Ordinary Students of Languages needn’t read Lakoff’s nor Johnson’s works to come to the following conclusion:

 

"the first and main step towards the command of a foreign language is to understand that our brain builds up thought and concepts by means of analogy, comparision and metaphores" (Ena Martínez G. Gallard, Papers on applied Psycolinguistics).

 

Unfortunately there are many teachers who find it hard to explain this all and prefer, for instance, sharing out those endless boring lists of Phrasal verbs, rather than empowering students to use their brains to create their own ones.  

 

 

 

We speak much, much, even too much. There are people who just hear, people who listen to “what we say”, and many others who focus on the remarkable features of  the speech.

 

What I have recently noticed is that there is an increasing use of a rising intonation at the end of almost every sentence, not only in English, but also in Spanish.  

 

The rising  tune at the end of every affirmative sentence  produces continuous question-like utterances, even when there is no interrogative sense involved.

  

Purists may find this intonation contour irritating, but the “trend” contributes to confirming the evidence that all the interesting stuff stored in our brain is couched in metaphorical terms.

 

Ordinary Students of Languages needn’t read Lakoff’s nor Johnson’s works to come to the conclusion that the first and main step towards the command of a foreign language is to understand that our brain builds up thought and concepts by means of analogy, comparision and metaphores.

 

Unfortunately there are many teachers who find it hard to explain this all and prefer, for instance, sharing out those endless boring  lists of Phrasal verbs, rather than empowering students to use their brains to create their own ones.  

 

Metaphores do not just lie on the words and sentences, but also on some of the features of utterances: sentence length, the sounds of the words, and the 'intonation contour'.

 

If any of you have been to London lately, you may have noticed two “trendy” remarkable speech features:

 

- The lengthening of certain vowel sounds (i.e. the final sounds in happy, day...)

 

- The increasing use of a peculiar rising intonation speech pattern, even in those utterances where no interrogative sense is involved.

 

Is this just a “trend”? Why this pattern?

 

Is it just a mere fashionable speech pattern, in which we don´t even notice that we´re ending the sentences with an implied question ? (read aloud with rising intonation).

 

Is it somehow related metaphorically to the sense of hight and authority? 

  

It seems to me as if every utterance had an implied “do you agree?” “sabes?”, “isn´t true? “no es cierto?, which implies a wish to seek for the listener’s approval. We know that the person we are addressing to has authority, in terms of knowledge (submission to Knowledge and authority). It may therefore have to do with deference and dominance.