Cross-cultural metaphor awareness as a key component in intercultural communication competence

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to take the first step in raising foreign language learners’ cultural awareness through comparing ECONOMY conceptual metaphors in Persian and English economic articles. It is hoped that in this way we can pave the way for the development in language learners’ intercultural awareness. In this paper, the authors explored English and Persian economic articles for the source domains of ECONOMY AS A LIVING ORGANISM. The results revealed that linguistic realizations of ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM metaphor are largely shared by English and Persian, the difference being mainly in terms of frequency. This paper has also made an effort to demonstrate that focusing on conceptual metaphors may have a useful function in raising learners' linguistic and intercultural awareness.