“Is there a she?” and “Do you play sex?” The importance of Conceptual Fluency for Japanese Learners of English

Daniel CourtneyDepartment of International Studies

Meiji Gakuin UniversityJapan

courtney.danny@gmail.com

AbstractLexical mistakes can arise when there are differences in the conceptual systems of a learner’s L1 and their L2. Two examples of such mistakes made by Japanese learners of English are the use of BE verbs instead of have, and using play instead of do. This paper discusses these mistakes in light of the theory of Conceptual Fluency. Although the research on Conceptual Fluency in the Japanese ELF context is limited, some evidence has been found which supports the use of Conceptual Fluency based methodology in the Japanese EFL classroom. Evidence from outside the Japanese context also suggests that students do not acquire Conceptual Fluency without explicit instruction. This paper argues that such instruction could help students avoid the two mistakes discussed.

Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Fluency, Metaphorical Competence, Japanese, EFL

1.0 Introduction

This paper explores two mistakes made by Japanese learners of English, “Is

there a she?” and “Do you play sex?” using Danesi’s (1993) theory of

Conceptual Fluency. Danesi (1993) builds the notions of Conceptual Fluency

and Metaphorical Competence on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual

Metaphor Theory (hereafter CMT), which asserts that metaphors are more

cognitive than linguistic. As linguistic metaphors accrue via cognitive links

between the source and target of a metaphor, Danesi (1993) suggests L2

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learners may struggle to interpret and use metaphors in their L2. In this way,

common mistakes can be viewed as arising from how Japanese and English

speakers conceptualise metaphorical relationships differently. Two examples

of such mistakes are covered in this paper: using BE verbs instead of have, and

using play instead of do. The first mistake results from Japanese

conceptualizing relationships as existing whereas English conceptualizes them

as possessions (Radden & Seto, 2003). The second comes from the English

conceptualization of certain sports as games, which is absent in Japanese.

Although research into the Conceptual Fluency of Japanese learners of English

is limited, there is some evidence that explicitly teaching conceptual

metaphors in the target language can improve student L2 metaphorical

choices. This paper explains how current evidence suggests that explicit

conceptual awareness teaching can help students avoid conceptual mistakes.

The potential for more research on English language Conceptual Fluency in

Japan is also outlined.

2. 0 Literature review

The literature review first considers and presents an overview of Lakoff and

Johnson’s (1980) CMT, before discussing Danesi’s (1993) Conceptual

Fluency and the related concept of Metaphorical Competence. Finally it

reviews the literature on implementing Conceptual Fluency and Metaphorical

Competence, both in the context of teaching English as a foreign language

(hereafter EFL) in Japan and in other countries.

2.1 Conceptual Metaphor Theory

The central claim of CMT is that metaphor is not simply a linguistic

phenomenon, but that “human thought processes are largely metaphorical”

(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 6) [their emphasis]. In this theory a metaphor is

not a linguistic expression, but the cognitive link between different conceptual

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domains, which allows metaphorical language to be constructed and correctly

interpreted.

This theory is best understood through example, so let us look at two:

MORE IS UP and AFFECTION IS WARMTH. These examples are given in

the standard form TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN. According to

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) we use information we know about the source

domain to think about the target domain, which then allows us to use language

about the source domain to talk about the target domain.

In MORE IS UP we are conceptualising an increase in a non-vertical

amount as vertical (upwards) motion. This allows us to talk about

temperatures rising and prices being high. This example highlights two points

in CMT. The first is that often language which is thought of as literal has a

metaphorical basis. A price has no physical position to speak of, and so

speaking of it in vertical terms is a figurative extension of the original

meaning of up. The second is that conceptual links can be seen as arising from

our experience of the world. When objects are placed in a pile, or a substance

poured into a container, the level rises (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).

We can likewise see this experiential basis in AFFECTION IS

WARMTH. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) argue that this metaphor arises from

the experience of being held by a parent as a baby and feeling their body heat.

This cognitive link then gives rise to expressions such as “They greeted me

warmly” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 50).

As metaphors arise from experience, CMT predicts that in cultures

where people share similar experiences, at least some of the same

metaphorical relationships should exist (Kövecses, 2005). This is an important

point for thinking about how CMT can influence teaching L2, and is discussed

further in 2.2 and 2.3. Both the metaphors MORE IS UP and AFFECTION IS

WARMTH exist in Japanese just as in English, giving rise to almost the exact

expressions we find in English: bukka ga takai (prices are high) and atatakai

kangei (warm welcome). However, Lakoff (2013) states that AFFECTION IS

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WARMTH is not found in the Tamil language in southern India. Here,

presumably due to the hot and humid climate, a link between annoyance and

warmth can be found.

While there are cases like these where a metaphor translates perfectly

or not at all, these are the extremes of a spectrum. Between these two extremes

are various levels of transferability. For example, both English and Japanese

use the underlying metaphor THE ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURISED

CONTAINER. However, whereas in English this gives rise to expressions

related to hot liquid (“boil with anger”, “simmer down”) (Kövecses, 2005), in

Japanese the phrases hara ga tatsu (stomach rises) and atama ni kuru (come to

one’s head) derive from the same metaphor (Matsuki, 1995). While these

phrases are likely initially opaque to an English speaker, the similarity in

conceptual basis might make them more transferrable than a phrase based on a

completely different metaphor. These levels of transferability are discussed in

2.3.1.

Masuda and Arnett (2015) argue that it is beneficial to the study of

teaching EFL to pair Cognitive Linguistics, of which CMT forms one part,

with Sociocultural Theory. Sociocultural Theory works on the principal that

cognitive abilities do not develop in isolation, but rather “as a result of

internalizing socially based learning through culturally constructed artifacts”

(Masuda & Arnett, 2015, p. 10). While Masuda and Arnett suggest Cognitive

Grammar and Construction Grammar are “of particular interest” (p. 1-2), the

importance of culture to CMT suggests that Sociocultural Theory should be of

interest to researchers in this field too. However, a full description of the

relationships between Sociocultural Theory, CMT and EFL teaching would

require an entire essay in itself, and as such is beyond the scope of this

particular paper.

It must be noted that authors such as Murphy (1996, 1997), Glucksberg

et al. (1993) and McGlone (2007) have criticised some of Lakoff and

Johnson’s conclusions. However, I have yet to find any dispute over their

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central point, that metaphorical expressions in language have a cognitive basis.

For example, Glucksberg et al. (1993) argue that L1 speakers do not activate

the cognitive links Lakoff and Johnson propose when interpreting

conventional expressions involving figurative language. These arguments are

moot as far as this paper is concerned, as it is more concerned with metaphors

in a speaker’s L2 than L1. It does not matter whether or not L1 speakers rely

on cognitive links to interpret metaphors, only that awareness of such links

can aid learners’ L2 development. This is the topic of the next two sections.

2.2 Conceptual Fluency and Metaphorical Competence

Danesi (1992) relates CMT to second language acquisition by introducing the

related notions of Conceptual Fluency and Metaphorical Competence. Danesi

(1992, p. 490) argues that despite producing language that is both

grammatically accurate and communicatively successful “there continues to be

something still not quite 'kosher,' so to say, in the actual speech samples

produced typically by our SL learners.” In other words, learners possess

Verbal Fluency but not Conceptual Fluency: “students 'speak' with the formal

structures of the target language, but they 'think' in terms of their native

conceptual system” (Danesi, 1992, p. 490).

Danesi (1992, p. 490) defines Conceptual Fluency as “something that

cannot be explained in strictly grammatical and/or communicative terms”,

where the grammatical and communicative knowledge constitute Verbal

Fluency. This definition suggests that Conceptual Fluency only covers

situations where an L2 speaker will be understood by an L1 speaker, but not

sound natural. However, this is at odds with his later work. Danesi (2016, p.

145) states a common Conceptual Fluency mistake among beginner Italian

learners is to say Io sono caldo to express the idea “I am hot”. However,

Italians would interpret this to mean “I am (sexually) aroused” or “I have a

fever” (Dansei, 2016, p. 145). This example, along with the first example

discussed in this paper (“Is there a she?”), show that mistakes of Conceptual

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Fluency can and do cause problems for understanding and therefore

communication.

Dansei (2016, p. 145) differentiates Conceptual Fluency and

Metaphorical Competence as following:

Conceptual Fluency: the ability to use the conceptual-semantic system

that produced figurative discourse systematically.

Metaphorical Competence: the control of figurative language.

These definitions suggest the difference between the two is that Metaphorical

Competence is focused on the language whereas Conceptual Fluency refers to

the underlying conceptual system. However, it would seem unlikely that one

can be achieved without the other. As the terms are so inextricably linked, and

to avoid any confusion over exactly what constitutes a “metaphor” versus a

“figurative expression”, the term Conceptual Fluency (hereafter CF) is used

predominantly in this paper.

The final question to be answered is whether or not teaching CF is

necessary. Danesi (1992, p. 491) argues that learners’ discourse exhibits a

literalness which shows “students have had little or no opportunity to access

the metaphorically structured conceptual domains inherent in SL discourse.”

This shows that despite obtaining grammatical and communicative

competence, learners are “almost completely lacking” in metaphorical

competence (Danesi, 1992, p. 491).

Likewise, Russo (1997, p. 112) found that in his English speaking

learners of Italian, CF “develops to only a fraction of native-like competency

after one year of study and then levels out.” Russo (1997) suggests that this

could be an avoidance strategy employed by students after failed attempts to

directly translate L1 figurative expressions into L2. Russo (1997) claims his

data are consistent with such a fossilization.

While it cannot be taken as a given that this Russo’s findings will

generalise to Japanese learners of English, there are two reasons why it is

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likely that this will be the case. The first is that both being Indo-European

languages, it is more likely that English and Italian will share metaphors

through cross linguistic transfer than English and Japanese, which are less

related linguistically, culturally and geographically (Neumann, 2001). The

second is that learning English is a powerful source of anxiety for many

Japanese students (Brown, 2004). It has certainly been my experience while

teaching English in Japan that students frequently employ avoidance strategies

rather than risk making mistakes in English.

As with CMT, it has been argued that Sociocultural Theory, in

particular Concept-Based Instruction, can contribute to CF pedagogy (Lantolf,

2013). The central tenet of Concept-Based Instruction is that in order to lead to

successful development, instruction must be based on scientific knowledge.

Scientific knowledge refers to the understanding which is gained through

academic research, as opposed to “commonsense everyday knowledge” and

“rules-of-thumb” (Lantolf, 2013, p. 65). Concept-Based Instruction also

proposes that for accurate conceptual knowledge to be successfully acquired

by language learners, it may be necessary to rely on visual, rather than verbal

representations. Both of these ideas will be relevant later in this paper.

2.3 Teaching Conceptual Fluency in Japan

This section reviews four studies involving CF in the Japanese EFL context,

Azuma (2009), Azuma and Littlemore (2010), Cho and Kawase (2012) and

Yasuda (2010). Each provides a different insight into the teaching of CF.

2.3.1 Levels of Transferability (Azuma, 2009)

Azuma (2009) builds on the work of Kövecses (2005), in addition to studies

by Deignan, Gabrys and Solska (1997) and Charteris-Black (2002) which look

at organising metaphors by their level of transferability between L1 and L2.

Azuma (2009) tested Japanese learners of English on their ability to interpret

expressions classified into the four following groups.

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1. Similarity sharing group, where similar concepts/wordings are used in

English and Japanese, e.g. time is money is used similarly in both

languages.

2. Partial similarity sharing group, where there are similar concepts or

wordings in English and Japanese, e.g. off one’s head means to be crazy

or drunk in English, but shares some similarity in wording with the

Japanese kubikiri, meaning to be decapitated or by figurative extension,

to be fired.

3. Difference group, where neither the concepts nor wordings transfer,

e.g. kick the bucket, which has no similar expression in Japanese.

4. Problematic group, where the wordings are the same, but the meanings

are different between the two languages, e.g. pull one’s leg, meaning to

lie for the purposes of a joke in English, is a near direct translation of

the Japanese ashi wo hipparu, which means to hold someone back from

success.

Table 1 shows the four groups with the percentage of correct answers given by

the Japanese students. As can be seen over half of the similarity group

expressions were interpreted correctly by the students. These results suggest

that simple exposure to context (the test items were presented in isolation)

might be enough for students to understand these expressions. Conversely, less

than 5% of the problematic group were understood. Taken together these

results suggest that teachers planning to teach CF should consider which

expressions transfer before choosing items to be taught.

Table 1.

Japanese students’ scores on interpreting figurative expressions.

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Adapted from Azuma (2009)

2.3.2 Explicit Teaching (Azuma & Littlemore, 2010)

Azuma and Littlemore (2010) studied the differing effects of two different

teaching methodologies on students’ ability to understand, produce and be

creative with figurative language. The two groups were an attribute-matching

group, explicitly taught about metaphorical transfer, and a gestalt-training

group, taught in a more implicit manner. The attribute-matching group were

given the expression “my teacher is a witch” and asked to consider which

attributes of “witch” could transfer to a teacher. The gestalt-training group

were asked to match a series of shapes with emotions, and then to draw their

own shapes for other emotions.

After these both groups were given the same exercises, to match three

famous people with shapes, and then to assign a colour, animal and food to

each famous person. However, in each exercise the attribute-matching group

were asked to give reasons for their choices, forcing them think explicitly

about the cognitive links. Conversely the gestalt-training group were

instructed to rely on their intuition.

The improvement of the students was measured with pre- and post-

tests. Azuma and Littlemore (2010) found significant improvements in both

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Metaphor Group English Japanese Calque Student

Scores

l: similarity-sharing

group

time is money toki ha okane ni

naru

56.1%

2: partial similarity-

sharing group

off one’s head kubikiri 29.8%

3: difference group kick the bucket [none] 30.1%

4: problematic group pull someone’s

leg

ashi wo hipparu 4.9%

understanding and production of figurative expressions in the attribute-

matching groups, but not in the gestalt training group. Neither group showed

significant improvement in using figurative expressions creatively. These

results suggest explicit teaching of figurative language leads to better student

outcomes.

2.3.3 Encouraging Deep Thinking (Cho & Kawase, 2012)

Cho and Kawase (2012) compared the efficacy of two different teaching

methodologies on students’ use of the pronouns in, at, and on. One group was

taught using a traditional approach, in which the teacher explained the various

uses of these prepositions using example sentences, then completed exercises

using dictionaries. The second group was taught in a conceptually based way,

using the pictures of the central image schemas for each preposition. Central

image schemas are the most basic, non-figurative meanings of words, the

physical basis upon which figurative uses are built. For example, the central

image schema of “in” is where the word refers to being inside a physical

container, such as “Put the toys in the box!” (Cho & Kawase, 2012, p. 166).

After this the students were asked to draw pictures for figurative uses, such as

“In my opinion…” and “Mother was mad at me…” (Cho & Kawase, 2012, p.

166). This use of visual representations to teach prepositions is entirely in line

with Lantolf’s (2013) description of Concept-Based Instruction.

Cho and Kawase (2012) found a significant improvement in the

performance of the schema-based group from pre-test to post-test, and a small

decrease in the results of the traditionally taught group. These results could be

taken to suggest that using the central image schemas had a positive effect on

students’ performance. However, other studies have struggled to find a

significant difference between schema-based instruction and traditional

teaching methods (Mitsugi, 2013; Sato, 2015), suggesting the deep thinking

encouraged by drawing pictures may be the decisive factor in Cho and

Kawase’s (2012) positive results.

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2.3.4 Organising Expressions by Metaphor (Yasuda, 2010)

Yasuda (2010) explored the difference of a traditional approach and a

conceptual approach on students’ understanding of phrasal verbs. Both groups

were given 21 phrasal verbs to learn. In the traditional approach group, the

verbs were presented in alphabetic order with Japanese translations. The

conceptual approach group were given the verbs arranged by the preposition

in the phrasal verb and the metaphor it employs. Figure 1 shows the example

of phrasal verbs including the preposition “up”. As discussed in 2.1, the

metaphor MORE IS UP exists in both English and Japanese. However, the

same word can have more than one metaphor attached to it (Lakoff &

Johnson, 1980). Yasuda (2010) includes verbs employing the metaphors

MORE VISIBLE/ACCESSIBLE IS UP and COMPLETION IS UP.

Yasuda (2010) compared the two groups’ performance on their ability

to provide the correct adverbial particle for 30 phrasal verbs, 15 from the list

of 21 used in the training, and 15 which were new to the students. As Yasuda

(2010) hypothesised, there was no significant difference in the results on the

exposed items, but the conceptual approach group performed significantly

better on the unexposed items. This result suggests that an understanding of

the underlying metaphor can help students to interpret new vocabulary

employing the same metaphor.

Figure 1. Phrasal verbs organised by underlying metaphor (Yasuda, 2010).

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3.0 Two mistakes of Conceptual Fluency

This section looks in detail at two mistakes that can be linked to issues of CF,

and what steps can be taken by teachers to help correct them. Both of these

mistakes were made by my students while I taught English in Japan, and were

chosen as they are representative of a particular kind of mistake I have

encountered many times in this context. The fact that these mistakes are

common suggest that they lack transferability (See Azuma, 2009). These two

specific examples were chosen because their amusing nature made them more

memorable for me than other similar mistakes. The claim I make is not that

these specific instances are definitely due to a lack of CF on behalf of these

two students, but that the common mistake they are representative of could be

avoided with a higher level of CF. Section 3.1 looks at the mistake “Is there a

she?”, while section 3.2 discusses “Do you play sex?”.

3.1 Is there a she?

This question was written by a junior high school student in an introductory

lesson, in response to a worksheet prompt which asked the students to write

one question they wanted to ask me. It is a direct translation of the Japanese

“kanojo imasu ka?”, which translates more naturally as “Do you have a

girlfriend?” There are two separate mistakes that arise from this direct

translation. The first is the use of the word “she” for “girlfriend”. In Japanese

the word kanojo can be used to mean either word, and maybe shows more that

the student’s overreliance on their electronic dictionary than of their lack of

CF. It is the second mistake which is of interest to this paper.

The second mistake, using “is there” instead of “do you have” is the

common mistake which can be linked to a lack of CF. Radden and Seto (2003)

state that English is a HAVE-language using a “possession schema”, whereas

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Japanese is a BE-language, using a “location schema”. They find this

difference between the two languages is clear in shopping transactions, where

in English we might ask “Do you have a Big Mac”, someone Japanese would

ask “Big Mac hitotsu arimasu ka?” (Lit. “Is there a Big Mac?”) (Radden &

Seto, 2003, 226). I would argue that it is this difference of schema used by the

two languages which leads to the prevalence of this kind of mistake by

Japanese learners of English.

Although Japanese can also express possession using the verb “motsu”,

(Lit. “to hold”), the existential form “there is” (“imasu” for people and

animals, “arimasu” for plants and objects) is more common and natural:

“motsu” can be used for holding or actual possession, not idiomatically as

“have” is in English (Bleiler, 1963). Radden & Seto (2003) state that using

“motsu” in a shopping transaction would be understood as asking if the staff

personally owned the item in question, not if it was available for sale.

This partial translatability of “have” (i.e. “motsu” makes sense in some

situations but not others) makes some English expressions more difficult than

others to interpret for Japanese learners. In the expression “I have a car”, for

example, it is clear that you are not physically holding a car, and therefore

possession is easily inferred. However, in “I have a girlfriend” it is in no way

illogical to infer this means “embracing”, especially when Japanese contains

no articles so the word “a” might be ignored (Bleiler, 1963). The use of

possession to express relationships then, is where the unavoidable need for CF

comes in.

I would argue that the key to teaching students to avoid this mistake is

to help them to learn to conceptualise the relationship itself as a possession.

When I talk about having a girlfriend (or a sibling, parent, child etc.) I am not

saying that I own her. Likewise she doesn’t own me. What both of us possess

is the relationship, a figurative connection between the two of us. I stumbled

upon one potential method to teach this concept while researching this paper.

Azuma (2009) includes the phrase “unmei no akai ito” (Lit. red thread of fate)

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in her “partial similarity” group. This phrase refers to a Chinese legend in

which a couple destined to be together are tied together by an incorporeal red

thread, originally by their ankles but in modern Japanese pop culture by their

little fingers (Wikipedia, 2017). Searching online for this legend led me the

picture shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. An image expanding on the concept of the red thread of fate. http://uranai.style/2227

This image expands on the red thread idea, adding a black thread to central

figure’s ex, a green thread to their childhood friend and a yellow thread to

their colleague. This image could be used in conjunction with Cho and

Kawase’s (2012) method of having students draw pictures to encourage deeper

thinking about the meaning of the phrases being learnt. In this case the

students could be asked to draw their own diagram showing their relationships

with different people in their lives. Students could expand on the four colours

used here, and explaining their reasons for choosing the colours they did

would further encourage deep thinking. Again this fits with the ideas of

Concept-Based Instruction, using a visual representation of the underlying

metaphor (Lantolf, 2013).

Before moving on to the second example, I must add that I am in no

way suggesting that Japanese learners cannot learn idiomatic uses of “have”,

such as to express relationships. It is probable that most learners who make

this mistake are already aware of the correct expression in English, but that

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their L1 thinking causes these mistakes when they are under the time

constraints of real conversation. I believe being made more aware of the

conceptual underpinnings of the English usage can help learners to more fully

internalise this usage and thus make fewer mistakes with it in conversation. In

other words, a teaching methodology which explicitly includes training in CF

can help students to acquire, rather than learn, this usage.

3.2 Do you play sex?

This is a question I was asked by a high school boy who obviously thought he

was being clever. My (also thinking I was clever) response was “It’s not a

game.” As shown below, my response was a better explanation of the

underlying conceptual mistake than I realised at the time. As with the first

example there are two mistakes in this question. The first mistake is the one

which is representative of Japanese learners. The student used the word

“play”, thinking it meant “suru” (Lit. “do”). The second mistake is that in

English we do not “do” sex but “have” it, linking back to the idiomatic uses of

“have” not present in Japanese mentioned in the previous section (Bleiler,

1963).

The play/do confusion, which I found surprisingly common among

Japanese students, would seem to stem from the collocation of “play” with

certain sports in English. In Japanese these sports collocate with the verb “do”,

“suru” (Shimada, 2016). It seems that students mistakenly generalise from

patterns such as “play soccer” and “play baseball” to turn any noun into a

verb, such as “play swimming” and “play sleeping”. In my time teaching at

Japanese junior high schools I noticed the first lesson of the first year textbook

included the phrase “I play football”, which was translated as “amefutto suru”

(Lit, “do American football”). Having already heard the overuse of “play” by

my high school students I tried to explain the difference, but was told by my

Japanese co-teacher that I would confuse the students. I would argue that

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exactly the opposite is true, the lack of explanation is what causes the

confusion which leads to mistakes such as “Do you play sex?”

The conceptual basis for this mistake is the conceptualisation of certain

sports, mostly those using a ball, as games. The only sports which we use in

conjunction with “play” that do not use a ball share strong similarities with

ball games, such as badminton (similar to tennis) and ice hockey (similar to

field hockey). Teaching students this rule may be enough for them to learn the

difference between “play” and “do”, but in my experience they do not acquire

it. Perhaps because the verb “suru” is so fundamental in Japanese, once they

have acquired one translation it becomes difficult for them to retrain their

brains. Therefore I believe the best way to circumvent this particular mistake

is by teachers explicitly explaining the difference the first time the students

encounter the form “play SPORT” in English (see Azuma & Littlemore,

2010).

My own anecdotal experience of learning Japanese supports this

hypothesis. Japanese contains multiple words that can be translated as “wear”

in English, depending on the item being worn (Shimada, 2016). In a lesson

covering these terms, my Japanese teacher told me “In Japanese we don’t wear

glasses, we hang them on our faces.” This simple explanation was enough for

me to remember that in Japanese glasses take the verb “kakeru”, the same as

to “hang a picture”, for example.

Given the prevalence of this mistake, Azuma and Littlemore’s (2010)

evidence supporting explicit teaching, and my own experience of studying

Japanese, it seems clear that the same method my Japanese teacher used,

directly translating the phrase to make the conceptual difference explicit,

would be beneficial to Japanese learners of English.

Both the English examples (“play SPORT” and “have

RELATIONSHIP”) and the glasses example in Japanese provide support for

Concept-Based Instruction (Lantolf, 2013). Thinking in terms of one-to-one

equivalents (i.e. have = motsu, play = suru, wear = kiru) is a rule-of-thumb,

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not scientific knowledge. In other words, while it may be true in general that

“have” means motsu, or that “wear” means kiru, these rules-of-thumb do not

apply in all circumstances. They are oversimplifications of the more complex

reality which is revealed by careful research into actual use of the two

languages. In the example of “play”, the rule-of-thumb is not even correct in a

general sense; suru is more often equivalent to “do” in English than it is to

“play”.

4.0 Future research

This section looks at the potential for future research into CF in Japanese

learners of English, first in general and then specifically related to the

examples discussed in this paper. Finally it looks into the potential benefits of

Sociocultural Theory to CF research.

4.1 General avenues for future research

As stated in Section 1.0, research on CF in Japanese learners of English is

limited. In fact, none of the studies cited in Section 2 refer specifically to CF

or Metaphorical Competence, instead referring to “learning through cognitive

metaphors” (Yasuda, 2010), “interpretation of figurative expressions”

(Azuma, 2009), “promoting figurative creativity” (Azuma & Littlemore,

2010), a “cognitive linguistics approach” (Cho & Kawase, 2012) “core

meaning based instruction” (Mitsugi, 2013) and “core schema based

instruction” (Sato, 2015). Further searches for these terms only produced a

few results: Akamatsu (2010), Cho and Kawase (2011), Fujii (2016a, 2016b),

and Mitsugi (2017). This limited number of studies suggests that in general

more research is needed on CF in the Japanese EFL context.

Amongst these studies, one commonality is a fairly small sample size,

only Cho and Kawase (2012) and Yasuda (2010) having more than 100

participants in total, while Azuma and Littlemore (2010) have only 30, divided

between the two groups. Therefore, one suggestion for future research is

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simply to increase sample size, giving more confidence to any statistically

significant results found.

A second suggestion is hinted at in Sato (2015). Several studies

discussed (Azuma & Littlemore, 2010; Cho & Kawase, 2012) use a pre and

post-test to assess the effectiveness of different instruction methods. Sato

(2015) uses one pre-test and two post-tests, the first one week after the training

session, announced at the end of the training, the second another week later,

without prior announcement. Sato (2015) found that the experimental group,

using “schema based instruction” performed better on the second post-test

than the control group. However, this difference was not found to be

significant, possibly due to the small sample size used in the study (18

students in each group). Despite these inconclusive results, this provides an

interesting hypothesis that can be tested: students taught using CF have better

retention over longer time periods than students taught using traditional

methods. This could be tested with larger a larger sample size and with a

longer gap between the teaching and the post test, maybe a month, three or

even six.

4.2 Future research on “Is there a she?” and “Do you play sex?”

Of the two mistakes discussed in this paper, I believe that the first provides a

much better opportunity for future research. As discussed in Section 3.2, my

suggested corrective intervention for the second is simply to use direct

translation to make the conceptual difference between the two languages clear

from the outset. However, as play and do are such basic words, it is difficult to

be sure even with absolute beginner students that they are not already aware of

these words in English.

The mistake of BE for have is more teachable, as the method discussed

in Section 3.1 does not rely solely on the students being exposed to the

vocabulary for the first time. To recap, the CF based method I suggested for

correcting this mistake would involve explaining to students that have is used

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to describe the possession of a relationship, then showing the picture in Figure

2, and asking the students to produce their own pictures representing their

relationships with various people in their lives. Asking students to describe

why they had chosen certain colours for certain people would encourage deep

thinking about the conceptual basis of this usage, which Cho and Kawase’s

(2012) results suggest help students retain figurative expressions. These

students could then be tested alongside a control group taught have for

relationships in a more traditional manner.

4.3 Future research on Conceptual Fluency and Sociocultural Theory

Researchers such as Masuda and Arnett (2015) have pointed out the overlap

between Cognitive Linguistics and Sociocultural Theory, and suggest that

combining these two fields would benefit ELF pedagogy. Lantolf (2013) is

more specific in highlighting the link between CF and Concept-Based

Instruction.

Lantolf (2013) claims that only one study had been published on

Concept-Based Instruction and figurative language (Yanez-Prieto, 2008). If

any further research has been done in the intervening five years, I have not

been able to find it. This suggests that there is a need for research on Concept-

Based Instruction and CF. Specifically, the research discussed in this paper

suggests potential benefits to using scientific knowledge (as defined within

Concept-Based Instruction) to inform the development of visual schema-based

materials to teach figurative uses of polysemic words.

5.0 Conclusion

This paper has so far discussed the development of CF from CMT (Sections

2.1 and 2.2), and describes four studies into CF in the Japanese EFL context

(Section 2.3). It then discussed two mistakes of CF from my own experience

of teaching English in Japan (Section 3) prior to suggesting areas for potential

future research (Section 4).

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Despite limited research in the Japanese EFL context, there is some

evidence that using CF based teaching methodology can be effective for

Japanese learners of English (Azuma & Littlemore, 2010; Cho & Kawase,

2012; Yasuda, 2010). Furthermore, research by Danesi (1993; 2016) and

Russo (1997) suggests that students in other contexts do not naturally acquire

CF. In fact, as Japanese and English are less closely related that English and

Italian it is likely that Japanese learners of English are even less likely to

acquire CF than Russo’s English learners of Italian.

CF is a potentially powerful tool for teachers of English in Japan.

However, before any more definitive claims on its effectiveness and efficacy

are made, more research is needed to confirm how it can be employed in the

classroom, and how effective such interventions are likely to be in the

educational practice of EFL.

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