Applying Conceptual Blending to Model Coordinated Use of Multiple Ontological Metaphors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how experts and novices can use conceptual blending to integrate two ontological metaphors of energy, enhancing understanding through analysis of classroom and interview data.

Contribution

It applies Fauconnier and Turner's conceptual blending framework to model how energy metaphors are combined in reasoning, providing empirical evidence from classroom interactions.

Findings

Evidence of successful blending of energy ontologies in speech and gestures

Analysis shows coherent mental models formed through blending

Supports the use of conceptual blending in science education

Abstract

Energy is an abstract science concept, so the ways that we think and talk about energy rely heavily on ontological metaphors: metaphors for what kind of thing energy is. Two commonly used ontological metaphors for energy are energy as a substance and energy as a vertical location. Our previous work has demonstrated that students and experts can productively use both the substance and location ontologies for energy. In this paper, we use Fauconnier and Turner's conceptual blending framework to demonstrate that experts and novices can successfully blend the substance and location ontologies into a coherent mental model in order to reason about energy. Our data come from classroom recordings of a physics professor teaching a physics course for the life sciences, and from an interview with an undergraduate student in that course. We analyze these data using predicate analysis and gesture analysis, looking at verbal utterances, gestures, and the interaction between them. This analysis yields evidence that the speakers are blending the substance and location ontologies into a single blended mental space.