Universal vs. Culture-Specific Conceptual Metaphors in Improving Adult Learners’ Metaphorical Competence and Retention

Metaphor, as a matter of thought and a way of cognition, is pervasive in our everyday life and language. Efforts have been made to provide the way for language learners to effectively acquire and employ conceptual metaphors. This study aimed at exploring the effects of using universal and culture-specific conceptual metaphors in teaching metaphorical expressions to Iranian adult learners of English. For this purpose, from the population of young learners’ attending evening classes at one of Isfahan’s language institutes, 24 participants, aged 18-35, were selected and assigned into control and experimental groups. Treatment contained 50 metaphorical expressions presented to the participants during 10 sessions of instruction in order to enhance their metaphoric competence in English. Comparing the data obtained, the results showed that this implementation enhanced the participants’ metaphorical awareness and success in understanding the metaphorical expressions, and that they were more likely to benefit from universal rather than culture-specific conceptual metaphors. This study provides both L2 teachers and learners to have their own fair share from the implications of this study and the outcomes will shed more light for better teaching of metaphors to L2 learners.