原文
Using Figurative Language
In the last chapter, a key point was that studying metaphor was more than looking at an attractive but unusual use of language. For this study such figures of speech are interesting because of what they reveal about the thought processes that produce them. The processes revealed by figurative language allow us to conceptualize abstract meaning. Abstraction begins as a figure of speech but becomes an accepted convention of language. At first sight, therefore, it might seem perverse to begin our study of the pedagogical interest of this idea by returning to the rarer figures of speech that reveal how we engage in the ubiquitous process of abstraction. I am going to postpone my look at the larger role of metaphor and think instead about how we can help students to attain a better and more confident control of figurative language and idiom. There are three reasons to do this.
First an appropriate instructional sequence should start with the obvious acts of metaphor production. The skills that are developed by recognizing the obvious might then be turned to uncovering forms that are hidden by their familiarity.
Second, linguistic creativity is a function of successful language use. Metaphor formation, whether of real or imagined originality, underpins such creativity. It therefore follows that students should be encouraged to adopt the linguist license that live metaphor requires. They can treat the target language less as a prefabricated environment to which they must adapt their capacity for expression and more as a resource that will respond to their expressive needs.
Third, live metaphor is about finding new or hitherto unexposed meanings. To encourage metaphor’s process of meaning-creation may be to encourage students to ask what even mundane words mean in a wider and deeper sense. For example, we can explore Wittgenstein’s (1953) famous observation that we find it impossible to define a term such as ‘a game’ in a manner that includes the large and diverse range of phenomena and activities to which that category can refer. Grasping this breadth of reference is also to encourage thought about where we can take the meaning of a term as we stretch it into metaphor. Therefore some thought about how to get students to build metaphor will lead us first to an exploration of what we mean by a term and how we build and manipulate the category that this term represents.
参考译文
使用比喻性语言
上一章强调，学习隐喻不仅仅是分析一种颇具吸引力但不同寻常的语言表达方式。隐喻之所以有趣，是因为它揭示了产生这些语言的思维过程。这些思维过程帮助我们将抽象意义具体化。抽象的意义最初可能是通过修辞手法表达的，但最终成为了语言中的常规用法。一些不常见的修辞手法揭示了人们如何参与到普遍的抽象化过程中，通过重新审视这些不常见的隐喻来探究这一观点的教学价值，乍一看似乎不合常理。我将暂时搁置对隐喻宏观作用的探讨，转而关注如何帮助学生更好、更自信地掌握比喻性语言和习语。原因有以下三点。
首先，教学应从显而易见的隐喻构建行为开始。通过识别这些明显的隐喻形式，学生可以逐步培养能力，去发现那些由于过于熟悉而被隐藏的隐喻形式。
其次，语言创造力是成功使用语言的关键。隐喻的构建，无论是真正原创还是想象中的原创，都是语言创造力的基础。由此可见，教师应该鼓励学生自由表达，这正是创造活隐喻所必需的。如此一来，学生可以将目标语言视为满足自我表达需求的资源，而非被迫适应的预设框架。
第三，“活隐喻”的关键在于探寻新的意义或者那些迄今为止尚未被揭示出来的意义。若要鼓励学生参与到隐喻的意义创造过程当中，或许就需要引导他们去追问那些常见的词语 在更广泛、更深层上的含义。例如，维特根斯坦（1953）曾指出，我们难以用涵盖某一范畴所涉及的众多且多样的现象及活动的方式，去定义如 “游戏” 这类词语。理解词语的广泛指涉情况，有助于学生思考如何借隐喻拓展词语的意义。因此，思考引导学生构建隐喻的方法时，首先要探究词语的含义，以及如何构建与操控该词语所代表的范畴。