Learning science: understanding the world through metaphors

Elisabetta Gola

2020-01-01

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Abstract

In this work we present a review of the main ideas about the relationship between metaphor theories and scientific language. We go back to the origin of metaphor theory in its relation to scientific knowledge and how this relation evolved afterwards. Furthermore, we discuss some cases of cognitive and communicative process in teaching and learning to demonstrate the relevance of metaphor mappings and metaphor in discourse in understanding scientific concepts. Finally, we demonstrate the power of metaphors in communication and self-management of chronic disease in the health domain. In this survey we show that metaphors of different types play different and important roles in the scientific language and metaphor usage in scientific descriptions is inescapable.