Figurative meanings of lexemes in classroom teaching of lexis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse figurative meanings of lexemes from a cognitive linguistic perspective. The analysis was conducted to compare figurative meanings of the lexeme “face” in English with their Croatian equivalents in order to support the claim that the meanings are motivated by conceptual metaphor, general conventional knowledge and metonymy across languages. The total of examples provides a basis for some generalizations to be made regarding similarities and differences between the realizations of abstract concepts which can be used in teaching lexis in English as a foreign language. This research has shown that this kind of approach is one of the most effective in teaching foreign languages.