Metaphors, Models, and Diagrams in Educational Theories and Practices
In his classic 1962 study, Max Black showed convincingly how scientific theories are constructed through unconscious metaphorical reasoning, thus linking them to the experiences of the scientist, the social and historical contexts in which they emerge, an
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Metaphors, Models, and Diagrams in Educational Theories and Practices Marcel Danesi
Abstract In his classic 1962 study, Max Black showed convincingly how scientific theories are constructed through unconscious metaphorical reasoning, thus linking them to the experiences of the scientist, the social and historical contexts in which they emerge, and the image schemata that are established within specific scientific domains. Some works have looked at this representational phenomenon within education, but only sporadically. This chapter focuses on metaphorical arguments and how they guide the construction of educational theories that lead to models and diagrammatic strategies, which in turn guide the derivative educational practices. It will then examine the possibility that metaphor itself can be incorporated into actual teaching practices, illustrating how this can be done in the teaching of mathematics and second languages. The chapter, by documenting the connection between metaphors, models, diagrams, and learning theories, addresses edusemiotics in its both theoretical and empirical aspects.
Introduction Educational theories and the specific practices that derive from them are invariably founded on specific premises. If these are examined closely, they typically reveal a pattern of metaphorical reasoning that led to their ideation. A classic example is that of learning in general as either a ‘mental training’ process akin to body training or as a ‘mental organization’ process akin to computational or algorithmic systems. The former metaphor is characteristic of behaviorist theories in psychology and the latter of cognitive ones. The conceptual difference between the two manifests itself in several concrete ways: (1) in the discourse inherent in both theories, whereby
M. Danesi (&) University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017 I. Semetsky (ed.), Edusemiotics – A Handbook, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1495-6_5
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learning is described as a process of positive habits that are reinforced or strengthened in behaviorism, while in cognitivism it is described as involving analysis, retrieval, and storage; (2) in the actual learning models that each one implicates, leading to specific kinds of research methodologies; and (3) in the development and elaboration of specific educational and pedagogical practices, such as habit-formation (including repetition, imitation, pattern practice, and so on) or procedural practices (critical analysis, classification into categories, and so on). As part of professional educational culture, theorists then attempt to verify their models with appropriate experiments and studies that are themselves devised rather unconsciously on the basis of the initial metaphorical image. This can be called the Metaphor-as-Theory Hypothesis (MTH). All this does not mean that educational theories are unimportant or that any one theory is as good as any other; rather it means that understanding the unconscious metaphorical
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