Journeys of learning: a study of metaphors from English language learning histories

Abstract

In this article we present a study about journey metaphors in English language learning histories (LLHs), using the Cognitive Linguistic concepts of metaphor and image schema. The data were extracted from the LLHs corpus of the project AMFALE. In order to search the examples of the conceptual metaphor THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING IS A JOURNEY, we used the internal Google search engine, from the website that hosts the AMFALE corpus, and searched excerpts words from the journey semantic field in Portuguese and English. Next, for the analysis, we selected the more salient metaphors in the list of examples. We divided the analysis in three parts, according to the journey image schema, SOURCE-PATH-GOAL. The analysis suggests that the majority of the metaphors is related to the learning process, metaphorized as a path, although we also found few metaphors related to the journey source and goal.