A total of 272 children participated in a study of the effectiveness of three support systems for cuing sixth grade students in interpreting the metaphoric language of poetry. The first system involved regular classroom teachers who applied their own verbal cuing, the second included external instructional support through media and the teachers'…

Research by developmental psychologists has investigated metaphor comprehension without its surrounding context. This research has the positive feature of being unidirectional, all indicating that the older the child, the greater the possibility that metaphor will be understood. The disadvantages of the studies for educators include the fact that…

Given the rather sparse and somewhat confusing literature dealing with the topic of metaphor and metaphoric usage, this study attempted to (1) determine the basal level of metaphorical usage in grades 3, 4, and 5; (2) evaluate a series of books ("Making It Strange") designed to promote and augment figurative usage in these grades; (3) determine…

Merit is a popular social and cultural leitmotif in neoliberal society. It promises justice, equity, and social mobility for all by promoting the ethos that with the right skills, hard work and creativity, anyone can 'climb' the market-based social ladder. The aim of the study is to determine how academics conceptualize and perceive the concept of…

Foreign language teachers need a reservoir of techniques designed to dispel misconceptions students may have about poetry and to lead them step-by-step into its study. This article presents learning experiences of such a nature and illustrations for teachers to help them devise activities. (Author/SW)

Explores the concept of ambiity in semantic relationships, and discusses several causes of relational ambiguity, including differing world views, subtext construction, and selective focusing. Asserts that while most instances of relational ambiguity do not impair text comprehension, readers should be aware of possible ambiguities. (MM)

Investigates the hypothesis that, in the case of individual similes, bits of lexical information, or word knowledge, are predictably and absolutely essential to the resolution of similes. (HOD)

Do students often struggle with difficult novels and other challenging texts? Do they think one reading of a work is more than enough? Do they primarily comprehend at a surface-level, and are they frequently unwilling or unable to discover the deeper meaning found in multi-layered works? Do teachers feel that they are doing more work teaching the…

Scientific language is not simply for recording facts but it is also an instrument of thought. It has a central role in not only developing a sense of social identity for members of the scientific community and students in the classroom but also in inculcating views on the nature of science and reality itself. Physicists have created a language in…

This 20-minute videotape program presents poet and Columbia University professor Kenneth Koch conducting a poetry workshop with a small group of fourth and fifth graders. The program's notes explain that Koch believes that students should be allowed to write poetry in the same way that they are allowed to dance and sing--with freedom,…

Argues that abstract, figurative senses of polysemous words are better retained when learners are given core senses as cues, because providing a core sense helps learners develop a "precise elaboration." Results of a series of vocabulary studies involving Dutch learners of English show that providing a core sense results in better guessing and…

This examination of the frequency of occurrence of multiple meaning expressions in the oral speech of teachers found that such expressions as indirect requests, idioms, similes, metaphors, and irony were used in about 36 percent of all utterances by two different teachers at each grade level from K-eight. Implications for language-impaired…

Provides a brief history of the use of metaphor and its potential usefulness with children. Describes eight strategies for using metaphors with children, offers a systematic approach for constructing interwoven metaphors for children, supplies a case example, and lists some of the limitations of metaphorical language in counseling. (RJM)

Describes a unit in a writing-intensive course on reading in the content areas in which students take a familiar fairy tale and rewrite it in a modern context. Describes the four class sessions, including class activities and writing assignments, noting figurative language, elements of fairy tales, and critical reading, thinking, and writing…

Explores the potential of cognitive linguistic notions such as conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonym for comparing the figurative phraseologies of English and Malay and anticipating second language learner difficulty. A comparative analysis is undertaken that identifies six types of relationship between figurative expressions in the two…