This study focuses on conceptual metaphors (CMs) coupled with spontaneous gestures, as a critical component of everyday language in dual language immersion classrooms. Conceptual Metaphor Theory was introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) through their analyses of daily language, explaining that these metaphors went beyond basic language issues, to actually influencing perspectives, orientations, and experiences in a person's life. In essence, CMs go beyond other metaphors or figurative language as they not only use one representational source domain to understand a new target domain (i.e., a new concept) but they also carry and embed metaphoric meanings both individually and socially, including through the use of gesture (Cienki & Müller, 2008; Gibbs, 2008). CMs have mainly been studied through [meta]cognitive theoretical frameworks (Berendt, 2008; Ritchie, 2006) correlated with their influence on cognitive thinking. However, it is also understood that CMs connect to specific languacultures (Agar, 1990) and are not universal around the world (Efron, 1941; Peltier & McCafferty, 2010).
Specifically, CMs can be challenging for second language learners to comprehend, sometimes the latter phase of a new language to be understood (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; McCafferty, 2008). However, the study of CMs in second language settings have been found to support student learning and provide insights towards innovative metaphor-based pedagogical practices (Boers, 2013; Hoang, 2014), which can include gesture as providing pragmatic functions supporting context and understanding (Mittelberg, 2018). To better understand how conceptual metaphors are used naturally in second language classrooms, this study proposes a qualitative and descriptive methodology using Vygotskian (1997) sociocultural theory to understand meaning-making among teachers and students learning English and Spanish in elementary (K-6) dual language immersion classrooms. An analysis of classroom discourse, conversations, and other interactions may provide answers for how CMs may support or challenge comprehension, including implications for second language pedagogy for young learners.
