Hans-George Gadamer's (1977), Paul Ricoeur's (1975), and Michel Foucault's (1972) views on meaning and metaphor are surveyed as pertinent to the discussion of the notions of denotation and connotation and the didactic aspects of their teaching in Spanish as a native language instruction. The communicative-expressive and aesthetic-expressive functions of language are characterized, postulating that the artificial dichotomy between denotation and connotation be abandoned both in linguistic theory and glottodidactics. It is argued that the two terms are not mutually exclusive, as students can be taught that connotation is referential and denotation can be connotative. The false barrier erected between cognitive and emotive aspects of language use, associated with denotation and connotation, respectively, should be removed. (Z. Dubiel in LLBA 2001, vol. 35, n. 5)