Towards Conceptual Metaphor Based Approach Of Foreign Language Vocabulary Teaching-a Chinese Educational Perspective

Since Lakoff &Johnson put forward Conceptual Metaphor Theory in 1980, a rising number of linguists and researchers at home and abroad have set their mind on metaphor study or its application in the field of language teaching from cognitive perspective. And a lot of surprising achievements have been made. However, few of them made the investigation of the situation of the comprehension and application of metaphorical expressions among the college students. And few of them make a detailed and systematic illustration of conceptual metaphor based approach of FLVT including its principles, contents, teaching techniques and so on. This paper,based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory,is expected to explore the relationship between conceptual metaphor and FLVT, the necessity and feasibility of carrying out conceptual metaphor-based approach of FLVT and the specific teaching procedures. This paper is composed of four chapters.Chapter one is the literature review of the studies on applying conceptual metaphor theory to FLVT home and abroad. On one hand, the study on conceptual metaphor and vocabulary teaching abroad focuses on the relationship or significance on theoretical level. For instance, Frank Boers proposed teaching implied meanings of prepositions by means of conceptual metaphors in 1998. On the other hand, linguists and researchers made some pedagogical experiments on it. In 2000, Frank Boers made three experiments on teaching vocabulary under corresponding metaphorical themes. Gibbs& O'Briend proved that conceptual metaphor can motivate the understanding of idioms and proverbs. The researchers at home such as Lin Shuwu, Shu Dingfang, Hu Zhunglin also attach great importance to the theoretical significance of applying conceptual metaphor to FLVT. Lan Chun wrote a book entitled A Cognitive Approach to Spatial Metaphors in English and Chinese. The author tries to fill the gap. It is expected that the application of the metaphor-based approach of vocabulary teaching can complement the traditional ones. Thus students'lexical competence can be enhanced.Chapter two provides the theoretical basis of the whole thesis. As for Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the definition, working mechanism, classification and major features of conceptual metaphor are briefly introduced. The difference between conceptual metaphor and metaphorical expressions are pointed out. Both vocabulary learning and teaching are complicated processes. The essential role of vocabulary in language determines the significance of vocabulary teaching and the exploration of effective and various approaches of vocabulary teaching. The reason that conceptual metaphor can be applied to FLVT lies in the close relationship between language and cognition. This paper tries to illustrate how conceptual metaphor exerts great influence on the analysis of polysemes and the idiomatic expressions. It is necessary to enhance students'lexical competence through the cultivation of metaphorical competence. Therefore, researches on metaphorical competence are summarized and tentative definition on it is put forth.Chapter three is a survey of Chinese college students'metaphorical competence on lexical level. The metaphorical competence consists of three parts: the ability of inferring the target domain from the source domain, the ability of applying figurative words, the negative transfer caused by conceptualizing in source language. The 85 subjects chosen at random are English majors at the second grade from Women's Academy in Shandong. In order to ensure the reliability and validity of the test, most of the items are selected from the metaphor data, the main works by Lakoff and college English textbooks. The findings are as follows: There is a huge gap among the students'original metaphorical competence varying from the lowest to the highest. College students are not good at using figurative words appropriately. Such factors as difference in culture, thinking pattern and metaphorical concepts become the major barriers in the process of inferring the target domain from the source domain and thinking in target language. The students show poor performance in the mastery of implied meanings of words and the metaphorical usage of words both as a noun and a verb.In chapter four, the concept of conceptual metaphor-based approach of FLVT is put forward and illustrated. This approach should comply with five principles: systematic principle, communication principle, culture principle, cognitive principle and emotional principle. Context plays a key role in the teaching process. The teaching contents are composed of preposition, words both as noun and verb, verbal phrases, idioms and metaphorical expressions. As for teaching methods, two kinds including top-down and down-top can be adopted according to the specific situation. The author provides an immature teaching model in order to make the point clear. It is no denying that every coin has two sides. The approach is immature and needs improving.This paper mainly discusses the relationship between conceptual metaphor and FLVT. It aims to test the Chinese college students'situation of the comprehension and application of figurative language and illustrate the conceptual metaphor-based approach of FLVT systematically. The approach put forward in this thesis is just a tentative exploration and needs more support from the pedagogical experiments. It is believed that the conceptual metaphor-based approach of FLVT, as a supplement to traditional ones, will bring more development to vocabulary teaching and promote the development of students'metaphorical competence and lexical competence.