The use of metaphors in the scientific construction discourse of preschool students

Abstract

The line of research on modeling regarding science in preschool is a seldom-explored field of knowledge. This paper aims to analyze the processes of social interaction in the classroom developed by a group of five- and six-year old students during a didactic sequence related to the model of a living being and focused on the circulatory system.

Candela (1999) points out that in order to understand the explanatory discourse, it is necessary to start from the cultural elements of the subjects, become part of the social group, and identify the communicative strategies that allow us to understand the processes of conceptual elaboration, through an analysis of interactions with an ethnographic approach.

The communicative strategy analyzed in this work is the use of metaphors. Lakoff and Johnson (1995) classify two groups of metaphors: structural and empirical. The results show that preschool students included elements of their physical context, that is, empirical metaphors, to explain the process of blood circulation, as well as the characteristics of the organs involved.