From “Robot” to “Rejuvenating Warrior”: An EFL Learner’s Conceptual Metaphors During School Transition

Abstract

Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, I investigated the school transition experience of an English as a foreign language (EFL) learner. In this narrative case study, the participant’s emotion labor was followed throughout his first semester at a high school in Turkey. Exploring narrative journals, conceptual metaphors, and interviews, I examined his dynamic emotional states. The findings revealed that school transition may entail inhibiting emotion labor for high school freshman EFL learners. Moreover, it was also shown that these emotions may force adolescent learners to reconceptualize foreign language learning with a negative perspective and develop surviving learner’s strategies that may support them in terms of getting satisfactory grades in a summative assessment culture but may jeopardize language learning in the long run.