Introduction published In: Metaphor in Education: A multilingual perspective
Edited by Katrin Ahlgren, Anne Golden and Ulrika Magnusson
[Metaphor and the Social World 11:2] 2021
► pp. 196–211
Introduction
Metaphor in education
A multilingual and Scandinavian perspective
This article is available free of charge.
Published online: 12 October 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.00015.ahl
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.00015.ahl
Abstract
This special issue explores the use of metaphor in education from a multilingual perspective in two Scandinavian
countries, Norway and Sweden. In this introduction, we include a brief overview of earlier research in the domain and identify
common factors noteworthy to discuss in relation to the multilingual context, for instance, the notion of creativity and speaker
legitimacy in a second language context. The issue includes six articles comprising multilingual school children, youth,
university students, adult migrants, and indigenous minorities. Several of the articles focus on second language acquisition, use
and assessment, while others deal more with social issues, including unequal power relations and prejudices that newcomers
encounter in everyday life.
Keywords: Scandinavia, education, multilingualism, second language learning, creativity
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Metaphor and the notion of creativity
- 3.A Scandinavian perspective
- 4.Contributions to the special issue
- 5.Concluding remarks and future directions
- Note
References
References (55)
Ahlgren, K. (2014). Narrativa identiteter och levande metaforer i ett andraspråksperspektiv. (Narrative identities and living metaphors from a second language perspective). (PhD
thesis.) Stockholm: Stockholm University.
(2020). ”Un
voyage sans fin”: expressions métaphoriques et mudes linguistiques de nouveau locuteurs
suédois. Language et
société, 170(2), 209–128.
(2021). Poetic representations of migration narratives: A process of writing nearby. Journal of sociolinguistics. 001: 1–20.
Askeland, N. (2008). Lærebøker og forståing av kommunikasjon: om forståing av begrepet kommunikasjon gjennom metafor og metaforsignal
i seks læreverk i norsk for ungdomstrinnet 1997–99. (School books and
comprehension of communication: on comprehension of the term communication through metaphor and metaphor signal in six
secondary schools 1997–99.) (PhD
thesis.) Oslo: University of Oslo.
(2015). Omtalen av Alta-Kautokeino-konflikten i norske, svenske og samiske lærebøker. (The Alta-Kautokeino conflict in Norwegian, Swedish and Sami textbooks.) Norsk pedagogisk tidsskrift, 03-041, 268–281.
(2017). Text types and “othering” in Norwegian geography and history textbooks (1860-2006). In B. Aamotsbakken, E. Matthes, & S. Schütze (Eds.), Heterogeneity and educational media (pp. 332–341). Bad Heilbrunn: Julius Klinkardt.
Berthelin, S. R. (2020). Facilitating
metaphorical creativity in multilinguals’ Norwegian writing. Paper at
the 13th conference for the Association for Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM). Høgskolen i
Innlandet; Hamar. June 2020.
Council of Europe (2001). Common European
framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching,
assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fürst, G., & Grin, F. (2018). Multilingualism
and creativity: a multivariate approach. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development, 39(4), 341–355.
Ganuza, N., & Hedman, C. (2015). Struggles
for legitimacy in mother tongue instruction in Sweden. Language and
Education, 29(2), 125–139.
García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21th century: a global perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Gogolin, I. (1997). The
“monolingual habitus” as the common feature of in teaching in the language of the majority in different
countries. Per
Linguam, 13(2), 38–49.
Golden, A. (2005). Å gripe poenget. Forståelse av metaforiske uttrykk fra lærebøker i samfunnskunnskap hos minoritetselever i
ungdomsskolen. (Grasping the point. The understanding of metaphorical
expression in social science texts in minority students.) (PhD
thesis.) Acta Humaniora, 2271. Oslo: UniPub.
(2010). Grasping
the point: A study of 15 years old students’ comprehension of metaphorical expressions in
schoolbooks. In A. Deignan, L. Cameron, G. Low, & Z. Todd (Eds.), Researching
and Applying Metaphor in the Real
World (pp. 35–62). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
(2012). Metaphorical
expressions in L2 production: The importance of text topic in corpus
research. In F. MacArthur, J.-L. Oncins-Martínez, M. Sánchez-García, & A. M. Piquer-Píriz (Eds.), Metaphor
in Use: Context, Culture, and
Communication (pp. 135–148). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Golden, A., & Lanza, E. (2013). Metaphors
of culture: Identity construction in migrants’ narrative discourse. Intercultural
Pragmatics, 21, (Special issue: Metaphor and Culture: A Relationship at a
Crossroads?), 295–314.
Golden, A., & Larsen, V. (2005). Egenvurdering
av språkferdigheter og metaforforståelse blant minoritetselever i videregående
skole. NOA, 31(1–2).
Graedler, A-L. (2014). Attitudes
towards English in Norway: A corpus-based study of attitudinal expressions in newspaper
discourse. Multilingua, 33(3–4), 291–312.
Hedman, C., & Magnusson, U. (2018). Lika
eller lika möjligheter? Diskurser om skolämnet svenska som andraspråk inom det akademiska fältet i
Sverige. (Similar or similar opportunities? Discourses on the school subject Swedish as a
second language within the academic field in Sweden). Acta Didactica
Norge, 12(1), article ID 7.
(2020). Student
ambivalence toward second language education in three Swedish upper secondary
schools. Linguistics and Education, 551, article
ID: 100767.
Kahn, K. (2019). Becoming
a Citizen. Linguistic Trials and Negotiations in the
UK. London: Bloomsbury.
Karrebaek, M., Salö, L., Ganuza, N., & Hedman, C. (2018). Mother
tongue instruction in Sweden and Denmark: Language policy, cross-field effects, and linguistic exchange
rates. Language
Policy, 17(4), 591–610.
Kenett, Y. N., Gold, R., & Faust, M. (2018). Metaphor
Comprehension in Low and High Creative Individuals. Frontiers in
Psychology, 9(482).
Kohl, K., Bolognesi, M., & Werkmann Horvat, A. (2020). The
Creative Power of Metaphor. In K. Kohl, R. Dudrah, A. Gosler, S. Graham, M. Maiden, W. Ouyan, & M. Reynolds (Eds.), Creative
Multilingualism: A
Manifesto (pp. 25–29). Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.
Lindberg, I. (2007). Multilingual
education: a Swedish perspective. In M. Carlson, A. Rabo, & F. Gök (Eds.), Education
in ‘multicultural’ societies – Turkish and Swedish
perspectives (pp. 71–90). Stockholm: Swedish research institute in Istanbul.
Littlemore, J. (2001). The
use of metaphor in university lectures and the problem it causes for overseas
students. Teaching in Higher
Education, 61, 333–349.
Littlemore, J., & Low, G. (2006). Figurative
thinking and foreign language
learning. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
MacArthur, F. (2010). Metaphorical
competence in EFL: Where are we and where should we be going? A view from the language
classroom. AILA
Review, 23(1), 155–173.
Magnusson, U. (2013). Grammatical
metaphor in Swedish monolingual and multilingual upper secondary school students’
writing. Functions of
Language, 20(2), 250–281.
Malcher, J. (2011). Jeg liker å treffe folk i café. Man må nyter de fine tingene på verden! Preposisjoner og morsmålstransfer –
en korpusbasert studie med i og på i fokus. (I like to meet people. You
have to see the good things! Prepositions and mother tongue transfer – a corpus studie on i and
på.) (MA-thesis.) Oslo: University of Oslo.
Márquez Reiter, R., & Martín Rojo, L. (2019). Introduction:
Language and speakerhood in migratory contexts. International Journal of the Sociology of
Language, 2571, 1–16.
Mouraz, A., Pereira, A. V., & Monteiro, R. (2013). The
Use of Metaphors in the Processes of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
International. Online Journal of Educational
Sciences, 5(1), 99–110
Nacey, S. (2013). Metaphors
in learner English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
(2020). Metaphors
in high-stakes language exams. In G. B. Steien, & L. A. Kulbrandstad (Eds.), Språkreiser –
festskrift til Anne Golden på 70-årsdagen 14. juli
2020 (pp. 287–308). Oslo: Novus forlag.
Nacey, S., & Jensen, B. U. (2017). Metaphoricity
in English L2 learners’ prepositions. In F. Ervas, E. Gola, & M.G. Rossy (Eds.), Metaphors
in communication, science and
education (pp.283–304). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Paulsrud, B., Zilliacus, H., & Ekberg, L. (2020). Spaces
for multilingual education: language orientations in the national curricula of Sweden and
Finland. International Multilingual Research
Journal, 14(4), 304–318.
Pitzl, M. L. (2012). Creativity
meets convention: Idiom variation and re-metaphorization in EFL. Journal of English as a lingua
franca, 1(1), 27–55.
(2017). Communicative
‘success’, creativity and the need for de-mystifying L1 use: Some thoughts on ELF and
ELT. Lingue e
Linguaggi, 241, 37–46.
(2018). Creativity
in English as a lingua franca. Idiom and metaphor. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
Prentice, J. (2010). På rak sak: Om ordförbindelser och konventionaliserade uttryck bland unga språkbrukare i flerspråkiga
miljöer. (Word combinations and conventionalized expressions among adolescent
language users in multilingual environments.) (PhD
thesis.) Gothenburg: Gothenburg University.
Pujolar, J. (2019). Linguistic
mudes: An exploration over the linguistic constitution of subjects. International Journal of
the Sociology of
Language, 2571, 165–189.
Ruiz, R. (1984). Orientations
in language planning. Journal of the National Association for Bilingial
Education, 8(2), 15–34.
Salö, L. (2016). Languages
and linguistic exchanges in Swedish academia: Practices, processes, and globalizing
markets. (PhD
thesis). Stockholm: Stockholm University.
Sfard, A. (2015). Metaphors
for learning. In R. Gunstone (Ed.), Encyclopedia
for Science
Education (p. 1–4). Dordrecht: Springer.
Strzelecka, E., & Vogel, A. (2012). Andraspråksundervisning
i ett kognitivt lingvistiskt perspektiv. (Second language teaching from a cognitive linguistic
perspective.) Nordand, 7(1), 85–105.
Toth, J. (2018). English-medium
instruction for young learners in Sweden: a longitudinal case study of a primary school class in a bilingual English-Swedish
school. (PhD
thesis.) Stockholm: Stockholm University.
Uri, H. (2020). Hoppe
etter ruccola. Om godt språk, dårlig språk, klart språk og språklig bråk. (On good language, bad
language, clear language and language
quarrels) Oslo: Kagge Forlag.
Van Lier, L. (2004). The
ecology and semiotics of language learning: a sociocultural
perspective (Vol. 31). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Geçitli, Erkan & Bünyamin Yurdakul
Barton, Georgina
Dalpanagioti, Thomai
Golden, Anne & Oliwia Szymańska
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
