The teaching of metaphor in the advertising discourse of business newspapers

Abstract

Metaphor has rarely been considered an important instrument in the study of specific-purpose texts, since it is traditionally linked with resources of a poetic nature. In addition to this, the lexicon of metaphor was deemed to be of little relevance to the student, as it is not specific to the area of study.

However, studies are beginning to highlight the relevance of figurative language so as to widen the students . lexical level. We think, in line with this perspective, that including metaphor in an English language programme can provide Economics students with a useful tool to interpret vocabulary and improve reading skills. In this proposal, we put forward different activities taken from a cognitiveaxiological perspective. These activities can also contribute to teaching cognitive semantics in specialized discourse in a more effective way. The texts used in the activities have been taken from Economics advertising discourse, since they lend themselves particularly well to the analysis of values.