“You have to work hard on the word before you understand it”: Language-based approaches to metaphor comprehension in lower secondary education

Based on two explorative studies on metaphor comprehension (methods: thinking aloud; intervention with questionnaires), we discuss the ways students at the end of lower secondary school refer to their linguistic knowledge. In collected meaning explanations of composite metaphors, three levels of reference to grammatical knowledge can be detected: implicit references, explicit, dysfunctional references, and explicit, functional references. The article discusses the extent to which language-related concepts of students can be changed in terms of a conceptual change approach. The findings support the assumption that conceptual change occurs in stages and emphasize the need to teach terminology.