Professional Documents
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Many studies of metaphor have established its heuristic and pedagogic value (Low,
1988; Martinez-Duenas, 1988; Bowers, 1992; Green, 1993; Petrie and Oshlag,
1993; Swan, 1993; Mayer, 1993; Sticht, 1993; Ponterotto, 1994; Lazar, 1996;
Deignan, Gabrys, and Solska, 1997; Cortazzi and Jin, 1999, etc.). However, metapphors of learning have comparatively gotten a short shrift (Thornbury, 1991; Bere* The author is grateful to Professor Erich Berendt for corrections and improvements he
suggested for a first draft of this paper. However, responsibility for the contents is incumbent
on the author alone.
endt and Souma, 19978; Hiraga, 19978). The present contribution offers a datadriven case study to investigate the different facets of the learning equation in the
Tunisian educational system through an official document known as the Program
of Programs (2002). In particular, it seeks to capture the conceptual metaphors
(Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999) governing the linguistic metaphors that concepttualize the learner-knowledge and learner-teacher relations, and to study their enttailments. Challenging the traditional views on education and offering a new concception of it in line with emergent globalization, the document offers an interesting
online, conscious, and deliberate re-categorization (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999) of
the components of the learning situation, re-shuffling the different categories of
the learning situation, re-defining the ensuing social implications for traditional
sources of knowledge and social expectations, re-organizing the student-teacher
interactions, and re-shaping the cultural models (Cienki, 1999; Kvecses, 1999)
associated with education. The chapter closes with a critical metaphor analysis of
the new domains used to conceptualize the new learning situation and their sociocultural implications.
In studies of metaphor, one important concern is the place metaphor occupies
in learning and teaching situations (Low, 1988; Martinez-Duenas, 1988; Bowers,
1992; Green, 1993; Petrie and Oshlag, 1993; Swan, 1993; Mayer, 1993; Sticht, 1993;
Lazar, 1996; Ponterotto, 1994; Deignan, Gabrys, and Solska, 1997, Cortazzi and
Jin, 1999, etc.). These have been called by Petrie and Oshlag (1993: 582) educattional metaphors if they are used by teachers and students to enhance learning. A
trend within education studies is the metaphoric models educators work by
(Thornbury, 1991; Hiraga, 19978; Cortazzi and Jin, 1999). For instance, Cortazzi
and Jin (1999: 159160) inferred from UK teachers narratives the following concceptual metaphors of learning: LEARNING IS A CLICK, LEARNING IS LIGHT,
LEARNING IS MOVEMENT, LEARNING IS A JIGSAW, etc. The present contribbution, however, is on the metaphors which the educational systems revolve
around. Such metaphors are, for instance, described and analyzed by Hiraga
(19978) for Japanese learning.
The paper is a data-driven case study, investigating the different facets of the
learning equation in the Tunisian educational system. In particular, the study seeks
to capture the conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999) governing
the linguistic metaphors that conceptualize learner-knowledge and learner-teacheer relations. The model that emerges from the data is basically an economic one
inspired and dictated by global corporations. The document is accessible in Arabiic and French versions online at www.edunet.tn, and consists of an official documment that has become known as the Program of Programs, which delineates the
guidelines that monitor the newly implemented (2002) reform of the Tunisian
educational system. Challenging the traditional views on education and offering a
constant shifting of metaphors diachronically in the conceptualization of experieence. This is captured in cognitive linguistics as construal (Langacker, 2002).
Metaphors of learning in the educational reform in Tunisia
The argument to be defended in this paper is the fact that the metaphors of learniing in Tunisia are undergoing a massive substitution, whereby new metaphors are
replacing existing ones. Such a substitution is initiated by global institutions such
as the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which are
at least partially funding the reforms and want them to accord with their own percceptions. But before showing this, there is need to address the cultural background
that might act in favor or against the dictates of the WB and the IMF.
Cultural background
The educational system of Tunisia cannot be understood outside the Arab-Islamic
culture and its influence on the mind of native Tunisians. This influence is celebbrated by the sacredness of knowledge both in The Koran (
: qul hal yastawi l-laina ya3lamuna wal-laina la ya3lamuna: Say:
Are those equal, those who know and those who do not know?) and in the
Prophets teachings ( : ?uTlubu l-3ilma mina lmahdi?ilalaHdi: Pursue knowledge from the cradle to the coffin). Accordingly, in folk cultture the teacher is almost equated to a prophet ( : kaad lmu3allimu?an yakuna rasulan: the teacher could have been a prophet). This
veneration of knowledge is translated on the ground by parents investing time
and money in and devoting themselves to their childrens education, thus sacrificiing their leisure for the sake of their childrens concentration on education.
Since the advent of the Islamic era, Arabs have been venerating books in
general.Back in the reign of ( the Abbacids), caliph ( Harun arrashid) and his son and successor ( Al-ma?mun) created ( bayut lHikmati: literally, The House of Wisdom), a huge library in Baghdad counting
thousands of books and rare manuscripts that were made available to researchers.
The other function of this institution consisted in translating the books that were
thought to be seminal for Muslims and for humanity at large. One of the ancient
leading writers in Arabic literary and philosophical tradition, ( Al-jaaHiD),
wrote the following about books: A book is a container filled with knowledge, an
1. Sura xxxix, 8-10, in The Holy Koran (1938), translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (Damscus:
Dar Al-Mushaf), p. 1239.
envelope stuffed with wit, and a receptacle imbued with humor and seriousness.
If the Islamic dimension is added to the Arab one, the picture becomes more
complex, with the veneration of Holy Books such as the Torah or Old Testament,
which is called ( al-kitaab: literally, The Book), the Bible, and The Koran,
which is called ( kitaabu l-laah: literally, The Book of God). In particular,
the Koran is considered as the source of knowledge and a teaching tool about life.
Quite significantly, the first verse to have been inspired by angel Gabriel to the
Prophet in the Islamic faith is about the concept of reading, where Prophet Muhhammed was ordained to read (:?iqra?, i.e. read in the imperative), thus initiatiing for Muslims the preciousness of reading and books.
The Program of Programs (p. 2) under study opens by spelling out the mission
of education, which is taken from the Orientation Law for Instruction and School
Education (number 802002):
Chapter 1
Instruction is an absolute national priority, and education is compulsory from the
ages of six to sixteen. It is an essential right guaranteed for all Tunisians without
discrimination on accounts of sex, social origin, color, or religion. It is also a duty
incumbent on individuals and society.
Chapter 2
The learner is the center of the educational process (OL, Section 1, Heading 1)
Instruction as a priority has been the motto since independence in 1956, and
compulsory education has been made possible through free education to all. The
official discourse about the educational policy in Tunisia has constantly been exhhorting educationalists to keep up with progress in science and technology made
in the West. Budget-wise, making free education possible has required large sums
of money to be spent on the three cycles of education, although the system is findiing it more and more difficult to keep up with the rate of technological advances
made in this digital age. However, what is new in the foregoing quote is the central
place that the learner comes to occupy in the educational equation.
The following quote can serve as an epitome of the roles of education, learner,
and teacher in the learning situation in Tunisia:
2. Translation mine.
3. All quotes from the Program of Programs are my own translation. The linguistic metapphors, in particular, have been translated more or less literally in order to keep intact the dommains governing them in the Arabic text. In the English glosses, they are underlined.
education does not consist in transferring knowledge and accumulating it, but
should be conceived of as openness on pedagogies that build the acquisition of
knowledge on whatever efforts the learner can spend. The teacher, however,
should play in all this the role of adviser, guide, supporter, eye-opener, organizer,
stimulator, follower, helper, and companion (pp. 1213).
This has displaced the educator from being the SOURCE in the SOURCE-PATHDESTINATION schema to a guide occupying a secondary place on the PATH of
knowledge, thus inverting roles between educator and learner, with the learner
becoming the SOURCE of knowledge on the PATH.
KNOWLEDGE / LEARNING AS BUILDING
In accordance with knowledge as a building endeavor incumbent on the learner,
one of the most important knowledge metaphors in the Program of Programs is
THE LEARNER IS A BUILDER as is clear in the following extract:
The competencies approach draws upon various sources, important among them
is constructivism, whose proponents are Vygotsky, Piaget, and others works. The
merit of this approach is that it is concerned particularly with the nature of knowlledge and the role of the learner in building it. It also focuses on intellectual, affecttive, and social paths that accompany the acquisition of knowledge and whatever
treatment and constant retrieval this knowledge requires, and what constant
structuring it invites for previously acquired knowledge (p. 8).
The use of building and structuring knowledge in the -ing form conceives of
the learner as an active participant in the learning process. By extension from THE
LEARNER IS A BUILDER, the conceptual metaphor of knowledge / learning is
KNOWLEDGE / LEARNING IS A BUILDING / CONSTRUCTION. Kvecses
(2002: 17) considers buildings and constructions among the most important and
productive cognitive domains that are used to structure abstract domains. He justiffies this experientially: human beings build houses and other structures for sheltter, work, storage, and so on. For that matter, both the static object of a house and
its parts and the act of building it serve as common metaphorical source dommains.
Dealing with the conceptual metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, which
is similar to KNOWLEDGE IS A BUILDING / CONSTRUCTION here, Lakoff
and Johnson (1980: 52) noticed that the partial nature of the mapping gives rise to
used and unused parts of the source domain (SD) of building. The used parts
here are realized by the literal linguistic expressions of building and structuriing. According to Grady et al (1996) and Grady (1997), the explanation has to do
not with the fact that there are used and unused parts to the SD, but with the
fact that THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS is not the right conceptual metaphor for
the linguistic metaphors that it is said to govern. Grady et al.(1996) and Grady
(1997) pinpoint a couple of cognitive anomalies with this explanation: (i) the
poverty of the mapping, whereby most of the salient elements of our knowledge
about buildings are not found to be part of the mapping between theories and
buildings (e.g., windows, doors, walls, floors, occupants, etc.), and (ii) the lack of
experiential basis for associating buildings with theories. Grady et al.(1996: 178)
rightly insist that the poverty of the mapping in the case of THEORIES ARE
BUILDINGS is not amenable to what is known as target-domain override, since
there is no logical contradiction in claiming that theories have windows. Grady
(1997) concludes that THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS is in fact an instance of a
more general/complex mapping between abstract structures and buildings. The
primary metaphors are PERSISTING IS REMAINING ERECT and LOGICAL
STRUCTURE IS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE, which combine to create the comppound metaphor (VIABLE) LOGICAL STRUCTURES ARE ERECT PHYSICAL
STRUCTURES or THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS.
Without in the least doubting the viability of Gradys distinction between primmary and compound metaphors, the problem with this explanation is that we need
psychological evidence that people think of these particular primary metaphors
when they come across metaphors like the role of the learner in building it
[knowledge]. Building knowledge seems to vaguely, if at all, recall PERSISTING IS
REMAINING ERECT, but does not seem to evoke LOGICAL STRUCTURE IS
PHYSICAL STRUCTURE. It is, to say the least, trivial to assume that as a builder
of knowledge (granting that this is PERSISTING) a learner needs to remain erect
(granting that this is REMAINING ERECT). Another objection has to do with
Gradys assumption that what is targeted in using buildings as a source domain is
their vertical dimension. Buildings are three-dimensional entities that can also
admit a horizontal dimension, whereby the spatial structure would also be salient.
Since in knowledge / learning neither horizontal nor vertical dimensions arise, it
simply means that these spatial dimensions are not relevant for KNOWLEDGE /
LEARNING AS A BUILDING. As will be shown later on in the paper, no source
domain should be expected to target all the components to be found in a target
domain (TD).
Responsibility for knowledge, as seen in the excerpt on page eight, clearly lies
with the learner. The different ways knowledge building takes place are spelled out
in the following excerpt:
All this will only take place in the learner if the teachers conception of knowledge
is based on construction and constant reconstruction since a phenomenon cannot
be built if it is not one of the elements of experience () If the teacher assumes
this method of building knowledge and modeling the required competencies to
realize it, s/he should concern her- / himself with the learners previous knowlledge, and try to consolidate it or further construct and complicate it, or even demmolish it completely (p. 12)
Building knowledge can be subject to varied strategies such as construction, consstant reconstruction, consolidation, complication, or even complete demolition.
Clearly, these are not all strategies followed in real building. However, the Program
of Programs finds it difficult to make all these strategies incumbent on the learner
as the latter is obviously in the process of learning and does not have the necessary
skills to work on their own knowledge. Hence, the role of the teacher to help /
guide the learner to consolidate it or further construct and complicate it, or even
demolish it completely.
According to Lakoff (1990: 48), mappings involve two types of correspondeences: ontological and epistemic. Ontological correspondences describe the same
entities both in the source and target domains. In short, these correspondences
offer two parallel scenarios including symmetrical entities across domains. In the
situation at hand, the learner is a builder, knowledge is the raw material, the teacheer is a helper, and the various knowledge processes are the construction steps.
Epistemic correspondences, however, take care of mapping knowledge about enttities in the source domain onto entities in the target domain. Such knowledge
mapping enables us to reason about the target domain as if it were the source dommain. Epistemic correspondences for the learning-as-a-building metaphor are
shown in Table 1 below:
Table 1. Epistemic correspondences for KNOWLEDGE / LEARNING IS BUILDING
Source Domain: building
The linguistic metaphors of path, impediments, overcome realize the concepttual metaphor KNOWLEDGE / LEARNING IS A JOURNEY. These linguistic
metaphors realizing the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema of the JOURNEY metapphor relate mainly to the PATH component as describing learning as a process
involving impediments that the learner has to overcome on the path of knowlledge for learning to be achieved. However, the linguistic metaphors of constructtion and restructuring realize the conceptual metaphor KNOWLEDGE /
LEARNING IS A BUILDING. A merger between the two creates the conceptual
metaphor KNOWLEDGE / LEARNING IS A BUILDING JOURNEY, which is
added to the epistemic correspondences of KNOWLEDGE / LEARNING IS A
BUILDING as in Table 2:
Table 2. Epistemic correspondences for KNOWLEDGE / LEARNING IS A BUILDING
JOURNEY
Source Domain: building journey
As transpires from the text above, from both ends of the educational process learniing is not engaged into by the teacher and the learner if there is no profit behind
it or if it is not profitable. It should be noted that the three domains of BUILDIING (build), JOURNEY (overcome an obstacle [on the path of knowledge]),
and ECONOMY (resource, profit, profitable) are co-extensive in this passage,
which testifies to their collaboration in the educational policy.
The most immediate profit aimed at has to do, among other things, with
solving problems or realizing a project:
The learner builds his knowledge by adapting it and adapting himself to it.
Knowledge for him has no meaning if it does not contribute to solving problems
that he comes across, or helping him in realizing a project that he planned. In
this sense, knowledge has no other meaning than building either individually or
within a group () With this knowledge that the learner builds by himself and
exploits in building his school resources, he can imagine, innovate, and excel ()
The life of the learner at school becomes an open project of building new knowleedge on the basis of spontaneous knowledge (p. 14).
The learner knows that exchanging data is a crucial condition for efficient exploitation,
in that it enables him and the others to benefit from scientific results deriving from
this exploitation and helps him build new knowledge and competencies (p. 63).
Knowledge becomes an end product of a certain exploitation of building
resources, thus yielding the conceptual metaphor: KNOWLEDGE IS A VALUAABLE RESOURCE / COMMODITY.
The epistemic correspondences of the conceptual metaphor KNOWLEDGE /
LEARNING IS A(N) EFFICIENT / PROFITABLE BUILDING JOURNEY are
summed up in Table 3:
Table 3. Epistemic correspondences for LEARNING IS A PROFITABLE BUILDING
JOURNEY
Source Domain: building profitable journey
I agree that conscious massive changes in our category systems and full consscious control over how we categorize are to be discarded from consideration beccause that would be chaotic for individuals and communities. However, I tend to
disagree that our categories are only subject to unconscious reshaping and partial
change. The case at hand shows clearly a conscious supplanting of the contents of
the category of learning in Tunisia, not a simple reshaping and partial change.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 157) themselves, invoking private conversation
with Charlotte Linde, talk about new metaphors and how they can be imposed by
politicians, for instance. As some might know, matters of educational policy are
among the things that may be imposed in undemocratic countries by politicians
when such impositions suit their purposes. Thus, if new metaphors can be imp-
The reason for studying the conceptual metaphors constituting the model of
learning in Tunisia has to do with getting to the social changes that the change in
the model would occasion. But, of course, not all changes in language use are metaaphoric. However, since metaphor emerges as one of the most influential (Versschueren, 1999: 178) categorizing devices because it is not just a matter of lang-
guage use but, more importantly, a matter of thought (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980,
1999), it does have a great import for social change as Fairclough rightly points
out for changes in language use and socio-cultural changes. But how does this
change of policy come to have socio-cultural consequences?
The answer to this question can be sought in the relation between conceptual
metaphors and cultural models. Kvecses (1999: 167), for instance, posed the
problem as follows: Do metaphors constitute abstract concepts (as structured by
cultural models) or do they simply reflect them? His answer is that the metapphors constitute the cultural models (Kvecses, 1999: 185). If it is true that culttural models frame experience, supplying interpretations of that experience and
inferences about it, and goals for action (Quinn and Holland, 1987: 6), therefore
any changes in the metaphors that constitute cultural models, as Kvecses put it,
would operate changes to the cultural models themselves, however slight or huge
those changes might be. Further evidence for this link between conceptual metapphor and cultural models comes from Cienki (1999: 199), who showed that concceptual metaphors and cultural models are interrelated, whereby metaphors functtion as profiles and cultural models as bases. In other words, cultural models seem
to exert pressure on the flow of conceptual metaphors.
Since, as demonstrated earlier, as a matter of policy the Program of Programs
aims at consciously re-categorizing the Tunisian cultural learning model, the concceptual metaphors that have been discussed do not function in a vacuum. Indeed,
they are meant to internally manipulate the very cultural model that is inhabited by
the conceptual metaphors constituting the traditional educational system. This situaation occasions an online manipulation/update of existing metaphors and their corrresponding cultural model. In this sense, contrary to what Cienki posits because
of the online re-categorization of the learning cultural model it is not the cultural
model of learning that is filtering the metaphors that our information processing
system may find incompatible with those it has internalized in memory, but it is the
metaphors that are re-molding the cultural model internally by supplanting the exiisting conceptual metaphors constituting the traditional model of learning.
The repercussions of this re-categorization are of two kinds: positive and negaative. The replacement of the transfer model of learning by the building model is
positive in that it assigns a more active role to a self-reliant learner that of a
builder. The positive impact of this re-categorization can be seen in the series of
entailments of the conceptual metaphor LEARNER AS A BUILDER. However,
the economic model of learning newly introduced is more likely to have far-reachiing negative consequences both educationally and socio-culturally. Educationally,
the risk is that in talking about profitable knowledge the Program of Programs
would have disastrous consequences on general knowledge both among the educcators and the young. As a law, the Program of Programs has the force of encoura-
aging more immediate knowledge to the purposes of both educators and learners.
However, by far the greatest risk is the criteria to be used in the selection of profitaable knowledge. It is simply not clear right now on what basis any given type of
knowledge will be judged as profitable or unprofitable. Socio-culturally, since the
conception of education is now based on an economic model, the free education
that Tunisia has been boasting about would likely be threatened.
The redistribution of roles within the learning equation between learners and
teachers, who are not considered a source of knowledge by the Program of Proggrams, will have important consequences on the learner-teacher relations in the
classroom. If the respect the teachers enjoy owes much to their knowledge, deppriving them of this role will be felt in the relationships between both. In particullar, this change is very likely to have serious consequences for discipline and motivvation in secondary education, which will leave little room for learning from an
educator from whom learners have little to learn. Perhaps the brighter side of this
has to do with the pressure that the new international situation (in particular, with
the Internet as increasingly a source of knowledge) has been exerting on both eduucators and learners for a more universal, qualitative kind of knowledge. An educcator that does not connect to the Internet may feel inferior, information-wise, to
the learners and be embarrassed.
Conclusion
The present study has tried to show that an online, conscious re-categorization of
existing metaphoric categories, although limited in scope, time and circumstance,
is possible. The concept of learning in Tunisia has been shown to be undergoing a
massive supplanting process consisting in the replacement of the existing concepttual metaphors in the cultural model of learning by new, politically-imposed
ones. Such supplanting has been shown to occasion negative educational and soccio-cultural consequences, which will very likely have an impact on reshaping socciety and manipulating the indigenous culture both positively and negatively.
Before closing this paper, it is interesting to explain why inconsistent metapphors have been collaborating in the description of the new educational cultural
model. As has been pointed out earlier, different domains are co-extensive in the
texts studied (i.e. the building co-existing with the journey, the building co-existiing with the economic, etc.). It seems that no single conceptual metaphor can
render account of all the aspects of the new re-categorizations and cultural model
of learning in Tunisia. Lakoff and Johnson (1999: 78) argue that typically, absstract concepts are defined by multiple conceptual metaphors, which are often incconsistent with each other. And Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 221) explain this co-