Using Metaphorical Imagery to Develop Imaginative Thought and Speech

The article deals with metaphoric associative cards as a tool for the development of creative speech abilities and, first of all, speech imagery as their key component. Speech imagery is understood as the ability to formulate the idea of speech and embody it using expressive means of language, competence to draw on and correctly employ images in speaking. The authors interpret the ability to speech imagery as a mechanism for forming the idea of a future utterance. They demonstrate the interaction of different speech abilities in the process of speech production. The purpose of the article is to provide a methodological justification for the use of metaphorical associative cards in classes of Russian as a foreign language and to suggest forms of work with this tool. Based on an understanding of the creative nature of speech abilities, the authors propose to use metaphoric associative maps as visual metaphors for the speech development of foreign students. The article describes the course of experimental training of foreign students based on the use of metaphorical associative cadrs.