Collective Review: Three Approaches to Teaching and Learning Metaphors

Abstract

Reflecting on the guiding force of metaphors is a long-standing tradition in the German-speaking sciences. However, no connection is made to the theory of metaphor, which is derived from modern cognitive linguistics. This may in part be due to a lack of qualitative studies in the sciences on the subject of everyday reasoning. These three doctoral studies seek to fill the void, with Peter GANSEN producing detailed descriptions of how children use metaphors, whilst also developing a theory for an educational metaphorology. Sabine MARSCH, on the other hand, shows how metaphors shape subjective theories of teaching and can open or close active learning. Kai NIEBERT's work focuses on an analysis and comparison of metaphors used by both climate change theorists and everyday observers, whilst also building didactical bridges. Although the three studies differ in terms of methodology and thematic focus, they open up the field of metaphor analysis in the sciences, hopefully providing stimulus for further work in this area. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1103195