This book looks at how foreign language learners, including learners of English, can be helped to deal with metaphor and metonymy in order to improve their communicative language ability. This book looks at how foreign language learners, including learners of English, can be helped to deal with metaphor and metonymy in order to improve their communicative language ability. Many of the vocabulary items that foreign language learners encounter involve figurative extensions of meaning. For example, bottleneck, hard-headed and getting a foot in the door all involve figurative extensions of parts of the body. To understand words and expressions such as these, language learners often need to employ figurative thinking. This book examines the nature of figurative thinking, considers its contribution to communicative language ability, and explores the implications for language teaching and learning.
