Different Functions of (Deliberate) Metaphor in Teaching Scientific Concepts

‘Deliberate metaphors’ (Steen 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013) are a potentially valuable tool for knowledge mediation in academic lectures, since they supposedly force the addressee to consider the current topic from the point of view of the metaphor’s source domain, thereby effecting a conceptual change (cf. Steen 2010: 58-60). Despite its potential in knowledge mediation, the theoretical framework of deliberate metaphor is still contested among different scholars (see Deignan 2011; Gibbs 2011, 2015a, 2015b; Steen 2011, 2015). This contribution explores candidates for deliberate metaphors in academic lectures by closely examining the metaphors’ co-text and context, establishing different linguistic forms of deliberate metaphors. The main focus, however, is on examining the particular discourse functions of the various forms of deliberate metaphor in four different academic lectures (in biology, chemistry and psychology). The analysis reveals if and how deliberate metaphors are exploited in order to communicate scientific knowledge in these four lectures.