Cultural Metaphors

An argument can be any text, whether written, spoken, or visual, that expresses a point of view.

Writers and speakers have as many purposes for arguing. They might use language in order to win, to inform, to convince, to explore, to make decisions, to meditate, or to pray.

The ways of arguing are influenced by cultural contexts and they differ widely across cultures. We have to try to understand the mindsets of other cultures.

Therefore, it is important to understand cultural metaphors. The metaphor is a guide that will help us understand what members of a society consider to be important.

It is important to sensitize students to cultural differences and similarities in order to teach students that some metaphors might include some inaccurate stereotyping.

As Kessler said more than a decade ago, " ... it is only by engaging with difference, not simply intellectually within our own minds but in the pluralistic public or political world where difference has its origins and is upheld, that we can really understand ourselves."

Our students must be prepared for the complex challenge of engaging with different cultures.

Teachers must use stories from diferent cultures in order to teach students about the lives and experiences of other people. Therefore, the study of cultural metaphors is an important way of conveying ideas and getting students to see things differently and vividly. Cultural metaphors work by suggesting that two things that you would not usually think of at the same time do actually have something in common.