the redesigned experiments. In light of the pilot study, the materials and the
procedures were partly changed for their final versions of the experiments reported below.

1.2.1 Subjects

The classes selected for the study (carried out in the winter of 1998) included 52 students
enrolled in a Budapest secondary school. Half of them were in their 8th grade (i.e., aged 13–
14) and half of them were in their 9th grade (i.e., aged 14–15). The students were in four
learner groups (henceforth Group A, B, C and D) with 13 students in each at the time of the
experiment. All the students involved in the study were native speakers of Hungarian and

1 The main reasons for choosing hold and keep are as follows: Hold and keep are both among the first 200 most
frequent lexical items in the Brown Corpus (Francis and Kucera 1982). Both can express basic actions, have
conventionalized metaphorical senses, and occur in a number of idioms. Their usage and senses possibly present
a problem for the learners of English since they can easily be confused.
2 A more detailed description of the present experiments can be found in Csábi 2004. Here more information is
available on the conceptual motivations of the specific senses of hold and keep and the phrasal verbs and idioms
including them which were used in the experiment.
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learned English as a second language. Group A and B – the groups in the 8th grade – were of
roughly equal proficiency (intermediate level); they had been studying English for two and a
half years, and they had 4–5 English lessons a week. Group C and D – the groups in the 9th
grade – were also of roughly the same level of proficiency in English (intermediate level).
The members of these two groups had been studying English for three and a half years and
had 4–5 lessons a week. In order to have similar groups in the experiments, the experimental
and the control groups belonged to the same classes. Group A was the experimental group and
Group B was the control group in the first experiment. Group C was the experimental group
and Group D was the control group in the second experiment.

1.2.2 Procedures

1.2.2.1 Instruction and instrument

The instrument used in the research was a test containing 22 items related to hold and keep
(see Test in Appendix 1). It focused on (a) hold and keep as polysemous items; (b) phrasal
verbs including hold and keep; (c) other idioms containing hold and keep. Students in every
group were familiar with the most frequently used (i.e., the central) meanings of hold and
keep, as illustrated in He was holding a knife in one hand and a fork in the other. She held her
daughter’s hand as they crossed the road. I held the baby in my arms3 or in Here’s a five-
pound note – you can keep the change and I keep all her letters4. Nevertheless, examples of
these meanings were also included in the teaching and testing process since further, figurative
meanings and idiomatic meanings largely depend upon these meanings5. Concerning the lexis
targeted in the experiments below, the pilot study with 11th graders mentioned above showed
that the more proficient students were unfamiliar with the phrasal verbs and idioms including
hold and keep. Thus, the 8th and 9th graders who participated in the experiments were
definitely unfamiliar with the targeted items and their meanings. In addition, information
provided by the teachers indicated that all the phrasal verbs and idioms in the test were
unknown to the students.
The instruction stage and the administration of the test were divided into three parts in each
group within the framework of a 45-minute lesson: Firstly, some senses of hold and keep were
presented to the groups. Students were instructed to memorize the words and their meanings.
Following this, they were required to complete the first ten sentences of the test (see Test in
Appendix). Either hold or keep had to be placed in the gaps. The explanation, memorization
and the gap-filling exercise took 20 minutes altogether. Secondly, phrasal verbs containing
hold and keep were presented to the classes, whose meanings students had to memorize (hold
back, hold down, and hold up; keep in and keep out (of)). Afterwards, students were given the
second part of the test, in which the phrasal verbs had to be inserted. The procedure took 10
minutes. Thirdly, multiword idioms containing hold and keep were presented to students, who
memorized their meanings (hold one’s tongue, hold one’s temper, and hold one’s head up;
keep one’s fingers crossed, keep somebody at arm’s length, and keep something under one’s
hat). After this activity, they had to fill in the third part of the test, which contained more than
one sentence describing a situation appropriate for the use of a given idiom. This last task
lasted 15 minutes. The taught items, which were to be inserted in the gaps, were not written
on the test sheet, so students had to retrieve them from memory. Shortly after the teaching and
testing procedure described above, a post-test was administered to each group, that is,
3 Cf. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2nd ed.) (1987).
4 Cf. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1989).
5 The language used during the explanations was Hungarian for practical reasons. Since the researcher had no
previous teaching experience with the groups involved in the study, it would have created an uncontrollable
factor to use English words in the explanations that were not known to the students.
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students were required to complete the same test as they had to fill in on the day of the
treatment.
The only difference between the experimental and the control groups was in the
presentation of the material to be taught. Group B and D, the control groups, were only taught
the English words and their Hungarian equivalents, and they relied only on this information
when memorizing the expressions and their meanings. In contrast, Group A and C, the
experimental groups, were taught in accordance with the cognitive linguistic approach to
meaning. This means that instead of teaching them the English expressions together with their
Hungarian equivalents, only the most important motivating factors were explained to them
(cf. Csábi 2004), and they memorized the items on the basis of their knowledge of sense
motivations. First, the meanings of hold and keep included in the test were illustrated so that
keywords (like hand, control) indicating the motivation for the meanings of hold and keep
were put on the blackboard with representative example sentences chosen from dictionaries.
On the basis of the author’s sense analysis (cf. Csábi 2004), the motivations for the selected
meanings were explained to the students. That is, the various meanings of hold and keep were
linked to each other with the help of explicating the metaphorical and other connections
between them – though without explicit reference to metaphor and metonymy as such. For
instance, the meaning of hold in hold an office was explained as follows: when a person holds
something, it usually belongs to that person and it is in his/her possession. The students were
then required to memorize the items and their meanings on the basis of these keywords.
Second, the given phrasal verbs were taught with the help of example sentences. The
motivation for the meanings was illustrated through what the students already learned about
the meanings of hold and keep, and through schematic drawings (e.g., a circle with an X
inside and outside indicated the phrasal verbs keep in/out). Third, idiomatic expressions were
presented and the expressions and schematic, but representative, drawings were sketched on
the blackboard. These drawings illustrated the mental images inferred from the literal
meanings of the words involved in the idioms (for instance, the meaning of the idiom keep
something under one’s hat was indicated by a hat and something under it).

1.3 Results

The tests and the post-tests of all groups were analyzed, and the number of correct answers
was counted. Expressions in the second and third parts of the test which were not entirely
correct (e.g., keep this under hat or keep finger) but in which the targeted words (hold and
keep) were given correctly were counted as correct answers, although with an indication that
these answers were not entirely correct. The reason for not excluding these answers was to see
whether students were able to differentiate between the senses of hold and keep.
The data from the two pairs of groups were then statistically compared separately for each
pair of tests. The Mann-Whitney U-test indicates that the differences between the tests of
Group A and B (p-value: 0,059) as well as those between the post-tests of Group A and B (p-
value: 0,009) are significant. The differences between the tests and between the post-tests of
Group C and D (p-values: 0,026 and 0,007) are also statistically significant. Thus, the
significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in both
experiments clearly show that students in the experimental groups outperformed those in the
control groups. The p-values given above include both entirely correct and target word type
answers6.

6 The p-values for only the entirely correct answers are the following: for the tests of Group A and B the p-value
is 0,043; for the post-tests of Group A and B the p-value is 0,062; for the tests of Group C and D the p-value is
0,1; for the post-tests of Group C and D the p-value is 0,019.
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The differences are also consistently large in the case of both experiments. If we take into
consideration percentage values, the divergence between the two tests taken by Group A (one
on the day of the experiment and the other a day later) shows that their performance decreased
by 9.44%, whereas the performance of the control group, Group B, decreased by almost
double this value, 18%. The same tendency is observable in the case of Group C and D, where
the decrease in the performance of Group C was 8% after two days, and where the control
group’s performance decreased by almost double this value after two days. Thus, post-test
values are somewhat higher in the case of Group C and D (they took a post-test two days after
the first test) than in the case of Group A and B (they took a post-test one day after the first
test). This result can be attributed to the fact that the separation of the material to be learned
was probably beneficial to their performance since the taught and tested material was divided
into two sections, that is, the first part dealing with the meanings of hold and keep was
presented separately from the second and the third parts dealing with idioms. The reasons
behind this practice were twofold. The primary reason was to reduce the possibility of feeding
too many things to students which they were expected to learn. A further related reason was
that separating the material to be learned could produce better results in the long run. In order
to see what effect the separation of materials had on the results, the test was re-administered
not one but two days after the treatment took place.
Both experimental groups did better in all three exercises than the matching control groups
as far as the total number of correct answers is concerned. Including target word-type answers
as well, in the second exercise of the first test both experimental groups gave good answers in
100% of the cases, and in the first exercise of the first test Group A wrote good answers in
99.2% of the cases – which is very close to 100%. This never happened in the case of the
control groups. The highest value that Group C achieved was 97.3% in exercise 2 of the first
test, which is admittedly a high value. The lowest values reached on any of the exercises are
attributable to the control groups: Group B achieved 52.5% in exercise 3 on the post-test
(which is the lowest value of all), and Group D got only 68.4% of the correct answers in the
first exercise on the post-test. Generally speaking, the third exercise, where the multiword
idioms had to be filled in, appeared to be the most difficult exercise since the number of
correct results was the lowest there. Possibly, the strings of words in the idioms were too long
to remember precisely since students had only a very short time to see, understand, and
memorize them. Still, the tendency was that the experimental group did better on this part of
the test, too – although it has to be noted that group D, the control group, had a higher number
of entirely correct answers in exercise 3 than Group C, the experimental group; however, the
total number of good answers was higher in the case of Group C.

1.4 Discussion

The significant differences in Experiments 1 and 2 seem to support the hypothesis that the
explicit knowledge of motivated meanings in the target language helps learners to learn,
remember and use polysemous words such as hold and keep better than other learners who
only memorize the words and their Hungarian equivalents. Thus, it is argued that
memorization can be further improved by employing insights from cognitive semantics.
Students in the experimental groups were explicitly taught of the motivation of word
and idiom meanings, and they were instructed to learn items with the help of keywords and
visual images. Thus, the aim of using visual images was to provide connections to meanings
to be stored in memory. The keywords and visual images were associative mediators (cf.
Stevick 1976), which were intended to provide meaningful links between expressions and
their meanings, thus promoting the storage and recovery of items that belonged together (i.e., a
form and the corresponding meaning). The use of mediators appears to have produced better
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retention than simple repetition, and the creative mental work required by this kind of teaching
seems to have beneficially influenced the memorization and retention process.
As the results of the first tests show, the performance of the experimental groups was
better than that of the control groups; specifically, the learned items seem to have been better
recalled from short-term memory. The differences between the performances of the groups
became greater in the post-tests. Thus, traces in the long-term memory were probably stronger
in the case of the experimental groups, and fewer items were forgotten within one or two
days.
The fact that Group C and D performed better after two days may be attributed to the
influence of distributed learning process. The separation of the material to be taught and the
smaller number of items to be learnt at the same time probably affected the recall of items in a
positive way. It usually takes longer to learn a larger number of items because of the effect of
crowding. That is, if the number of the items to be learned at once is smaller, memorization
and retention is more successful. This may be the reason why Group C and D had better results
on the post-tests.

2. Experiment 2: Comprehension and learning of metaphorically motivated idioms

2.1 Objectives

This research project consisted of a series of vocabulary learning experiments. We wanted to

see whether the cognitive semantic approach, especially providing the underlying conceptual
metaphors for idioms, enhances vocabulary learning, and if yes, how and why; that is, how it
can work as a “complementary technique” (Boers 2000a, p. 554) in vocabulary teaching, how
it relates to other established ways of learning vocabulary, and whether it could be seen as a
strategy in its own right. The hypothesis was that the recognition of motivation of vocabulary
items, that is, the realization of underlying conceptual metaphors can facilitate
comprehension, retention and the correct use of the items. We worked with four groups,
presenting the metaphors in different ways to find out which ones work more effectively.
We planned the experiments to provide evidence on several aspects of “metaphorical
competence,” which functions automatically in the case of native speakers (Danesi 1992).
One of our aims was to gain information on how this competence works when encountering
metaphoric expressions in a foreign language – in other words, on the transfer of this
competence. Our second hypothesis was that some kind of metaphor awareness – a sensitivity
for recognizing the metaphorical nature and origin of figurative expressions – can be
developed in foreign language learners and that it can be the basis of conscious learning
strategies.
In Experiment A we wanted to see the pedagogic potential of grouping metaphoric
expressions along the lines of their common underlying conceptual metaphors. Making the
students conscious of those metaphors provides the opportunity for them to connect the
seemingly unrelated expressions in a meaningfully structured network, thus aiding
understanding, memory and the process of learning. We checked the effects on
comprehension, short-term and long-term retention, and also tried to find out how the
acquisition of an idiom is affected by its participation, or lack of participation, in a CM.
At the same time, we were trying to relate metaphor-related strategies (MRSs) to
findings of vocabulary learning strategy research so that we have a more refined profile of
interrelated strategies. Politzer and McGroarty (1985) warn that strategies should not be
considered inherently good and suitable for all people and purposes, but are dependent on the
context in which they are used. They found that several variables are influential in strategy
choice, for example, professional interests, sex, motivation, course level, teaching methods,
and study goal. How well the strategies can be taught and used depends on several variables,
 7

including “proficiency level, task, text, language modality, background knowledge, context of
learning, target language, and learner characteristics” (Chamot and Rubin 1994, p. 772). Even
culture can make a difference: O’Malley and Chamot (1990) found that strategy training
improved Hispanics’ vocabulary scores, but the Asian group, who resisted training, performed
worse than the control group using their familiar rote repetition strategy.
So Experiment B compared the efficacy of employing CMs for enhancing vocabulary
learning (1) as a channel for deep processing (CM-finding task) and (2) as a channel for dual
coding (presenting pictures). The self-reliant recognition of CMs and their mappings,
involved in these methods, could ensure learner autonomy in the application of metaphor-
related strategies. In this sense, ‘awareness of metaphorical motivation’ or ‘recognition of
metaphorical motivation’ is itself a strategy, a metacognitive tool to select and treat certain
figurative elements of vocabulary which are metaphorically motivated. When the bodily or
conceptual motivation for metaphorical extension is recognized, more specific MRSs may be
applied, depending on the nature of the task and vocabulary at hand, such as grouping
expressions according to their underlying conceptual metaphors, employing imagery as a
mnemonic device or others. MRSs fit in well with Oxford’s (1990) system of strategy classes,
groups and sets, because they share some features and functions. For example, metaphorical
motivation can be related to the “sets” listed under memory strategies (p.17): creating mental
linkages may involve conceptual metaphors in the form of grouping, associating, elaborating
or placing new words into a context; applying images and sound may involve images
connected to the metaphors; employing action, using physical response or sensation, using
mechanical techniques may provide connections to the bodily basis of metaphorical
motivation.
We also attempted to determine the minimum amount of input necessary for L2
learners to be able to understand the logic of conceptual metaphors. It has been pointed out
(Low 1988, Deignan, Gabrys and Solska 1997) that such use of CMs is intellectually
challenging, and while it works well and is motivating with some students, others find it too
complex.
The same applies to teachers: in some cases they find explanations too lengthy, or
simply lack the necessary knowledge themselves. Therefore we also tried to design tasks that
include several possible options in raising metaphor awareness, and (with the pilot groups in
the first place) tried to use various methods of presentation and explanation, and also to vary
the quantity of information provided. We collected evidence on how different techniques of
instruction work in practice, and we came closer to a determination of an optimum of
information and interaction required to illuminate the basic principles behind the method.
By analyzing the results we tried to find areas where the recognition of conceptual
relations, besides aiding memory, has some extra benefits for the language learner over other,
conventional learning strategies. It was found that idiomatic expressions of different degrees
of an emotion are recognized and retained better if they are seen as a network of related items,
and not handled simply as approximate synonyms.
Our approach was influenced by Boers (2000a) who hypothesized that the perceived
closeness of languages (English as target, and French and Dutch as first languages) may have
had an effect on the learning process because of the L1 transfer. He pointed out that the
common metaphoric themes may speed up learning, but at the same time raise the risk of
erroneous direct translations. Kellerman (1987) observes that the use of transfer strategies is
more likely if the languages are perceived as close. However, Hungarian is a language which
is not usually perceived similar to English by the learners, and they may be more reluctant to
use transfer as a strategy, especially in the case of less prototypical meanings. So the
comparison of Boers’s and our results may prove interesting, too.
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Idioms of ANGER were chosen to map the working of conceptual metaphors because
idiomatic expressions are often difficult for learners. Understanding, remembering the correct
form and proper use may all cause problems. At the same time, grasping the underlying
conceptual metaphors may bring “order to the chaos.” The seemingly random expressions
relate to each other, and the systematic use of the source domain, once recognized, makes it
possible to make sophisticated guesses at the meaning of any new related expression to be
encountered later on, in various contexts (Kövecses and Szabó 1996).
It seems that emotions are a field where major conceptual metaphors are shared by
English and Hungarian, and cultural differences manifest themselves in detail (e.g., specific
entailments) rather than in fundamentals (Kövecses 2005). The reason for this is that most
CMs for emotions are directly rooted in physiological experience, shared by all humans, and
the resulting folk theories are also similar. So we have decided to include idioms belonging to
four conceptual metaphors (also present in Hungarian) in the experiment. These are: ANGER
IS FIRE, ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER, ANGER IS INSANITY, AN
ANGRY PERSON IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL.
One may argue in the case of the idiom I got hot under the collar that, due to the
presence of body heat, it is more appropriate to talk about a motivating metonymy than a
metaphor. We recognize the differences between metaphor and metonymy and the complexity
involved here (Kövecses and Radden 1998, Barcelona 2000, Goossens 1995), but such
metonymically motivated idioms also illustrate the didactic potential of the motivating
conceptual mechanisms, therefore this item was also included in the experiment.
We also included three idioms which do not belong to the four groups, but each of
them is related to some other conceptual metaphors (also existing in Hungarian). The
linguistic expression to go on the warpath reflects the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor, to
stomach something the IDEAS ARE FOOD, and to be sore at somebody THE MIND IS THE
BODY conceptual metaphor.
The list of figurative language used in the experiment also includes phrasal verbs
(burst out, simmer down) (which are excluded from the range of figurative expressions by
some authors, cf. Cameron and Low 1999) and items which do not fit the definition of idiom,
because they do not consist of two or more words (being one-word verbs such as explode,
fume, snap, stomach). These are included to illustrate that not all metaphorical expressions
which are related to conceptual metaphors are idioms. The same cognitive mechanisms that
help with the learning of metaphorical idioms can play a role in a wide range of vocabulary.
(For the sake of brevity and simplicity, all the 22 selected lexical items will be referred to as
“idioms” or, more generally, as “expressions.”)
Table 1 shows the expressions with their Hungarian translations (direct translations,
where possible). It also shows how the Hungarian and English expressions of the same
meaning relate to each other. We ask: Are the word forms, literal meanings, figurative
meanings and related conceptual metaphors (or metonymies) the same (s) or different (d)?
The conceptual metaphors motivating the English expressions are also stated.
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Table 1. The selected idioms with translations

English expression Hungarian translation word form literal figurative conceptual conceptual metaphor
meaning meaning metaphor/
metonymy
she breathes fire tüzet okád d d s s ANGER IS FIRE, INTENSITY IS HEAT
to add fuel to the fire olajat önt a tűzre d d s s MAINTAINING INTENSITY IS MAINTAINING
HEAT
I got hot under the collar felforrt az agyvizem d d s d ANGER IS HEAT
I have a fiery temper tüzes/heves természetem van d s s s ANGER IS FIRE
I kept smouldering füstölögtem d d s s ANGER IS FIRE
she explodes felrobban a dühtől d s s s ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
I blew my top elszállt az agyam d d s s ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
anger welled up inside me gyűlt bennem a méreg d d s s/d ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
to fly off the handle elszállt az agyam d d s s ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
to simmer down lenyugodni/lehiggadni d d s d ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
I was boiling with anger forrtam a dühtől d s s s ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
I was fuming begőzöltem/füstölögtem d s s s/d ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
She burst out kitört d s s s ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
It drives me mad megőrjít d s s s ANGER IS INSANITY, LACK OF EMOTIONAL
CONTROL IS INSANITY
to send sby into a fury az őrületbe kerget d d s s ANGER IS INSANITY
she was beside herself magán kívül volt d d s s SELF CONTROL IS BEING IN ONE'S NORMAL
LOCATION,THE SELF IS A CONTAINER
I unleashed my anger szabadjára engedtem a d d s s AN ANGRY PERSON IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL,
haragomat ATTEMPT AT EMOTIONAL CONTROL IS TRYING
TO HOLD BACK A CAPTIVE ANIMAL
I bit his head off leharaptam a fejét d s s s AN ANGRY PERSON IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL
She just snapped at me rámförmedt/ fújt rám d d s no / s AN ANGRY PERSON IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL
to stomach sg. megemészteni d d s s IDEAS ARE FOOD
to go on the warpath háborúskodni d d s s AN ARGUMENT IS WAR
I was sore at her megbántódtam d d s s THE MIND IS THE BODY
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2.2 The mechanism of motivation

Linguistic expressions can be motivated by various cognitive mechanisms, including

metaphor, metonymy and conceptual knowledge. We will argue that the systematic
relationships that connect the literal and figurative meanings of an idiom, on one hand, and
the figurative meanings of several idioms, on the other hand, have great didactic potential. Let
us consider particular examples from our experiments. Knowledge of the source domain often
provides clues about the general meaning of the metaphors. In the case of ANGER IS FIRE,
FIRE is the source domain whose “terminology” is applied to the target domain of an
emotion, ANGER. FIRE is quite a productive source domain, with a wide scope, including
mainly emotions such as love, desire, ambition. In the experiment the text on the handout and
the instructions for the students strongly suggested that in this case the target domain was
ANGER.
After identifying the target domain, the conceptual mappings, that is, the systematic
correspondences between the source and target (shared by several FIRE conceptual
metaphors) help to define the more specific meanings of a given idiom.

the thing burning  the person in a state/process

the heat of fire  the state (like anger, love, imagination) I got hot under the collar.
I have a fiery temper.
the cause of the fire  the cause of the state
the beginning  the beginning of the state
the existence  the existence of the state
the expression  the expression of the state She breathes fire.
the end of the fire  the end of the state
intensity of the fire  the intensity of the state I kept smouldering.
(based on Kövecses 2002, p. 205)

Based on people’s everyday experience and general knowledge, further information (i.e.,
entailments) is transferred from the source. The entailments mapped from the source of FIRE
to the target of EMOTION thus include, for example, LOW INTENSITY OF EMOTION IS A
SMALL AMOUNT OF FIRE. This is why, based on conventional knowledge, smouldering is
interpreted as a less intense form of anger than breathing fire. Similar entailments include

LATENT INTENSITY IS POTENTIAL OPEN FIRE I kept smouldering.

DECREASE IN INTENSITY IS A DECREASE IN THE DEGREE OF HEAT Cool down!
MAINTAINING INTENSITY IS MAINTAINING HEAT (OF FIRE) to add fuel to the fire.

Some metaphorical entailments of the HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER metaphor enable us

to carry over knowledge about the way hot fluid behaves in a closed container onto the
domain of ANGER: the process of increasing pressure if the heat is maintained for a long
time, without a way to vent, leading eventually to the explosion of the container, with its
content and parts flying all over, causing potential damage (ibid. p. 166).
So far we have been looking at the English conceptual metaphors. It has been noted
that English and Hungarian share the conceptual metaphors which are at work behind the
linguistic expressions in our experiment. In fact, several languages share these (for an analysis
of HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER in six languages, including Hungarian, Japanese and
Zulu, see Kövecses 2002). To be sure, the general metaphor THE ANGRY PERSON IS A
PRESSURIZED CONTAINER receives unique cultural content at a specific level (Kövecses

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2004). For example, Japanese expressions concentrate anger around the concept of hara
(‘belly’). Hungarian often has the head as a container holding the fluid. As we will see, these
cultural aspects impose serious constraints on the application of this technique as a learning
strategy.

2.3 Method

2.3.1 Materials

The experiments employed basically the same material and instruction in all groups, with
modification at one major point: the organization of vocabulary to be learned. The instrument
used in the experiments consisted of two pages. The first page contained the input: a text
containing the idioms and a list of the idioms. The text itself, a short story written to provide a
context for the idioms and exemplify their use, was the same in all groups, but the
presentation of the idioms was different. The second, separate sheet contained the gap-filling
experiment. (For the test sheets, see Appendix 2 and 3.)
A pilot study was conducted with second year college students majoring in tourism,
studying English at intermediate level, to see whether (1) the experiment was feasible, (2) the
instructions and tasks were clear, and (3) the subjects knew the central meanings of words
which were used in a figurative sense in the experiment. We also wanted to see (4) how much
verbal instruction and guidance was needed to establish the metaphoric connections, and (5)
which items proved to be too difficult to handle for most students. After the pilot study, the
material was amended (e.g., certain parts were deleted, and more vocabulary notes were
added for better comprehension), with the revision being used in the experiments. It seemed
that however much we had tried to simplify the text, the level of linguistic knowledge
required remained too high for the subjects to carry out the metaphoric tasks. So we decided
to carry out the experiment with subjects of a slightly higher level of proficiency.

2.3.2 Subjects

The subjects finally selected for Experiment A were parallel groups, first year English majors
at Kodolányi János College, Székesfehérvár, Hungary. They were 19-22 years old, they had
been learning English for 4-10 years. Their level of proficiency in English was roughly the
same, upper-intermediate (equivalent of B2 by the European Framework of Reference). As a
pre-test to compare their proficiency we used the students’ grades in their “Testing” class,
preparing them for their exam at the end of the year (with the same teacher). The data prove
that there was no significant difference between the groups (Mann-Whitney U test yields p> .
2810.)
For experiment B, the “metaphor-finder group,” the students selected to test the deep-
processing potential of CMs, were from the same freshman year. However, their GPA in
English was slightly lower, which shows that their proficiency in general was lower
(intermediate). Unfortunately there was no opportunity to select a fourth group of English
majors, so the subjects in that case were intermediate level economics students, aged 20-22.
Minor differences in linguistic competence should not have made much difference though, as
the vocabulary targeted in the experiments was unknown to each group, and the level of the
texts was below the level of all the groups, and vocabulary notes and oral help were provided.
The responses of a few individuals who seem to have misunderstood the tasks or were just
unwilling to do them were excluded from the final analysis.
Experiment A
The control group consisted of 5 men and 14 women; i.e., 19 subjects altogether.

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The experimental group, the metaphor group, which encountered the idioms grouped along
metaphoric lines consisted of 4 men and 20 women; i.e., 24 subjects altogether.
Experiment B
The third group, the metaphor-finder experimental group consisted of 3 men and 8 women;
i.e., 11 subjects altogether.
The fourth group, the image group, in which illustrations of idioms were provided, consisted
of 4 men and 10 women; i.e., 14 subjects altogether.

2.3.3 Procedures

The instruction was basically the same in the four groups. At the beginning of the class there
was a short interactive introduction and then a 25-minute session during which the subjects
could read the text, figure out the meanings of the idioms and learn them. The subjects were
asked to translate the idioms listed in exercise two. The aim of this task was to see if the
figurative meanings of the expressions were identifiable for the students. Most of the words
were familiar to them in their basic senses, and vocabulary notes providing basic senses of
possibly unknown words were provided with the text. Also, students were encouraged to ask
for clarification during the experiment. The teacher of the groups assured us that the idioms
were not known to the students, with probably a few occasional exceptions.
Next, the subjects were asked to try to remember as many of the expressions as
possible. Members of the metaphor-finder group were also asked to try to identify the four
common themes that connect the idioms, and group the idioms according to these themes, so
they had five extra minutes to complete the task.
In the third phase of the experiments, the original handouts with the text and list of
idioms were removed, and students were required to use the learned idioms in a cloze-test
which contained 13 gaps, and to list any more expressions that they remembered. The gap-
filling took 12 minutes in all groups.
The presentation of the idioms in exercise two was different in each group in order for
us to be able to see how the conceptual metaphors can affect the acquisition of the idioms. In
Experiment A, in the control group, the idioms were listed in order of appearance in the text
on the task sheet. No additional information was provided during the instruction or during the
administration of the test.
The first experimental group, the so-called metaphor group, however, had their
expressions grouped according to various metaphoric themes (as identified by Kövecses 1986,
1990).
In experiment B in the metaphor-finder group the presentation and task was meant to
promote the deep processing of vocabulary, which has been proved to improve retention
(Cermak and Craik 1979). So it was mentioned that there were some metaphoric themes
connecting some of the phrases listed on the handout, and it was the subjects’ task to identify
the themes (source domains) which appeared in the idioms. Two conceptual metaphors were
stipulated explicitly, with examples, and the learners were asked to try to find the other two
themes (source domains), and group all the expressions according to the four headings.
In order to test the effects of presenting pictures as a channel for dual coding, the
image group had six illustrative drawings on their sheets, focusing on elements that were
verbally explicated in the second group. Here the conceptual metaphors were not made
explicit, and no grouping took place, but the illustrations were carefully chosen to represent
major elements in the mappings of the four conceptual metaphors, in the source domains. For
example, illustrative of the metaphor HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER was a person’s swollen
head, ready to explode, with steam coming out of his ears, etc.

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In the case of the metaphor group, the instruction also included a five-minute
interactive introduction. First, the students were asked to list any idioms that they remembered
from earlier studies. They named about five or six, but none of the idioms involved in our
experiment were mentioned. Then a short guided discussion followed on how they usually
went about learning idioms, and what they thought about them. Opposing views appeared:
some said most idioms were easy, because they were similar to Hungarian counterparts.
Others felt it was difficult even to guess their meanings, not to mention learning them,
because they were so opaque and random. At this point the researcher introduced the idea that
most idioms are not random, but are connected by certain metaphoric themes. As an example,
we explicated the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER. The
students came up with some linguistic expressions that could be related to it, and we
discussed what Hungarian phrases belong here. (We took care not to mention and translate the
given English phrases, as this was part of the experiment.) We explored how the idioms
related to each other, what stages and degrees of getting angry they could refer to, what the
physiological origin of this metaphor could be. The explanation was not phrased in terms of
linguistic concepts, it was rather informal, relating to personal experience, with the
terminology kept to the minimum.
In the metaphor-finder group there was a similar introductory discussion about how
they were approaching idioms, and the existence of common underlying themes was pointed
out, but we did not go into details about these conceptual metaphors. We wanted to see how
sensitive they were to them and whether they were able to identify them on their own.
For practical reasons, the language used during the explanations was Hungarian. As
the researcher had no previous experience with the groups, there was a risk that she might use
English lexis that was potentially unknown to students and cause comprehension problems.
This would have been an uncontrollable factor.
Two days later the gap-filling exercise was re-administered to the groups (with the
exception of the image group). They had not been told that they would have to work with the
learned material again, and there was no revision of the expressions before the post-test.
In order to check the long-term effects, five months later the gap-filling exercise was
again re-administered to the students who could be traced from the original three English
major groups.

2.4 Results

To see whether our first hypothesis was correct, that is, whether the recognition of the
metaphorical motivation of lexical items facilitates comprehension and retention, let us turn to
the results concerning the comprehension of idioms and the efficacy of short-term and long-
term retention.

2.4.1 Comprehension of idioms

The first task was to read the text. Most of the vocabulary was known to the students, and
vocabulary notes provided the basic meanings of the less frequent words (e.g., leash: póráz).
During the experiment only a few occasional questions were asked by the students in
connection with the text, and these were clarified.
After reading the story containing the idioms, the task of the participants was the
translation of the idioms. The exercise was included to check comprehension of the figurative
meanings of the expressions, which were the metaphorical extensions of the central meanings,
and to promote a deeper processing of the words in order to enhance learning.

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Procedure for data analysis

For the evaluation of the answers three categories were created: understood, misunderstood,
no answer. The responses of some individuals who seemed to have misunderstood the tasks or
just unwilling to do them were excluded from the final analysis. The results of both
experiments are presented in Table 2. (In a few cases more than one translation was provided
for one idiom, which has some significance for the further analysis, so these are included in
the “understood” section. This explains the total results 1-2% over 100%.)

Table 2. Success in the correct translation of idioms (mean number of idiom/person;

percentage)
Understood misunderstood no answer
Control group 17.263 78% 0.947 4.3% 4.368 19.9%
Metaphor group 19.25 87.5% 0.25 1.1% 3.417 15.5%
Metaphor-finder group 12 54.5% 1.625 7.4% 9 40.9%
Image group 13.572 61.7% 2.714 12.3% 5.5 25%

The members of the control group comprehended 78% of the expressions on average,
but left 4.37 idioms without translation, and misunderstood almost four times as many
expressions (0.947) as the metaphor group. Altogether, they could not correctly make sense of
5.31 expressions, as opposed to the 3.67 in the metaphor group, who therefore performed
better on average.
The members of the metaphor group understood most idioms correctly, 87.5% of the
total of 22 idioms. This is a significantly better result than the control group’s (at p< .03,
Mann-Whitney U test, one-tailed). They had only a few problems (on average 3.67): in 3.42
cases they did not provide a translation, and misunderstood only 0.25 idioms. Thus, the rate of
misunderstanding was significantly lower than in the control group. So our hypothesis that
grouping idioms along metaphoric themes and demonstrating meaningful connections
between them help learners to understand them was proved.
In the other experiment, the metaphor-finder group had only 12 correct translations
per person. They provided the largest number of ‘no translations’: 9 on average. The number
of misunderstandings was 1.62, so on the whole they could not make sense of 10.62 idioms,
which amounts to 47% of the 22 expressions. However, the high standard deviation in this
group (SD 6.93) shows big individual differences when it comes to successfully applying CL
techniques autonomously.
The image group had about 62% correct answers. They had 5.5 idiom translations
missing, and 2.71 misunderstood on average, which makes 8.21 incorrect cases of
comprehension per person. This means that there is no significant difference between the
results of the metaphor-finder group and the image group (p > .05, Mann-Whitney U test).
The two ways of presentation in Experiment B assumes that the same metaphorical
competence that is at work in L1 is activated automatically when approaching a metaphorical
expression in L2, too. For example, on hearing the sentence Nem tudtam megemészteni, amit
mondott (‘I could not digest what he said.’), probably no native Hungarian would have any
problem in comprehending it. The underlying conceptual metaphor, IDEAS ARE FOOD is
shared by Hungarian and English. Still, even though the subjects in our experiment knew the
English word stomach, many failed (or hesitated?) to provide the correct translation for the
English expression cited in the text (I have not been able to stomach it.). As Kövecses (2001)
notes, the passive existence of the conceptual metaphors in the mind is not enough, learners
must be made aware of the metaphorical motivation of linguistic items. This is why the

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grouping along metaphoric lines (like in Experiment A) is more effective. Together with the
information on metaphorical themes provided during the introduction, it encouraged students
to realize the connections between the literal and figurative meanings and hence to utilize this
recognition when they were trying to understand the new expressions. If we compare the
outcome of Experiments A and B, we can see that apparently only the explicit awareness-
raising was effective, the implicit attempt at the activation of metaphorical competence in the
form of images and encouraging the self-reliant recognition of common sources without prior
instruction did not really enhance comprehension.
However, a more differentiated categorization of the translations reveals some
interesting facts about the conceptual background of the understanding and translation of
metaphorical expressions. Therefore, a more detailed table (3) is also included, reflecting the
conceptual nature of translations. The people who understood the expressions chose various
Hungarian expressions to render their meanings, and sometimes they provided several
translations. Few of the English expressions included in the test have a one-to-one equivalent
(e.g., to have a fiery temper – tüzes természete van, to explode ─ felrobban) (for the suggested
Hungarian translations, see Table 1). However, some have very close equivalents, which are
based on the same mappings between the same domains, or the same entailments, but have a
slightly different wording. One example is the Hungarian idiom olaj a tűzre (‘oil onto the
fire’) for the English to add fuel to the fire. Therefore we counted these translations under the
heading same, as they are close translation equivalents of the given English expressions.
Some others are not so close formally, but they are rooted within the same conceptual
metaphor (CM), based on a similar mapping. For example the English phrase I was boiling
with anger was translated as főttem a levemben ‘I was cooking in my juice.’ While this is not
a one-to-one equivalent, both are instantiations of the HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
metaphor. Another example is the translation of the expression I have not been able to
stomach it – nem tudtam már lenyelni (‘I was not able to swallow it.’). Here both idioms are
motivated by the IDEAS ARE FOOD metaphor.
The third way of translation involved taking an idiom to belong to another conceptual
metaphor. These are listed under the heading different conceptual metaphor (DIFF CM).
Some examples for such translations provided by the learners include:

I got hot under the collar (ANGER IS FIRE) was translated as felforrt az agyvizem (‘the
liquid in my brain boiled’) (ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER)
I was fuming (ANGER IS FIRE) was translated as fortyogtam (‘I was seething’) (ANGER IS
HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER)
to send sby into a fury (ANGER IS INSANITY) was translated as a legkisebb dolog is
kiborítja (‘the smallest thing upsets her’) (ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A
CONTAINER).

It must be noted that identifying metaphoric themes in discourse and categorizing expressions
can be controversial and demanding even for experts, as it raises numerous methodological
problems (Cameron and Low 1999). There can be overlaps of sources (e.g., HEALTH,
FITNESS and SPORTS metaphors), or different degrees of specificity (the more general
HEAT or the more specific FIRE and HOT FLUID; EMOTION or ANGER, LOVE),
ambiguous cases of metaphor and metonymy, complex motivation by metaphor, metonymy
and conceptual knowledge, the ambiguity and vagueness of the lexical items (for further
details and examples, see Boers 1997). So in counting the answers here we retained the
thematic categories used in the experiment, separating instances of ANGER IS A HOT
FLUID IN A CONTAINER from ANGER IS FIRE. At another, more general level, we can
find the metaphor THE INTENSITY OF EMOTION IS HEAT, so the subjects may not even

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feel much conceptual distance between the source domains of FIRE and HOT FLUID (e.g.,
He was fuming). Still, for pedagogical purposes often it is more useful to employ a more
specific level carrying more concrete imagery than a very general source domain, because
concreteness promotes dual coding.
The fourth type of answer was to give the literal meaning (to add fuel to the fire –
ráadásul ‘in addition’), to paraphrase the idioms, to give the literal translation of the elements
of the idiom (in the latter case, the meaning was often misunderstood), or to provide the
meaning relative to the context (to add fuel to the fire – hogy még idegesebb legyek ‘to make
me even more nervous’, to breathe fire – bal lábbal kelt fel ‘she got up on her left leg’). In the
table these cases are marked literal. (We present the results for Experiments A and B in one
table.)

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Table 3. Translations of the English idioms, keeping or switching conceptual metaphors

Group I - control group

Student SAME CM DIFF CM LITERAL MISUND. NO TR.
A 7 7 5 3 1 0
B 7 5 3 5 5 0
C 10 0 1 3 0 10
D 4 3 2 5 1 6
E 12 3 5 4 0 0
F 9 4 2 4 0 3
G 10 0 1 0 0 11
H 7 1 3 5 0 6
I 7 5 7 1 1 1
J 10 3 5 3 0 3
K 9 5 5 1 0 2
L 5 2 4 3 2 7
M 5 2 4 3 2 7
N 7 2 6 2 0 4
O 9 2 2 5 1 3
P 5 3 6 7 2 0
Q 6 1 2 3 0 10
R 10 2 2 6 1 1
S 6 1 3 1 2 9
TOTAL 145 51 68 64 18 83
MEAN 7.632 2.684 3.579 3.368 0.947 4.368

Group II - metaphor group

Student SAME CM DIFF CM LITERAL MISUND NO TR
A 7 7 2 1 0 5
B 11 7 3 4 0 0
C 8 4 3 7 0 0
D 6 6 4 7 0 0
E 9 4 5 6 0 0
F 8 2 4 8 0 4
G 9 3 1 7 0 3
H 4 5 7 5 1 0
I 7 5 5 4 1 0
J 5 4 5 6 1 3
K 7 8 2 3 0 2
L 7 5 2 5 0 3
M 5 3 4 6 0 4
N 9 3 5 4 0 1
O 9 2 1 1 1 9
P 11 2 1 5 0 3
Q 10 2 3 5 0 2
R 4 1 1 2 1 13
S 6 4 5 9 0 0
T 5 2 1 1 0 13
U 8 2 4 3 1 5
V 4 3 6 6 0 6
W 11 3 2 6 0 1
Z 4 1 5 8 0 5
TOTAL 174 88 81 119 6 82
MEAN 7.250 3.667 3.375 4.958 0.250 3.417

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Group III - metaphor-finder group

Student SAME CM DIFF CM LITERAL MISUND. NO TR.
A 9 1 2 6 0 5
B 10 3 5 5 0 1
C 10 2 1 8 2 0
D 1 0 1 7 5 9
F 3 1 1 1 1 15
G 3 0 1 0 4 14
H 3 1 0 1 1 16
I 8 2 0 0 0 12
TOTAL 47 10 11 28 13 72
MEAN 5.875 1.250 1.375 3.500 1.625 9

Group IV – Image group

Student SAME CM DIFF CM LITERAL MISUND NO TR
A 3 0 0 1 1 17
B 6 1 2 3 0 10
C 9 4 1 4 4 0
D 9 0 1 2 3 7
E 4 0 2 7 4 5
G 13 3 3 0 3 1
F 6 1 2 2 7 4
H 8 2 2 2 1 7
I 7 1 1 3 1 3
J 12 2 0 1 3 4
K 13 1 0 1 6 1
L 5 1 3 4 4 6
M 10 1 6 3 0 3
N 7 3 1 1 1 9
TOTAL 112 20 24 34 38 77
MEAN 8 1.429 1.714 2.429 2.714 5.500

As we can see, there is considerable individual variation. It seems impossible to predict how a
particular idiom will be translated in a given context, even if there is a well-known L1
equivalent. Still, most often the translations stay within the same conceptual domain.
(Actually, conflating the FIRE and HOT FLUID metaphors into one (HEAT), the results
would be only marginally different: for the control group, the mean number of DIFF CM=3
and identical CM=3.263, while for the metaphor group DIFF CM=2.625 and CM=4.417.)
Studies examining the translation of metaphors (processes and results) have pointed out that
probably it takes longer to find the L1 equivalent of L2 idioms if they belong to different
domains (for an interesting think-aloud protocol analysis see Tirkkonen-Condit, 2002). We do
not venture to draw far-reaching conclusions about the translation process, since we used this
task primarily to test comprehension. However, Table 3 shows that the translation of idioms is
not simply a question of retrieving the corresponding L1 equivalent from the mental lexicon.
In our case, the English idioms had been unknown to students, so they could not do this. Still,
in most cases they comprehended them correctly, and provided a satisfactory translation –
again, NOT necessarily the one “stored in the mental lexicon,” as traditional approaches
would expect. Instead, we can see that behind the linguistic level, various conceptual
matching and changing procedures take place. The original motivating conceptual
mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy may be changed in this process. Once understanding
is complete (the correct mapping has been identified) there are several ways to go:
a. find the closest matching mapping in L1 and look for its conventional linguistic
instantiation (which may have the same or different literal meaning);

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b. change the domain and look for a mapping which reflects the same conceptual
relations (e.g., the same degree of intensity);
c. abandon the metaphorical (or metonymical) aspect and jump to the literal meaning.
The preferred solutions can be influenced by several factors, including global textual
coherence, the imagery expanding throughout the text, rhetorical purposes, creativity, and so
on (Gibbs 1994, Tirkkonen-Condit 2002).

2.4.2 Enhancement of learning

Procedure for data analysis

To see if conceptual metaphors helped students to remember the vocabulary items, the gap-
filling and follow-up tests of all groups were evaluated in the following manner. The test
consisted of a text containing 13 out of the 22 idioms that they had just learned. The gaps
were created by deleting keywords or whole idioms that were focused on in the first part of
the experiment. In most cases some parts of the expressions were left, so there was an
expected, best solution, with other possibilities ruled out. However, in some cases other
options were also possible and meaningful. The students were encouraged to use the idioms
they had just learned, but each one only once. However, they often filled in the gaps with
words or expressions that were not included in the learning task, or used them repeatedly.
Also, some grammatical and orthographic mistakes appeared.
When measuring the acquisition of new items we chose not to concentrate primarily
on the grammatical or orthographic correctness of answers provided by the students. Indeed,
responses which are not totally correct often help to go behind the words, the linguistic forms,
and catch a glimpse of the mental concepts and their relations. So we used this opportunity to
evaluate and analyze the responses that were not absolutely correct as well. As we will see, in
most cases the linguistically “incorrect” answers carry information on the conceptual
background, they include words or word forms that are related to the source domain of the
idioms. Word forms that are only phonetically or orthographically similar to the idioms
learned in the experiment are hardly present in the responses (only four cases altogether).
Thus, the results shed light on the relations of linguistic forms and conceptual
correspondences, and the way they function in vocabulary retrieval from memory. In order to
relate vocabulary learning to the existence and use of conceptual metaphors, the meaningful,
acceptable answers were counted and grouped into three categories.
The first category, correct answers include the expected, absolutely correct uses of
idioms and answers with minor orthographic or grammatical mistakes (which reflect rather on
the proficiency of the participant). Some accepted answers in this category include for
instance firy (instead of fiery, in slot 7), anger is welled up (instead of welling,1), add fuel
onto the fire (… to the fire, 2). These responses show the fundamentally successful acquisition
of the targeted new vocabulary.
The second, and probably most interesting, category is that of not entirely correct
answers. It includes words and expressions that were used more than once (there were only a
handful of such cases), ones that contained major distortions, but still contain the keywords,
and/or are clearly signs of the conceptual metaphors which we were trying to trace. Some
characteristic examples include effects of transfer from L1 (e.g., add hot oil to the fire  fuel,
in slot 2), expressions that were not among the idioms to be learned, but had been known to
students before (hot temper  fiery, 7; cool down  simmer, 6), modified uses of the idioms
(you are flying off with anger  boiling, 3, substituted and mixed with to fly off the handle)
and cases when the mechanisms, the mapping of metaphors lead to ‘creative,’ not
conventionalized uses (e.g., anger is stuffing up, 1; flammable temper, 7). These responses

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reflect the interaction of the lexical items with the conceptual structures behind them:
substitution with elements belonging to the same mapping and to the same stage of emotion
(Gibbs 1994), or the creation of new mappings, which may or may not be conventionalized in
L2. In the latter case, a traditional analysis would simply mark an incorrect response. With our
cognitive semantic approach we can use these instances to go beyond the words, into the
conceptual contents of the expressions.
The third category includes possible answers that were meaningful in the context, but
were not included in the learning task, and are not related to the conceptual metaphors under
examination (e.g.: bad temper  fiery, in slot 7; you keep smiling without saying a word 
smouldering/fuming, 5). Most interestingly, such answers numbered only a few: three out of
the total of 248 accepted answers in the metaphor group (5/167 in the post-test); three out of
131 in the control group (3/77 in the post-test), six out of 71 in the metaphor-finder group, and
0 out of 73 in the idiom group. This is practically negligible, although it had been expected
that the ratio of vocabulary retrieved from earlier studies would rise in the post-tests, with the
number of the new idioms decreasing. We have included these data to show that the
reproduction of the targeted expressions in the gaps was not significantly lessened by lexis
acquired earlier.
The students were also invited to list any other expressions that they remembered from
the learning task, so the reproduction was not restricted to 13 idioms. The results of the gap-
filling and free listing exercises are presented in Table 4.

Table 4. Results of the gap-filling exercise

Gap-filling Post-test
Experiment A I. category II. III. total I. II. III. total
Control group total 110 18 3 131 59 15 3 77
mean 6.111 1 0.161 7.278 4.214 1 0.200 5.500
Metaphor gr. total 218 27 3 248 123 33 5 167
mean 9.083 1.125 0.125 10.333 5.59 1.50 0.227 7.591
Experiment B
Metaphor finder total 43 22 6 71 24 17 2 43
mean 3.91 2 0.545 6.455 2.180 1.545 0.181 3.909
Image gr. total 67 6 0 73
mean 5.154 0.462 0 5.615

The average number of correct answers in the control group was 6.11 (7.28
acceptable answers).
The metaphor group, which had the idioms grouped according to the underlying
metaphors, achieved higher results in the number of correct answers (category I): 9.1. The
differences between this group and the control group have proved to be statistically significant
(p< .007, two-tailed, using a Mann-Whitney U test). So our first hypothesis that raising
consciousness and learning about conceptual metaphors would enhance the efficacy of
acquisition of new vocabulary items has been proved. The number of acceptable answers on
average was the highest (10.33) in this group, also. It must be acknowledged that the
presentation along metaphorical lines helped students to understand the expressions, and this
may also have played a part in the retention and correct use. But the recall of only 6
expressions out of the average 17 understood idioms in the control group still falls well
behind the 9 out of 19 in the metaphor group.
In the other experiment, the metaphor-finder group averaged 3.91 expected
(category I) answers. Here, the number of not entirely correct answers (but belonging to the

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discussed conceptual metaphors, category II) rises to 2 on average. This, added to the number
of correct answers makes 5.91, which almost comes up to the original control group’s
category I figure (6.11), so it seems that the rate of retention was approximately the same,
with more minor mistakes in the metaphor-finder group. This might be explained by the
“limited processing capacity” of learners, that is, the fact that they could not equally focus on
the task of categorizing the meaning of idioms and their form at the same time.
The image group, which had illustrations, but no explanation to go with the idioms,
on average remembered 5.15 of the idioms correctly (category I), and there were altogether
only 6 instances of not absolutely correct but acceptable answers in the group. Still, in the
second experiment the better retention of the image group does not yield any significant
difference over the metaphor-finder group again (p> .05).
We must note that the comparison of the average number of correct answers shows the
general effect of various ways of presentation. At the same time, there were great differences
between the individual students within each group, with the number of correct solutions
ranging occasionally from 0 to 19. The standard deviation (SD) of category I answers was the
following: control group: 3.32; metaphor group: 4.79; metaphor-finder group: 4.1; image
group: 2.93. Indeed, the high SD in the metaphor and the metaphor-finder groups may suggest
big individual differences in successfully applying CL techniques. One of the major factors
influencing the success of identifying domains and mappings is the cognitive style of the
students. Boers and Littlemore (2000) report experimental evidence suggesting that holistic
thinkers tend to confuse source and target domains.
In interpreting the findings of the two experiments, we have to make several points.
The proficiency level aimed at originally was intermediate, and the material was found to be
comprehensible and manageable at this level. Although the groups in both experiments were
above this level, still, the proficiency of the students may have had some effects on the
performance in the experiments. The groups in experiment A were on a par as far as their
proficiency was concerned. However, the metaphor-finder group had a lower GPA (Grade
Point Average) in English than the control group and the metaphor group, and, as we have
mentioned, the image group, although they were quite proficient, were not English majors.
This may partly explain the lower results in the translation and gap-filling exercises. It had
been hypothesized while planning the project that minor differences in proficiency should not
make a difference in the outcome, provided the basic vocabulary was equally accessible to all
the subjects.
We also have to note that the efficacy of deep cognitive processing, although
beneficial to all language learners, may also depend on the intellectual abilities of learners. So
with an intellectually demanding task like identifying CMs, the GPA differences, besides
showing different levels of proficiency, may indicate different cognitive backgrounds to build
on. As Sternberg (1985) notes, the high correlation which has been found between tests of
vocabulary and intelligence may be due to the fact that vocabulary tests indirectly measure the
ability to acquire new knowledge or the ability to infer meanings of unfamiliar words from
context. So a similar experiment with a better group may yield better achievement based on
the utilization of CMs for deep processing.
Another factor could be time-management. For the metaphor-finder group, the task of
identifying metaphoric themes and grouping the idioms accordingly was also included with
the translation and learning task, and they had only five minutes more time to do this than the
other groups. This task proved to be more difficult than we had expected, so perhaps
providing some more time could have improved the success of learning.

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2.4.3 Identification of conceptual metaphors and categorization of idioms according to

conceptual metaphors

For the recognition of metaphorical motivation to work fruitfully in the long run learners
should be able to identify the metaphoric themes and categorize expressions themselves. This
is why we decided to test if they were able to do this based on their metaphorical competence
which they had developed in their mother tongue, with minimal instruction and awareness-
raising in L2.
Tóth (1999) reported that her subjects were able to recognize the source domain
(FIRE) common to metaphors presented in 16 sentences, and they were even able to identify
the target domains (CONFLICT, LOVE). Boers (2000a) carried out an experiment to see if
students themselves were able to identify metaphoric sources. He reported that in the
categorization of 15 figurative expressions into three thematic groups, 89.5% of the subjects’
judgements corresponded with the author’s. (The domains included MACHINERY, HEALTH
and WAR.) 75% were also able to identify the fourth category (GARDENING/
VEGETATION). However, due to various associations or misunderstandings, several other
source domains also turned up, such as COOKING, MUSIC etc.
In spite of these promising findings, categorization, which was the extra task for our
metaphor-finder group, turned out to be too difficult to do for our subjects. In the instructions
to the original, piloted version of this exercise, we identified only one metaphorical theme-the
remaining three were to be identified by the subjects. However, the students were not able to
do this. They could not even relate the idioms to the given headings when we specified them
in the course of the discussion later. So in the final version used in Experiment B, we provided
two conceptual metaphors with examples (ANGER IS LIKE HOT FLUID IN A
CONTAINER, AN ANGRY PERSON IS LIKE A DANGEROUS ANIMAL), and there were
only two conceptual metaphors left to be identified. We also provided more information in the
oral introduction. Even the wording of the instructions was meant to be helpful, in the form of
a simile (ANGER IS LIKE HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER), which sounds less abstract
than the more commonly used A IS B (ANGER IS A HOT FLUID…) format. Still, the task
proved to be too demanding. Only a few students were able to find any third or fourth
category at all, and these were like “an angry person’s feelings,” “anger is like food,” “rage,”
“the process of calming down,” and only one guessed “anger is like fire.” The categorization
was not very effective, either. The subjects mostly related all the expressions to the domains
provided in the instructions to the exercise, or also to the categories that they had identified,
however, with little consistency. It seems that although people subconsciously utilize
conceptual metaphors in their native tongue (even the same ones as in L2) in understanding
and producing utterances in any context, it is difficult for them to recognize the common
themes, or consciously find connections between the different idioms without any training in
L2. Kövecses and Szabó (1996, p. 351) found that

people need to be made aware of the metaphor-approach before they can put it to use.
The passive existence of metaphorical motivation, that is, the mere presence of
conceptual metaphors in the mind, does not seem to be sufficient for their active use in
the learning of a foreign language (italics in the original).

Apparently, our minimal instructions were not enough to achieve the level of awareness
required. We have also found that even if the learners are made aware of the existence of
conceptual metaphors, self-reliant application without any further information does not work,
and it seems that there is a critical amount of information and practice which is needed to

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enable students to apply the method. The instruction provided in the metaphor-finder group
proved to be below this level. Also, as we have mentioned, the element of heat being included
in both the domain of HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER and FIRE may have stood in the way
of identifying FIRE as a separate domain.
At the same time, sufficient information (in the metaphor group) made it possible for
the subjects to consciously utilize the conceptual metaphors while learning new vocabulary.
So our second hypothesis, which states that it is possible to develop learners’ metaphor
awareness and that this awareness may be employed as a conscious learning strategy, has been
supported. However, the long-term results of one-time instruction seem ambiguous and reveal
the need for further requirements for the successful installation of the strategy, as we will see
below.

2.4.4 Long-term efficacy of learning and strategy use

Another hypothesis was that longer term retention is also facilitated by presentation with
metaphorical motivation. Indeed, the performance of the metaphor group (5.59 correct
responses) was about 33% better than the control group’s (4.21) on the post-test two days
after the initial experiment as well. Although these results no longer yield a statistically
significant difference between control and experimental condition (p> .05), if we also admit
category II responses to the set of correct responses, the scores of the CM group are again
significantly better (p< .028). (As this was a delayed post-test two days after the instruction, it
seems reasonable to accept answers that revealed some minor mistakes but still showed that
the students remembered the targeted lexis.)
The number of correct responses in the metaphor-finder group was 2.18. It was not
possible to re-administer the test in the image group. (See the post-test columns of Table 4 for
details.)
We tried to detect the long-term effects of the original eye-opener by administering the
gap-filling test five months later, in October 2004 once again. We also included a
questionnaire on what the learners remembered from the original instruction on the
metaphorical nature of idioms, and how they had utilized it since then. Unfortunately, we only
managed to trace a few students who originally participated in the experiment, which does not
make a scrupulous statistical comparison possible. Still, we can draw some conclusions from
the results.
We only managed to find three students from the metaphor-finder group. In fact,
some students dropped out of the group, which seems to support the claim that their linguistic
and academic abilities may have had some negative effects on their results in the vocabulary-
learning experiment. In any case, only one correct (category I type) answer was provided, and
six category II ones, including mainly cool and calm, that is, items that are instantiations of
the conceptual metaphors introduced in the experiment but were not included on the original
list of idioms, and that must have been known to the students from other sources. Nobody in
the group indicated that they remembered the new way of approaching the vocabulary items
that was introduced by the researcher five months before. Their original task had been to
identify the metaphoric themes connecting the expressions. They had problems with this, but
at the end of the post-test (two days after learning the idioms) there was a short discussion on
what those topics were, and how they could be utilized, so they also had some more explicit
input.
From the original 19 people in the control group, eight students could be traced. One
person remembered correctly two of the idioms, but the others did not provide any correct
answers from the original list.

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Once again, members of the metaphor group performed the best, which testifies to
the long-term benefits of using CMs during the instruction. Of the 15 people that we could
trace (out of the original 24), 2 used three idioms, another 2 two idioms, and 7 people used at
least one expression correctly. These scores are significantly better than the control groups’
(Mann-Whitney U test yields U=26 and p< .05, two-tailed). The category II answers ranged
from 1 to 5 per person. If we add these to the pool, the better performance of the metaphor
group is evident again (U=33, p< .05, one-tailed). The most memorable idioms were to add
fuel to the fire (which in all but two cases was changed to *oil on the fire), to go on the
warpath, to explode (which often came as blow up, which was not on the original list, so it
was a category II answer) to fume and fiery. Most of the phrases remembered were
instantiations of the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS FIRE, which is also very productive in
Hungarian. So it seems that they remembered more of the idioms learned with the help of the
underlying conceptual metaphors. At the same time, they also used more metaphorical
language besides the learned idioms, such as blow up.
However, from their responses to the questionnaire it turned out that they did not
remember much of the original introduction and discussion on the metaphorical themes; they
only remembered that “the items were grouped” and they did not use the strategy of grouping
vocabulary according to the underlying themes when learning new vocabulary in the course of
their studies. One person noted that she remembered that many English phrases resembled
Hungarian “proverbs,” and that recognizing this was the major benefit of the instruction.

2.4.5 The significance of connectedness to conceptual metaphors

It was also supposed that the retention and reproduction of the idioms that were presented
grouped around their underlying metaphors would be better than that of the three
“independent” expressions, which were not instantiations of the conceptual metaphors
focused on. The reason is that information which is presented in an organized, systematic way
can be assumed to be more effectively built into the networks of the brain. So the three
independent idioms would have fewer connections to “anchor” them in the memory of the
students.
The metaphor group, which had the idioms presented in clusters under the headings of
the corresponding conceptual metaphors, consisted of 24 participants. In the gap-filling
exercise there were 13 gaps to be filled in, ten of them by idioms that had been presented
grouped around the four conceptual metaphors and three “independent” ones (to go on the
warpath, to stomach something and to be sore at somebody). In addition, there was an extra
exercise where students were asked to list any idioms that they remembered but did not use in
the gap-filling task. Thus, potentially all the 22 expressions could have been presented as
answers in the exercises, but 13 were explicitly required in a given context, with clues
provided, so these were more likely to be reproduced.
The following table shows the number of idioms required in the gaps in proportion to
the number of correct answers provided in them. In spite of the fact that they were all
included in the gap-filling task, further instances of the three “independent” idioms were also
recalled in the free listing exercise. Thus, of the 218 correct answers provided in the gap-
filling and free listing tasks, 41 were instances of the three “independent” idioms. This means
that these were remembered in 13.6 (41/3) cases on average, whereas the other 19 idioms in
9.32 cases (177/19). Table 5 shows the total number of idioms to be learned in proportion to
the total number of idioms reproduced.

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Table 5. Number of correct responses for the targeted “Independent” vs. CM-related idioms in
the gap-filling and listing tasks

Type of idiom Number of idioms Metaphor gr. Control gr.

Independent 3 (13.6 %) 41 (18.8 %) 18 (16.3%)
CM-related 19 (86.4 %) 177 (81.2 %) 92 (83.6%)
Total 22 (100 %) 218 (100 %) 110 (100%)

These data do not support our original hypothesis. However, the small number of selected
idioms (three) does not provide a basis for definitive conclusions. We must note that the high
number of “independent” idioms recalled is mainly due to the expression to go on the
warpath, which appeared in 80% of the cases. This may be due to its definitive context
provided in the gap-filling task (“it is not worth going on the …”) and to its vivid imagery. In
fact, so many variables can make an idiom more transparent and memorable that our three
items may have been accidentally more memorable than the CM-related ones that we used.
This seems to be supported by the similar rate of recall in the control group (see table 5).
Also, the selected idioms were “independent” only in the way of presentation in our
exercise. All of them are connected to conceptual metaphors present in both English and
Hungarian (AN ARGUMENT IS WAR, IDEAS ARE FOOD, THE MIND IS THE BODY –
with the mapping of physical feelings for emotions). So in the process of learning the subjects
probably placed the new expressions in the context of the existing conceptual background,
that is, they did not leave them hanging in the air, so to speak, despite the “disconnected” way
of presentation.
In fact, connectedness to conceptual metaphors and the “distance” from the central
mapping also affects the comprehension of metaphorical expressions. The semantic
transparency of a figurative expression depends on various factors such as its association with
a metaphoric theme, and the closeness of that association (Flores d’Arcais 1993, Gibbs 1993).
Expressions closely associated with an established conceptual metaphor are usually more
transparent than ones that are more “peripheral” and ones that are not connected to any
themes. For example: to explode is transparent and more clearly motivated by the ANGER IS
HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER metaphor, to fly off the handle is more obscure, and to sell
someone down the river has no related conceptual metaphor. The fact that the 22 idioms to be
remembered were of different transparency may have influenced their retention. At the same
time, grouping them may have made the “peripheral ones” more clearly connected to the
central themes, thus making them more clear and memorable than without such systematic
representation.

2.5 Discussion

The statistically significant differences between the metaphor group and the control group
support the idea that explicitly relating idioms to their underlying conceptual metaphors helps
learners to comprehend, remember and use them. The hypothesis, according to which the
recognition of motivation behind lexical units facilitates learning, is proved.
At the same time, the experiment testing two implicit ways of utilizing conceptual
metaphors to enhance comprehension and learning have shed light on some methodological
requirements and limitations of the method, such as the significance of explicit awareness-
raising, the level of proficiency and intellectual effort required. In the following we will
discuss the implications of the findings for idiom teaching.
The methodology advocated here is beneficial for the learners for several reasons. The
difficulties lying in the apparent arbitrariness of idiomatic expressions may be forbidding for

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students, who may turn towards this part of vocabulary with more frustration than interest.
This field is also often neglected in the curriculum, although idioms occur frequently in native
discourse. As Cooper (1999, p. 257) also observes, during his experiment the participants
“were poignantly aware of the pitfalls inherent in understanding L2 idioms and wanted more
help in this area, especially a plan of attack for dealing with the frustration caused by L2
idioms.” This is exactly what makes the recognition of metaphorical motivation, and
metaphor-related strategies a special learning aid. They can help to handle the frustration by
dissolving it. The myth of arbitrariness is dissolved as soon as conceptual connections are
recognized, and individual expressions are seen as parts of a meaningful network. It is not
required that the students be able to provide a detailed mapping between source and target
domains, list entailments and formulate explicit correspondences that match exactly the
linguists’ descriptions in the case of every single idiom. But it is possible to turn the learners’
intuitions of transfer from L1 to L2 into a conscious approach to idioms and other lexical
fields where metaphors and metaphorical extensions prevail. Heightened language awareness,
enhanced by classroom exercises and explicit analysis and instruction in particular domains
may be helpful later when encountering new instances. Kövecses and Szabó (1996) presented
students with phrasal verbs connected to CMs and found that later the experimental subjects
were more successful in the comprehension and use of unknown phrasal verbs than the
control group. Tóth (1999), teaching idiomatic expressions, found the same.
The intuitive use of metaphorical competence in L1 serves as a basis for approaching
figurative language in L2. However, metaphorical competence itself is unconscious even in
L1 and cognitive linguistic research has pointed out some pitfalls of its careless transfer from
L1. Even if two languages share the same metaphoric source domain for a given target, it is
impossible to predict the exact form an idiom will take in L2 (Kövecses 2005). Therefore
“metaphor awareness is not meant to be used by the learner as a generator of the conventional
figurative expressions of the target language” (Boers 2000a, p. 564). The cultural differences,
differences in conceptual metaphors and their linguistic representations (mappings,
entailments, main meaning focus, frequency, evaluation, syntactic flexibility) should be
pointed out to the learners to provide safer grounds where they can use their competence not
only as a receptive skill but also productively and creatively. Danesi (1992, p. 499) states that
this competence is a must for producing native-like discourse, “the true sign of proficiency…
is the ability to metaphorize in the new language.” Boers (2004) finds it useful to encourage
students to create figurative language in courses where the exclusive aim is not to achieve
native-like accuracy (therefore unconventional language use is unacceptable) but to use
language as a medium for intercultural communication. He also points out that native
speakers may show a surprisingly high level of tolerance towards such “poetic” language use.
One of the most promising findings is that the cognitive semantic approach offers an
intellectually challenging and motivating learning option. Several researchers have noted that
the students were especially motivated and interested in the course of the experiments (Csábi
2004, Deignan, Gabrys and Solska 1997) and we have found that the same goes for most of
our subjects, too, even for the ones who had difficulty in dealing with the idioms. At the same
time, it is true some were less positive about the tasks presented and did not put enough
intellectual effort into solving them (for example did not provide translations). It has been
noted (Deignan, Gabrys and Solska 1997) that the effectiveness of the metaphoric approach
may be linked to the intellectual capacity of the learners, and this is a point to be considered
with classroom use. Our metaphor-finder group had a lower GPA than the other English major
groups, which may reflect not only their English proficiency but also more general intellectual
(or, at least, academic) capacity and attitude. This may partly explain the lower performance
in the vocabulary-learning exercise and the lack of success in identifying the metaphoric
relationships between the idioms.

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Deignan, Gabrys and Solska (1997) also note that this approach might not be suitable
for “students below mid-intermediate level who might not be equipped with the necessary
metalanguage for discussion” (p. 358). However, other researchers avoid using linguistic
terminology in the course of presentation and discussion as much as possible (Csábi 2004,
Tóth 1999), and they find that students are still able to grasp the major ideas and use them.

2.5.1 Raising metaphor awareness – procedures and consequences

Besides pointing at the major effects and benefits of involving cognitive semantics in
vocabulary teaching, we also set out to define some conditions that affect its usefulness in
certain language-teaching contexts.
In designing the experiments, an important point was to try and compare the
effectiveness of different ways of activating metaphorical competence and raising metaphor
awareness.
Boers (2000a, p. 566; 2004) breaks down the general aim of raising language learners’
awareness of metaphor into specific objectives:

I. recognition of metaphor as a common ingredient of everyday language;

II. recognition of the metaphoric themes behind many figurative expressions;
III. recognition of the non-arbitrary nature of many figurative expressions;
IV. recognition of possible cross-cultural differences in metaphoric themes; and
V. recognition of cross-linguistic variety in the linguistic instantiations of those
metaphoric themes (italics in the original).

This can be seen as a kind of operationalization, a step towards defining concrete classroom
methodology and exercises which can be included in teaching materials. In the different
experimental setups we tried various mixes of these objectives, apparently with varying
degrees of success. In the following we will discuss the realization of these alternative choices
of objectives in the classroom during the experiments.
The control group was not given any information or guiding that would go beyond
the traditional approach to idioms. However, they may have recognized metaphor as an
ingredient of everyday language, that is, as something not restricted to literary use. They knew
that figurative, idiomatic expressions were part of the language, and as foreign language
learners (and would-be teachers) they were more aware of this than people who are just
spontaneous users of their native tongue. In our experiment, most of the highlighted
expressions were idioms, which usually stand out anyway, while most of the metaphoric
language used in everyday language is so transparent that it would pass unnoticed in
conversation (e.g., He almost exploded with anger.). Idiomaticity can be seen as a matter of
degree, with frozen idiomatic items at one extreme of the scale, and literal language at the
other. In between there are items with various literal and idiomatic features, with various
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic flexibility, and various degrees of analyzability (Gibbs
1990).
The recognition of the metaphoric themes and of the non-arbitrary nature of figurative
expressions were not explicitly dealt with in the control group, but again, the metaphorical
competence working in L1 might have helped in the unconscious recognition of the themes
that connect the expressions.

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2.5.1.1 Variations of form: the case of add fuel to the fire

The other facets of metaphor awareness, the recognition of cross-cultural differences in

metaphoric themes and cross-linguistic instantiations were not dealt with explicitly in this
group. These demand conscious comparison, which again may have taken place in some
cases, and was missing in others. The best “test item” for the recognition of differences,
together with the transfer from L1, was the idiom to add fuel to the fire, with the Hungarian
equivalent olaj(at önt) a tűzre ‘(to pour) oil onto the fire.’ The results for this idiom across the
groups show that the parallelism of meaning resulted in almost 100% comprehension of the
phrase, and in most cases the translation equivalent was given. However, 8 people (25%) in
the metaphor group decided not to translate the phrase with the well–known Hungarian
translation equivalent but give the literal meaning of the phrase (ráadásul: ‘moreover,’ ‘in
addition’), an idiom belonging to another conceptual metaphor (e.g., mindennek tetejébe:
‘above all this’ MORE IS UP), or the meaning deriving from context (még idegesebb legyek:
‘to make me even more nervous’). There was only one person in the other groups who
provided the literal meaning (ráadásul). In the recall phase of the experiment, in the gap-
filling exercise the negative effect of transfer surfaced: in about half of the cases, fuel was
changed to oil or the preposition to was modified to on(to).

Table 6. Translations of the idiom to add fuel to the fire

Contr. gr Metaph. M. finder Image

no translation 0 0 3 1
Olaj (volt) a tűzre/ (it was) oil on the fire 8 13 3 10
olajat önt a tűzre/ pour oil on the fire 7 1 1 1
olajat tesz a tűzre/ put oil on the fire 2
benzin volt a tűzre/ it was petrol on the fire 1
még egy lapáttal rátesz a tűzre/ put one more 1
shovelful on the fire
még egy lapáttal a tűzre/ one more shovelful 1
on the fire
rátesz (még) a tűzre/ put (more) on the fire 1 1
rátett (még) egy lapáttal/ put on one more 1 2 1
shovelful
parázs (volt) a tűzre/ ember on the fire 2
ráadásul/ in addition 1 4 1
ha ez még nem lett volna elég/ if this had not 1
been enough
még idegesebb legyek/ to make me even 1
more nervous
mindennek tetejébe(n)/ above all this 2

The analysis of these responses shows how cognitive linguistics may help us to reveal details
of idiom processing and how it may offer explanations for mistakes. In Table 6 it is interesting
to see how the experiential basis of the idiom is reflected in the different translations
provided. A very close Hungarian idiom (még egy lapáttal rátesz a tűzre: ‘put one more
shovelful on the fire’) is offered in several forms as a translation by the students. This evokes
a different image and frame: a marine boiler with coal being shovelled in it, corresponding to
the human body as a container. Some variations provided by the subjects contain the action

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and all participants of the frame: putting, shovel, fire. Others omit the action, with the result
that the shovelful of material (implicitly flammable) and the fire are foregrounded. This is
how deviations like parázs (‘ember’) or benzin (‘petrol’) enter the expression. In another case,
fire disappears from the expression altogether, and therefore the act of adding something to a
heap (with the result that the heap becomes higher) is focused on (rátett (még) egy lapáttal).
Here the “quantity,” that is, the intensity of emotion is growing with the heap – this is again
an everyday human experience. We cannot be sure what happens in the minds of speakers, but
these tentative explanations may add to findings of interference theory, and extend the
explanations based on semantic networks and borrowing from L1.
The gap meant to be filled in by the latter idiom also attracted some remarkable
responses (see Table 7). The metaphor group gave about 50% more correct responses in both
the first and the post-test than the control group. The results of the post-test were worse than
those obtained immediately after the memorization of the idioms: the control group did 38%
worse; the metaphor group 33% worse. This is a small, but intriguing difference, and it
suggests that there were still more items retained in the memories of subjects in the metaphor
group. In the metaphor-finder group no correct answer was provided on the post-test. (It was
not possible to administer the test again in the image group.)

Table 7. Versions of add fuel to the fire in the gap-filling exercise

Gap-filling, 2. gap: to add …… post-tests (gap-filling)

control gr metaph. m.finder image control meta. m.finder
no response 3 3 5 3 4 2 6
fuel to the fire 13 18 2 6 8 12
a fuel to 1
oil on(to) the fire 1 1
oil to the fire 1 6 1
oil into the fire 1
hot oil to the fire 1
to the fire 1
put fuel on the fire 1
fuel on a/the/0 fire 2 1 1
fuel to fire 1 1 1
fuel in the fire 1
fuel into the fire 1
fuel to the flame 1
Petrol to the fire 1
fuel of the fire 1

We had expected that the transfer from L1, the close translation equivalent containing oil
instead of fuel would cause many problems. It is interesting that Boers (2000a) ─ working
with Dutch speakers learning English, who perceived the two languages as closely related ─
found that 9 out of the 58 subjects in the experimental group, and 3 out of 60 in the control
group reproduced the Dutch translation equivalent ‘to add oil to the fire.’ In our study, on the
first test only three responses contained ‘oil.’ However, two days later a stronger interference
from L1 was registered. Six people in the metaphor group changed this single element of the
phrase – this one word was responsible for practically all the decline in the results.
Interestingly, half of the incorrect responses seemed to be connected with the construal of
prepositions and articles.

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The various objectives of raising metaphor awareness were fulfilled in the metaphor
group in the following way. The students found the vocabulary organized along metaphoric
lines on their handouts. There was an explicit introductory explanation pointing out:
 the significance of metaphor in everyday language
 the existence of metaphoric themes
 the non-arbitrary nature of many figurative expressions
 the cross-linguistic variety in the instantiations of the conceptual metaphors.
These issues were raised at a general level, and then the guided discussion and grouping of the
metaphors on the worksheet dealt with:
 the non-arbitrary nature of idioms
 the recognition of metaphoric themes
 cross-linguistic variety at a more specific level.
So the awareness-raising was most complete and explicit with this group; four out of the five
objectives listed by Boers (2004) were dealt with at a general or specific level. In the case of
the domain of ANGER, it is difficult to find linguistic expressions that do not belong to any
conceptual metaphor, and the existing conceptual metaphors are mostly shared by English and
Hungarian, this is why at this introductory stage the significance of cross-cultural differences
was less focused on.
The procedure of awareness-raising has been described (i.e., introductory discussion,
analysis of the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER, grouping
of vocabulary on the handout, see section 2.3.3), so here we will just focus on the results. The
performance of this group was the best in each part of the test, indicating that awareness-
raising was useful for comprehension (checked by the translation), short-term retention,
reproduction and use (checked by the gap-filling exercise and open-ended list of expressions)
and long-term retention (post-tests two days and five months after the original instruction).
In fact, we cannot be sure how much of the conceptual metaphors was retained in
memory. (Although explicit labelling of conceptual metaphors was not asked for, during the
post-test one subject mentioned “ANGRY PERSON IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL.”) But
organizing vocabulary has proved to be beneficial for retention (Baddeley 1990), and it is
most probable that organizing it according to the underlying metaphoric themes is especially
effective. Boers (2000a) found that to do so was more effective than organizing it along other
(pragmatic or functional) lines. The reason is that metaphoric themes provide meaningful
connections between the items, and this in turn makes it easier to see the experiential basis of
these items. Referring to a metaphoric theme’s correlate in physical experience can
“motivate” the theme for a language learner, and it results in deeper understanding and
processing. We also provided a context for the idioms, so that the cognitive processing of the
idioms could go deeper.

2.5.1.2 Towards a more elaborate linguistic representation of concepts

The strategy one could use on meeting a new idiom is to take the literal meaning of the
elements, try to make sense of the expression, and check the hypothesized meaning against
the context. In our case, grouping the idioms provided extra background against which the
plausible meaning could be checked. The potential entailments of the imagery – for example,
heating up fluid in a container – provide some basis for comprehension when the learner
encounters new instantiations of the metaphor. Within a given semantic field, refining
meaning and connotations is a difficult task, and juxtaposing the expressions and seeing the
phrases in opposition with similar ones enhances the learner’s sensitivity and ability to
identify the exact meaning, that is, the in-depth comprehension of the idioms (Gibbs 1993,
Boers 2000a).

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Our conceptual knowledge is largely comprised by cultural models. Such models can
be thought of as prototype-based conceptual structures or schemas, which encompass diverse
types of information, including temporal information (Geeraerts 1989, Abbott et al. 1985). An
emotion concept such as anger is prototypically understood as a sequence of events beginning
with a set of “antecedent conditions”, a set of “behavioral responses” and a set of “self-control
procedures” (Shaver et al. 1987). Thus, within one conceptual metaphor, various linguistic
expressions may represent various stages of the process, with varying degrees of intensity, etc.
For example, different stages and degrees of emotion are reflected in boiling with anger and
to simmer down; fiery temper and smouldering. Gibbs (1990, p. 439) found that “idioms
referring to the same stage of a conceptual prototype (for example, play with fire and go out
on a limb) were judged to be more similar in meaning” by native speakers than idioms
referring to different temporal stages.
In our experiments with the narrative text we tried to provide context for the idioms in
a way which made them meaningful in a developing storyline, with gradual escalation and
resolution of the tension. This type of presentation should be more useful than independent
one- or two-sentence contexts provided for the individual idioms, because it reflects the
position of the particular idioms relative to each other in the conceptual schemas.
We have compared the recall of idioms expressing four different degrees of intensity
of anger in the gap-filling exercise (for the test sheet, see Appendix 3). These typically
manifest themselves in the process of getting angry and releasing tension. The four expected
correct answers were (in order of intensity):

in gap 9: burst out/explode

in gap 3: boiling with anger
in gap 5,10: keep smouldering/fuming
in gap 6: to simmer down

We have found that the most varied expressions of anger, which fit the given contexts best,
appeared in the tests of the metaphor group. Here four people used all four different idioms
correctly, and six people used three idioms. In the control group there was only one person
who used all four degrees of intensity, and four other subjects used three idioms. In the other
groups, no one remembered the full range of expressions describing the different phases in the
process of anger. Only one person in the metaphor-finder group and two people in the image
group gave three proper answers. This shows that even after the encounter with 22 related
items of vocabulary, most students may have ended up with only a partial linguistic
representation of anger (i.e., know only half or less of the vocabulary describing different
aspects of it). The fact that twice as many students grasped at least three different stages of the
given emotion in the metaphor group than in the control group suggests that the presentation
of vocabulary as a related and structured network, mirroring the conceptual relations of the
domains and the schemas with all relevant information, including temporal, may encourage
the learners to go beyond the minimalist attitude, and not to be content with a narrow range of
tools for linguistic expression, which allows only a simplified, distorted expression of the
intended meaning.
Experiment B was designed to reveal the potential for learner’s autonomous
exploitation of CMs. In the metaphor-finder group the introductory discussion was intended
to fulfil the manifold objectives of drawing attention to:
 metaphors in everyday language
 the existence of metaphorical themes behind figurative expressions
 the non-arbitrary nature of the idioms
 the cross-linguistic differences of the expression of the themes.

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However, the explicit explanation was mostly at a general level. We did not go into specific
details about the emotion of anger and the related linguistic expressions. It was the subjects’
task to define two source domains, the metaphoric themes in addition to the two ones given,
and to relate the idioms to the four headings.
The assumption was that the metaphorical competence working behind the proper use
of figurative language in L1 provides enough basis for the understanding of similarly
motivated language in English, and that it is easier to recognize the metaphoric nature of these
expressions in L2 and to identify the sources that they come from. Boers lists this as the
second objective of awareness-raising. However, the results presented above show that the
task was too difficult. It seems too demanding (even for students in language education
training) to make this part of metaphorical competence explicit without training. Without the
advantage of grouping according to conceptual metaphors, students’ comprehension was
worse and the learning process was not so effective. This became clear from the discussion
with the group after the post-test also. Still, they were eager to learn what categories could
have been created and how this method could help in future vocabulary organization.
It must be noted that the instructions to this exercise were significantly simplified and
expanded with examples after piloting the first version. This is why the conceptual metaphors
were given in the form of a simile, which seemed easier for the students to handle than the
more common A IS B format. Still, the information that was provided seemed insufficient to
enhance learning.
In the case of the image group we decided on a minimally explicit approach. In fact,
there is no evidence that conscious metaphor awareness-raising took place. Here we made use
of another conventional vocabulary learning aid: connecting vocabulary with visual images.
This provides dual storage in memory. The visual images provide meaningful links between
forms and meanings (Stevick 1976, Clark and Paivio 1991), thus enhancing storage and
recovery. So the creative mental work that the learners invest into matching words and
images, and creating their own images is beneficial for learning. The additional point was to
include pictures that are not just demonstrating one idiom but carry reference to several
elements of conceptual metaphors and utilize the psychologically real mental images existing
in the heads of the learners (certainly, some illustrations are connected more closely with a
given expression, e.g., I was fuming). The illustrations of idioms provided on the worksheet
were designed to contain key elements of the conceptual mapping of the given conceptual
metaphors. For example, the idiom I blew my top, related to ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A
CONTAINER was illustrated by a person’s head, ready to explode, open at the top, with fume
coming out of his head and ears (see Appendix 2). So the drawings were meant to evoke the
mental images connected to these conceptual metaphors in the heads of the learners, and
activate the metaphorical competence and transfer. Gibbs (1990) provides convincing
experimental evidence for the psychological reality of the mental images, constrained by
conceptual metaphors (e.g., the MIND IS A CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE ENTITIES)
which motivate the figurative meanings of idioms (e.g., to spill the beans).
This principle is put into practice in some collections of idioms where illustrations are
an integral part of a metaphorically informed manner of representation (Kövecses, Tóth,
Babarci 1996). Indeed, figurative expressions have different degrees of imageability and
semantic transparency. The relevant literature (e.g., Boers 2004) strongly suggests that this
makes some idioms more apt for such presentation and others relatively difficult to learn.
The outcome of the experiment did not give much support to the supposition that
unconscious activation of conceptual domains by the images is sufficient for improving
acquisition. It seems that the possible unconscious activation of metaphoric elements of
meaning is not enough. Left to themselves, the learners did not profit much from the implicit
information. Indeed, the results of this group are like the ones we would expect after a

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traditional vocabulary learning task with illustrations provided – which proved inferior to the
results of the experimental metaphor group. The material, although chosen and compiled with
cognitive linguistic principles in mind, was apparently not enough to set the minds of the
subjects on the track of metaphorical thinking. This is important, because most teachers are
not trained in cognitive linguistics, so one may wonder if there is a relatively simple way to
introduce insights from cognitive linguistics into language teaching materials that could be
used without much explicit explanation to the teacher-user before class or from the teacher-
user in class. Illustrations seem to be a useful way of supplementing such extra information in
cases where cultural similarities allow for similar mental images. This should be the case with
most conceptual metaphors based on general human experience (e.g., emotions).
In the case of the image group the role of the teacher was practically negligible, at
least as far as awareness-raising was concerned. However, it seems that the teachers using the
method play a crucial role in explicating the principles and guiding the students towards
recognition. To be really effective, they must be aware of the role of metaphors, the mappings,
and the entailments, and they cannot just rely on ready-made material.
Other factors influencing the results may have included the lower level of proficiency
of the image group, and the fact that the students in that group were not English majors, so
they supposedly had a lower level of language awareness in general.

Another point in need of clarification is the necessary degree of consciousness of this

approach as a learning strategy on the part of the learner. Most researchers publishing in this
area emphasize the significance of “raising metaphor awareness” (Boers 2000a,b, Kövecses
2001). However, metaphorical competence develops in L1 without instruction, or conscious
identification of either source and target domains, or mappings. Most linguistic expressions of
conceptual metaphors such as MORE IS UP (e.g., English: prices are high, Hungarian:
felmennek az árak) are so evident that people do not think of them as metaphors at all. If
processing is not automatic and unconscious and the listener has to work hard to create a
plausible meaning, then a marked communicative and stylistic effect is created – as, for
example, in literary works of art, the virtual sole focus of traditional metaphor studies.
This unconscious meaning-creating mechanism surfaces as transfer of the
metaphorical competence and as linguistic transfer. It often functions as a spontaneous tool to
bridge gaps in L2 vocabulary, when the learners try to expand the meaning of known words to
make themselves understood. This is the point where awareness has to enter; because the
network of meanings is different in different languages, the motivations for equivalents in
different languages do not always match (e.g., the English expression Put aside some time for
ping pong is based on the TIME IS MONEY metaphor, while the Hungarian equivalent
Szakíts egy kis időt ping pongra on TIME IS A SOLID MASS or OBJECT), and even the
same conceptual motivation does not ensure that certain figurative meanings will be
expressed by forms which have the same literal meanings (e. g., both English and Hungarian
have the CMs THE SELF IS A CONTAINER, and SELF CONTROL IS BEING IN ONE’S
NORMAL LOCATION, but the resulting she was beside herself and magán kívül volt
[English: she was outside of herself] are different literal forms for the expression of the same
figurative meaning. (The examples are taken from Kövecses 2005).
Therefore the recognition of cross-cultural differences in metaphoric themes and
cross-linguistic variety in figurative expressions is an important part of awareness-raising.
There is still a great deal of comparative research to be done before the specific cultural and
linguistic characteristics of metaphors can be integrated into language teaching materials.

Finally, relevant conventional knowledge and familiarity with the source and target
domains are required for the comprehension and creation of metaphors. This knowledge is

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accumulated gradually. In their native tongue children demonstrate understanding and

creation of metaphors as early as two (Winner 1978), and their performance in comprehension
improves significantly by age four, reaching about 70% correct response rate in
comprehension. Language-specific conceptualizations can be traced from the age of four. An
example is the variation in the lexicalization of a source domain: English children use a
greater variety of manner motion verbs to describe the movement of time than Turkish
children do (Özcaliskan 2004). Teaching methods can develop metaphorical competence from
the early stages of L2 learning in a parallel way. However, metalinguistic explanation at pre-
school age is ruled out, and only a small variety of exercises have been suggested for this age
group (Tóth 1999).

General conclusions

Several experiments were carried out to see whether language learning is more fruitful and
more long lasting if it operates with conceptual mechanisms additional to learning founded
upon pure memorization. The results of the experiments support the hypotheses that (1) the
recognition of metaphorical motivation is beneficial for the understanding, short- and long-
term retention and recall of L2 idiomatic language and for the creation of a more elaborate
conceptual structure of a source and target domain, and (2) explicit awareness-raising may
lead to a certain metaphor awareness in foreign language learners, which can be the basis of
conscious learning strategies.
We have also pointed at certain conditions which should be taken into account when
considering the applicability of the method in particular classroom situations: the
characteristics of metaphors we want to teach, material, the students’ age, level of proficiency
and conventional knowledge.
Naturally, the limitations of the studies (e.g., the number of subjects) make it
impossible to draw definitive and general conclusions concerning language teaching. The
experiments could be developed and replicated in several ways. We are also aware that the
various strategies presented may interrelate and jointly cause learning effects, so it is hard to
separate out the variables that best lead to learning. Nevertheless, the studies have certain
implications for teaching:
(1) The beneficial effect of learning sense motivations, since this can be more stable
than memorizing words and their L1 equivalents.
(2) The significance of awareness raising and acquisition of metaphors and
metaphorical networks.
(3) The exploitation of CMs may arouse students’ interest in and motivation for
language learning since they themselves can be involved in guessing meanings and actively
participate in creative mental work. The reactions of students in the experimental groups were
positive and encouraging throughout the experiments (e.g., they were curious to learn about
the mappings and guess CMs’ physiological basis).
Our basic conclusion is that in the long run, the contribution of cognitive linguistics to
language teaching is likely to be beneficial since it may improve and enrich teaching and
learning methods. The method of teaching polysemous items and idioms proposed here
appears to be a good way of complementing traditional ways of teaching vocabulary.
Naturally, this method can and should be improved and developed in many directions to make
the teacher’s and the students’ work even more interesting and motivating. This might take a
long time, but we are convinced that the theoretical tools of cognitive linguistics and the new
techniques of vocabulary acquisition that may be based on them will change the way we think
about teaching and learning foreign languages.

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Experiment 1, Test

I. Fill in the gaps with the inflected form of hold or keep.

1. Kate is _____ a book in her right hand.
2. Ronald Reagan _____ the office of President for 8 years.
3. Jim hasn’t got enough money to _____ his family.
4. The terrorists _____ them prisoner.
5. Jack _____ Joe’s secret for 5 years.
6. You can _____ the book I lent you; I don’t want it back.
7. Police are _____ two men because of the jewel robbery.
8. Jane _____ a diary for 15 years.
9. It is very expensive to _____ a large house.
10. Mr. Smith does not _____ the right degree for this job.

II. Fill in the gaps with the learned phrasal verbs.

1. Jim cannot stay at the same workplace for a long time. He cannot _____ _____ a job for more than a month.
2. The teachers _____ John _____ at school on Monday to finish his homework.
3. The heavy traffic _____ us _____ and we couldn’t get to the airport in time.
4. Can’t you read? The notice says “Danger – _____ _____ !”
5. The joke was very funny and James could not _____ _____ laughter.
6. Our king has not got enough soldiers to _____ _____ these people.

III. Fill in the gaps with the learned idioms.

1. John is usually friendly and polite with his colleagues, but he has not yet made friends with any of them. He _____ them
_____ .
2. Jane: I want to tell you something, Dad. I’m getting married next month.
Dad: What?! You’re marrying Jim? I can’t believe it! I don’t want you to do it!
Jane: Don’t be so angry, Dad. Just __________ .
3. So, you’ll participate in a competition on Saturday. I hope you will win. I’ll __________ for you.
4. Bill: I don’t know what to do now. Jane will tell my wife and my family everything about our love affair. I am so
embarrassed and ashamed. I will never be able to __________ again.
5. Bob: Yesterday my daughter told me that she broke my favourite and very expensive vase. I was very angry with her and I
wanted to scold her but I didn’t. I __________ .
6. Kate: I have something to tell you, Sue. But don’t tell it to anyone.
Sue: All right. I will _____ this _____ .
Kate: Fine. I am getting married to Peter next month.

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APPENDIX 2. Experiment 2, Research instruments: text and task sheets

Control group

I. AGE: MALE/FEMALE: YEARS OF ENGLISH: GROUP:

1. Read the following text.

My friend Jenny is a really moody girl. Sometimes she is happy and does everything for you. The next day
she breathes fire, and just explodes whatever you say. What really drives me mad is that you never know what to
expect.
I know people sometimes have a bad day and the smallest thing can send them into a fury, but I really blew
my top because of her attitude two weeks ago, and I still have not been able to stomach it. We agreed to go to a
concert, and I promised to buy the tickets. The date of the concert was approaching fast, and as I had been trying to
reach the ticket office by phone without any success for two days, and could not book the tickets, anger welled up
inside me and I was close to flying off the handle. To add fuel to the fire, my boss gave me some extra work to do.
Finally, I went to the office the day before the event. I asked the receptionist where I could buy the
tickets. When he told me he did not know anything about the tickets, I unleashed my anger and almost bit
his head off, so he got a bit scared, and called the office of the organizers. He told me that the restaurant
was dealing with the reservations, so I went there. I was trying to simmer down, but a minute later I was
boiling with anger again, because it turned out that the people at the restaurant did not know about the
concert, either. They advised me to go there an hour before the concert and buy the tickets on the spot. I
thought I had done everything I could to get the tickets, without any success, so I was fuming all the way
home.
I could not go there early before the concert, so I called Jenny and asked if she could go early and buy a
ticket for me, too. She just snapped at me! She sounded as if she was beside herself. She burst out, saying she could
not go early, either, and did not know if she could get me a ticket, even if she got one herself, anyway. First I got
really hot under the collar, as I have quite a fiery temper, too. Then I realized it was not worth going on the
warpath with an old friend because of such a small thing. In the end she got some tickets just before the concert.
Still, I was sore at her because of her selfish reaction, and kept smouldering for a week.

Vocabulary notes:

39

To well: (fel)bugyog, kiárad
Handle: nyél, kilincs, fogantyú
Fuel: üzemanyag
Leash: póráz
40
To simmer: lassú tűzön főz/párol To burst: kirepeszt, szétrobban
On the spot: a helyszínen Path: ösvény
To fume: füstöl, gőzöl Selfish: önző
To snap at sg: vmi után kap (kutya) To smoulder: parázslik

2. Try to translate and remember the following expressions from the text:

40
she breathes fire
she explodes
it drives me mad
to send sby into a fury
I blew my top
I have not been able to stomach it
anger welled up inside me
to fly off the handle
to add fuel to the fire
I unleashed my anger
I bit his head off
to simmer down
I was boiling with anger
I was fuming
She just snapped at me
she was beside herself
she burst out
I got hot under the collar
I have a fiery temper
to go on the warpath
I was sore at her
I kept smouldering
 Metaphor group

I. AGE: MALE/FEMALE: YEARS OF ENGLISH: GROUP:

1. Read the following text.

My friend Jenny is a really moody girl. Sometimes she is happy and does everything for you. The next day
she breathes fire, and just explodes whatever you say. What really drives me mad is that you never know what to
expect.
I know people sometimes have a bad day and the smallest thing can send them into a fury, but I really blew
my top because of her attitude two weeks ago, and I still have not been able to stomach it. We agreed to go to a
concert, and I promised to buy the tickets. The date of the concert was approaching fast, and as I had been trying to
reach the ticket office by phone without any success for two days, and could not book the tickets, anger welled up
inside me and I was close to flying off the handle. To add fuel to the fire, my boss gave me some extra work to do.
Finally, I went to the office the day before the event. I asked the receptionist where I could buy the
tickets. When he told me he did not know anything about the tickets, I unleashed my anger and almost bit
his head off, so he got a bit scared, and called the office of the organizers. He told me that the restaurant
was dealing with the reservations, so I went there. I was trying to simmer down, but a minute later I was
boiling with anger again, because it turned out that the people at the restaurant did not know about the
concert, either. They advised me to go there an hour before the concert and buy the tickets on the spot. I
thought I had done everything I could to get the tickets, without any success, so I was fuming all the way
home.
I could not go there early before the concert, so I called Jenny and asked if she could go early and buy a
ticket for me, too. She just snapped at me! She sounded as if she was beside herself. She burst out, saying she could
not go early, either, and did not know if she could get me a ticket, even if she got one herself, anyway. First I got
really hot under the collar, as I have quite a fiery temper, too. Then I realized it was not worth going on the warpath
with an old friend because of such a small thing. In the end she got some tickets just before the concert. Still, I was
sore at her because of her selfish reaction, and kept smouldering for a week.

Vocabulary notes:
To well: (fel)bugyog, kiárad To simmer: lassú tűzön főz/párol To burst: kirepeszt, szétrobban
Handle: nyél, kilincs, fogantyú On the spot: a helyszínen Path: ösvény
Fuel: üzemanyag To fume: füstöl, gőzöl Selfish: önző
Leash: póráz To snap at sg: vmi után kap (kutya) To smoulder: parázslik
2. English has a lot of expressions meaning someone is/gets angry. There are some metaphoric themes
that connect these. Try to translate and learn the following expressions from the text:
ANGER AS FIRE she burst out
she breathes fire
ANGER AS INSANITY
to add fuel to the fire
it drives me mad
I got hot under the collar
to send sby into a fury
I have a fiery temper
she was beside herself
I kept smouldering
ANGRY PERSON AS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL
ANGER AS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
I unleashed my anger
she explodes
I bit his head off
I blew my top
she just snapped at me
anger welled up inside me
to fly off the handle
OTHERS
to simmer down
to stomach sg.
I was boiling with anger
to go on the warpath
I was fuming
I was sore at her
 Metaphor-finder group

I. AGE: MALE/FEMALE: YEARS OF ENGLISH: GROUP:

1. Read the following text.
My friend Jenny is a really moody girl. Sometimes she is happy and does everything for you. The next
day she breathes fire, and just explodes whatever you say. What really drives me mad is that you never know what
to expect.
I know people sometimes have a bad day and the smallest thing can send them into a fury, but I really
blew my top because of her attitude two weeks ago, and I still have not been able to stomach it. We agreed to go
to a concert, and I promised to buy the tickets. The date of the concert was approaching fast, and as I had been
trying to reach the ticket office by phone without any success for two days, and could not book the tickets, anger
welled up inside me and I was close to flying off the handle. To add fuel to the fire, my boss gave me some extra
work to do.
Finally, I went to the office the day before the event. I asked the receptionist where I could buy
the tickets. When he told me he did not know anything about the tickets, I unleashed my anger and
almost bit his head off, so he got a bit scared, and called the office of the organizers. He told me that the
restaurant was dealing with the reservations, so I went there. I was trying to simmer down, but a minute
later I was boiling with anger again, because it turned out that the people at the restaurant did not know
about the concert, either. They advised me to go there an hour before the concert and buy the tickets on
the spot. I thought I had done everything I could to get the tickets, without any success, so I was fuming
all the way home.
I could not go there early before the concert, so I called Jenny and asked if she could go early and buy a
ticket for me, too. She just snapped at me! She sounded as if she was beside herself. She burst out, saying she
could not go early, either, and did not know if she could get me a ticket, even if she got one herself, anyway. First
I got really hot under the collar, as I have quite a fiery temper, too. Then I realized it was not worth going on the
warpath with an old friend because of such a small thing. In the end she got some tickets just before the concert.
Still, I was sore at her because of her selfish reaction, and kept smouldering for a week.

Vocabulary notes:
To well: (fel)bugyog, kiárad To simmer: lassú tűzön főz/párol To burst: kirepeszt, szétrobban
Handle: nyél, kilincs, fogantyú On the spot: a helyszínen Path: ösvény
Fuel: üzemanyag To fume: füstöl, gőzöl Selfish: önző
Leash: póráz To snap at sg: vmi után kap (kutya) To smoulder: parázslik

2. There are several expressions dealing with anger in the text. Try to define 4 big metaphoric themes/categories
for them, and group them (Some do not belong to any.) For example, one theme is ANGER IS LIKE HOT FLUID
IN A CONTAINER (an example is marked: 1); another is AN ANGRY PERSON IS LIKE A DANGEROUS
ANIMAL (2).
Then try to translate and remember the following expressions from the text:
she breathes fire
she explodes (1)
it drives me mad
to send sby into a fury
I blew my top
I have not been able to stomach it
anger welled up inside me
to fly off the handle
to add fuel to the fire
I unleashed my anger
I bit his head off (2)
to simmer down
I was boiling with anger
I was fuming
She just snapped at me
she was beside herself
she burst out
I got hot under the collar
I have a fiery temper
to go on the warpath
I was sore at her
I kept smouldering
Image group
APPENDIX 3. The gap-filling exercise and the open-ended list

3. Fill in the text with the expressions you have learnt. Sometimes you can put several words
in a slot.

Have you ever thought about anger? A graffiti says:”To be angry is to take revenge on
yourself because of somebody else’s stupidity.”
Let us suppose you are standing in a long line in front of the ticket office at the
railway station. Most people hate queuing, so probably anger is 1…………….. up inside
you as you are waiting. To add 2………………..……, a boy comes up to you and asks if
he could stand in front of you, because his train is leaving soon. You deny his request.
However, he does not give up, and tries with the lady in front of you. She agrees. At this
point you are probably 3…………………. with anger.

You have three choices: if you are really aggressive, you 4…..…………….. off, and
make him leave. If you are polite, you keep 5…………………… without saying a word,
or try to 6……………….. down. If you have a really 7……………….. temper, probably
the first thing happens. This may get you into trouble, because in fact he may be stronger,
and you would make a fool of yourself arguing loudly in a 8……………………. in front
of a crowd, anyway. Specialists say expressing your anger is actually one of the worst ways
to cool down, because your anger keeps growing until you 9………………….., and it
stays longer. You may have the feeling that you have let go of the tension, but your body
has gone through intense physical stress.

The next option is if you keep 10………………….. . Again, your body and soul
suffers. But if you try to take a more positive and rational approach, and accept that it may be
a real emergency for him, or even try to put yourself into his place, you may realize it is not
worth going on the 11…………………………… , anyway. If you are unable to
12……………………. some offence from a friend, it is even worse. Being
13……………………. at somebody damages your relationship with the person, and your
health, too.

4. List any other expressions that you remember: