Metaphor As A Facilitator To FLT And FLL

This thesis is an empirical study of the relationship of metaphor to foreign language teaching (FLT) and foreign language learning (FLL), and particularly of how metaphor can act as a facilitator of FLT and FLL.It sets out to examine two conflicting situations as far as the relationship between metaphor and FLT and FLL is concerned. First, in College English Syllabus and College English Curriculum Requirements (For Trial Implementation), metaphor is not explicitly required at all, while in CET4 and CET6, especially in reading comprehension part, metaphoric language is usually tested. Second, many philosophers, linguists and psychologists (Lakoff & Johnson, Richards, Pollio, Kittay etc.) have demonstrated that metaphor is a basic cognitive instrument and is pervasive not only in language but also in our thought and action, while in college English teaching, metaphor is treated only as a rhetorical device and rarely touched on for the purpose of appreciation or completely ignored.In view of these two paradoxes, an experimental group and a controlled group with similar English proficiency were chosen to participate in a comparative and empirical study. The aim is to test the hypothesis as to whether experimental teaching of metaphors could facilitate FLT and FLL, and to show in which way metaphoric competence and conceptual fluency could be fostered among foreign language learners. First, the two groups underwent language teaching of two different approaches that lasted one and a half semester. The controlled group went through language teaching in the traditional approach without systematic instruction of metaphors, while the experimental group received a systematic instruction of metaphors by taking metaphors found in college English textbooks as experimental materials. Then with reference to some previous work by other scholars, four metaphoric tests were designed and conducted to judge the effectiveness of the experimental teaching.The data collected in the four tests were given an analysis by virtue of SPSS.The analysis led to some fruitful findings. It was found that the experimental group surpassed the controlled group in both their fluency of metaphor production, their ability of metaphor interpretation and the memorization work of phrasal verbs with underlying conceptual metaphors. These findings verified the hypotheses concerning the relationship between metaphors and FLT and FLL. But it was also found that the experimental group seemed not to have attained a completely native-like conceptual fluency, and the improvement of their receptive metaphoric competence lagged behind that of their productive metaphoric competence. Besides, metaphor interpretation ability of neither group kept pace with their English proficiency shown by their scores in CET4.From this point of view, the implications of these findings to FLT and FLL are discussed. It is suggested that language teachers should encourage analogical metaphorical reasoning and divergent thinking. To language learners, word study will no longer be a mechanical or riot process if the underlying conceptual metaphors are interpreted in a meaningful manner. And the conscious use of metaphor is likely to contribute positively to an overall level of communicative competence.It is also suggested that college English textbooks include as their content a systematic introduction of metaphors just as they have a systematic introduction of grammar and writing skills. And a dictionary of prevalent metaphoric concepts, especially those specific to the target language, would be beneficial to the conceptual fluency of foreign language learners.