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Rubin (1975) and Naiman, Frohlich, Stern and Todesco (1978) were the first researchers who attempted to study individual differences in language learning to identify the traits of successful language learners. The aim of these researchers was to make other students to follow the route of successful language learners. Their assumption was that there was a single right way to learn a language.
It soon became evident that language learning is too complex and that different learners with different backgrounds are all likely to be successful to differing degrees. According to Skehan (1989), researchers have not been so much interested in characterizing the “ideal” language learner since then, but in exploring individual differences in the complex process of language learning. They began to study a vast repertoire of factors which have increasingly emerged in researchers’ studies ever since. The aim of this study is to contribute further to this new array of research into individual differences (namely individuals’ cognitive styles) in foreign language learning.
The notion of metaphoric competence was first introduced by Low (1988). He investigated pedagogical approaches in introducing conventional metaphors in language teaching contexts. His emphasis was on the “…discoursal and pragmatic aspects of metaphor rather than literary uses…” Having identified the significant role of conceptual metaphors in language use and language learning, he concluded that “…how things in life are related in systematic ways we can at least partially comprehend through the complex structure of conceptual metaphor…”
According to the Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) seminal work on conceptual metaphor, our basic conceptual system “is fundamentally metaphoric in nature”. In this theory there are two levels of metaphor: conceptual and linguistic. The conceptual metaphors “are super-ordinate, epistemic and semantic mappings that take the form of TARGET DOMAIN IS/AS SOURCE DOMAIN. Linguistic metaphors are motivated by conceptual metaphors and are the realizations that appear in everyday written and spoken forms.” Bailey (2003, p. 60) For example, the metaphor “LIFE (target) IS A JOURNEY (source)” is a conceptual metaphor from which many linguistic metaphors can be derived such as “we're on the right /wrong track” (note: conceptual metaphors are written in capital letters to make them distinct from linguistic metaphors).
Although a lot of research has been carried out into the processing of conceptual metaphors (see Gibbs, 1994), there is a lack of research study investigating them in relation to specific traits, skills or different cognitive styles.
Das (1988) defined cognitive styles as “an individual's characteristic and consistent approach to organizing and processing information”. People are consistent in their cognitive styles across time or different kinds of tasks (Guilford, 1967; Pask, 1988). Among different cognitive style dimensions which have been always treated as continua (Moran, 1991), Riding and Cheema (1991) have indicated that there are just two major, superordinate cognitive style continua: the “analytic / holistic” continuum and the “verbalizer / imager” continuum.
The analytic / holistic dimension refers to information processing either as separate components, or as large integrated units. The holistic individuals prefer to study the whole picture, phenomenon or context, while the analytic individuals study separate parts of phenomenon (see, e.g., Oxford & Anderson, 1995, p. 204).
The verbalizer / imager dimension refers to an individual’s preference for thinking either in words or in pictures (Riding & Douglas, 1993). Ernest in 1977 showed that the verbalizer / imager dimension can have a significant role in individuals’ different cognitive functions.