Ships in the night: A study of conceptual metaphor use for teaching first-year writing

This dissertation presents a study of conceptual metaphor use in the first-year-writing classroom and argues that FYW teachers should carefully employ conceptual metaphors and frames consistent with their value systems. It argues that FYW students and teachers often do not communicate effectively because they use different conceptual metaphors and frames to think about and communicate their thoughts about writing and learning to write. The study collects and categorizes conceptual metaphors used by FYW students and teachers to think and write about the acts of learning to write, communicating through writing, and composing written texts. This study shows that FYW students and teachers use many of the same conceptual metaphors but with different frequency and as part of different linguistic frames. Finally, the dissertation argues that teachers of writing should employ a written-communication-as-conversation frame less frequently, opting instead for a written-communication-as-journey frame.