La competencia metafórica y la didáctica del español/L2

This study aims to examine the role of metaphor in the process of teaching and learning a second language (L2), more specifically, L2 Spanish. As part of one of the most popular research lines in the field of Ap-plied Linguistics, i.e., L2 teaching and learning, this research is based on a Cognitive Linguistics approach to language. It presents metaphors not as mere stylistic and rhetorical mechanisms, but as critical com-ponents of everyday language and fundamental mechanisms of conceptualization of the world (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). After providing a summary of the literature exploring the relationship between metaphor and L2 pedagogy and learning, focusing on conceptual metaphor theory and metaphorical competence, we will present the results of a case study with intermediate learners. The empirical investigation exam-ines whether their metaphoric competence is enhanced after the intervention and whether there is a rela-tionship between learners’ general metaphorical competence and linguistic competence –comprehension and production– of a complex metaphorical linguistic construction that expresses emotions.