Studying metaphoric competence of students of economics in teaching English for specific purposes

This paper deals with metaphoric competence, defined as the ability to understand and use metaphor in discourse, in language teaching, in general, and teaching language for specific purposes, in particular. Authors focus on the notions of communicative competence, professional communication competence and metaphoric competence. The paper presents the results of the comparative study of metaphoric competence of students majoring in Economics and studying English for interpersonal communication and professional communication purposes. Authors analyze metaphor density, metaphor functions, metaphor errors in different types of communication (professional and non-professional). The results obtained reveal the dynamics of metaphoric competence of Russian students specializing in Economics when learning English for specific purposes. It is noted that learning English as a foreign language for professional communication leads to an increase in the proportion of metaphor to the overall number of words in metaphor production (written communication), an increased amount of metaphor that performs the discourse management (organizing) function, a decrease in the overall number of errors, an increase in the amount of interlanguage errors in both professional and discourse organizing metaphors. It is assumed that interlanguage errors may indicate active acquisition of professional language (including the academic language) for communication in the professional (economic) settings.