Metaphors in language learning activity

A.Zhaparova

Department of Translation Theory and Methodology,

Al-Farabi Kazakh National University

Language is an opportunity that opens many doors in your life. There is a nice quotation like "How many languages you know so many times you are a man". In accordance with Oliver Wendell Holmes, American author, poet, physician, and teacher who wrote The Guardian Angel, "Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow". Language has an exceptional significance, it assists us in many ways. Among numerous possibilities that present knowing language, especially a foreign one, we can name these ones like:

Reading many masterpieces in the language they were written in;

Well-paid job abroad or where you live;

Quite developed communication skills;

General knowledge enhanced together with culture, history, customs of the country which language you learn;

Growing self-esteem gained after facing diverse situations, mainly in foreign countries;

Your memory ameliorates;

You can prevent yourself from such illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementia;

Experienced teachers and other specialists who teach foreign language use many beneficial methods to improve and brighten the level of foreign language, they will advise you how to enlarge your vocabulary, broaden your horizons, apply your theoretical knowledge in a practice and daily life. As Henry Brooks Adams, an American novelist, journalist, historian and academic once said, "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops". We are also aware of this wonderful aphorism which says "The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book". So how many teachers so many various methods, ways can be used. Some common recommendations of grading up the level of foreign language are offered here.

Keep practicing in your head;

Skillfully apply audio and online courses;

Watch as many movies in your learning language with or without subtitles;

Newspapers and magazines, articles and reports, shows and program in a foreign language can do you a good favor;

Learn grammar and vocabulary effectively, equally amend all types of practicing language like Speaking, Writing, Listening and Reading;

Read fairy tales, puzzles, tongue-twisters, proverbs and sayings, idioms and set expressions in the language;

Сonversation, conversation and conversation;

Immerse into foreign-language environment;

Besides, all general rules, tips, recommendations and advice, most depends on learner's wish, desire, patience, his strength of will; he can overcome any difficulties come across if he truly wants. As a hint or tip, I can suggest you to know and learn metaphors in the language you learn. As a metaphor is useful device, which helps you to think deeper, wider, better. It is not a direct way of expressing your thoughts and notions, vice versa, it is figurative method, hidden meaning, latent sense. A metaphor is a comparison of two different things, without "like" or "as." It makes a description more fascinating and intriguing.

"Metaphor is embodied in language" emphasized Dennis Potter, a British essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. An English journalist and author, known for her novels and reviews, Storm Jameson, left this amazing quote "Language is memory and metaphor". Gilbert K. Chesterton, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer pointed that " All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry". Absolute truth, isn't it? Metaphor is a trope, in which there is an implicit, tacit, purported comparison between two dissimilar objects that have something in common indeed. A metaphor extends the unknown and unacquainted in terms of the familiar. For example, Children are flowers of life (Chinese proverb); Love is a fruit, in season at all times and within the reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set (Mother Teresa, No Greater Love, 1997); Love is a plant of the most tender kind, That shrinks and shakes with every ruffling wind (George Granville, The British Enchanters, 1705). There are many examples of metaphors used by us in daily life, almost every day, such as, "It is raining cats and dogs ", "She has a hear of gold", " You are my sunshine ", " Love is a lemon – either bitter or sweet", "Ideas are wings", "Sea of knowledge", "Time is a thief", "Peace of mind", "Life is a journey", " This pie is heaven! ". In additives, both literature and poetry in particular, are full of metaphors, traditional and author's individual, mixed metaphors and extended one, absolute and conceptual, active and complex metaphors. Here are some of them.

Shakespeare's well-known metaphor "All the world's a stage, And the men and women merely players";

"Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations." - (Faith Baldwin, Face Toward the Spring, 1956);
"Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food." - (Austin O'Malley, Keystones of Thought);
“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust;

"Language is a road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." - (Rita Mae Brown)

Metaphors promote and foster us to comprehend someone's speech easily, they conduce us to think and express our views in more brilliant colors. It goes without saying that, metaphors facilitate language learning process, as it makes it easier and сaptivating. Metaphors in your speech can be used in your conversation in the following purposes:

For making comparison;

For emphasis, stress, accent, emphasize;

For humor;

For making something plain, bright, explicit, lucid and effortless to comprehend;

To express thoughts in a new way;

To promote reader сreate and shape a picture in their mind;

To make readers think, turn over in their minds, ponder over, consider;

Let us make some comparison between metaphor and a word said in direct sense, literal meaning . Which one is better, articulate and manifest your ideas in simple and ordinary language or make it sound more distinctive? For instance,

My hands feel very cold. My hands are ice.

Her eyes are beautiful. Her eyes are diamonds.

The dress is soft and white. The bride wore a dress of snow.

A person who prefers passive way of rest. Couch potato.

My fellow is angry and greedy. My fellow has a heart of stone.

A person who gets up very early. Early bird.

Rouse yourself from sleep and get out of bed. Shake a leg.

Whiteness of a person's hair. His hair was bone white.

I am awfully tired. I am dead tired.

I do not believe it. Tell it to the marines.

A group of children went home. A flock of children went home.

A scary situation. The pigeons fountained into the air.

Celebrations of someone's return. Fatted calf.

A woman that will protect family. Mama Grizzly.

It means in essence. Nutshell.

My Compass. She is my East and my West.

A variety of unique choices. A rainbow of flavors.

It is so cold. London slang. Brass Monkey.

Which one comes the first? Chicken or the egg?

Someone who might have a heart of metal or cold. Iron.

As you notice metaphors indicate concrete meaning in figurative way. It is your choice to choose either first or second version called metaphor. Metaphor is a transference of names, in which we know that the name is not used for its intended purpose. Deeper and more significant, more essential and profound function of metaphor is in cognition. Metaphor is not only needed to make our thoughts available to other people; it is necessary to ourselves to make the object of our thought become available. Metaphor serves as an instrument of thought, by which we are able to reach the most remote areas of our conceptual field. However, it does not push the limits of the thinkable, it only provides access to what is seen dimly on its outer reaches. Metaphor allows us to isolate difficult for thought abstract objects and give them independence and self reliance. Metaphors are widely used in Pedagogy, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Literature, Linguistics. It is also successfully and advantageously can be applied in language learning process. Metaphor can be descriptive, figurative, vivid, imaginative, beautiful, without it, fiction, poetry, and a common spoken language are unthinkable and inconceivable.