Making sense of metaphors about doctoral students’ competences: Analysis of supervisors’ voices

摘要

With this paper we aim to reflect about the competences doctoral students should have and enhance throughout the research and supervision process. Considering doctoral supervisors’ voices, gathered through focus groups, we will nevertheless focus on the metaphors they used to approach certain competences. Thus, after drawing the pertinence and purpose of this reflection, briefly revisiting some conclusions of international studies on this matter and presenting the methodology, we will discuss the ?power’ of metaphors – a linguistic and cognitive phenomenon - as well as their value in what concerns doctoral students’ competences.