Chinese EFL Learners' Metaphoric Competence

The development in cognitive linguistics has led to a renewed interest in metaphoric studies. The former conviction is deserted that metaphors are nice ornaments that make an expression or utterance poetic and witty. Linguists and other researchers who concerned themselves with metaphoric study came to the realization that metaphor is not limited to a linguistic phenomenon; it is also prevalent in our thought and action. In fact, we can resort to no other ways to form abstract and complicated concepts but through our acquaintance with concrete and simple experiences, which is exactly how metaphor works according to the contemporary view of metaphor. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, the voice of the contemporary view, made a strong case that "our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).As I.A. Richards claimed, we are sure to encounter the use of metaphor in any three utterances we hear or sentences we read. If that is true, understanding metaphoric expressions and even generating appropriate metaphors in written and oral production constitute an important and essential task for second and foreign language learners. But acquiring the above mentioned "metaphoric competence" is by no means easy, especially not for learners who study the language as a foreign language, for at least two reasons.First of all, a large number of metaphorical expressions have been "conventionalized" or become "dead" over the years. That means the literal meaning has almost been replaced by the metaphoric meaning. For instance, for the sentence "This place is a hole!", the native speaker hears immediately the complaint about the room (or other space) being narrow and restricted. They probably do not have to picture an actual "hole" of any kind in their mind. The foreign language learner, on the other hand, does not have the ease of processing the sentence unconsciously. In most cases, they have to activate both the literal and the metaphorical senses in order to successfully understand the expression. In other words, "dead" metaphors are still very much "alive" as far as they are concerned. Secondly, researchers have proved with compelling evidence that metaphors vary from culture to culture. Different life experiences have resulted in different metaphors, which poses a greater challenge to foreign language learners with little exposure to the guest culture. If the learner is not familiar with the national sport of the United States—American football, he would not be able to understand the established expression of "Monday morning quarterback". It is this hindrance in foreign language acquisition that prompts me to look for answers for the following questions:Do EFL learners develop English metaphoric competence in the process of learning the language?Is there any correlation between the learner's achievements in metaphoric and linguistic competence?For such purpose and based on theories of metaphoric competence, the author designed an English metaphoric competence test that consists of the evaluation of all its essential components. The test was administered on two groups of college students who have varied linguistic competence. Some initial findings are presented here:Chinese EFL students have acquired certain competence in comprehending and producing English metaphors. They demonstrate varying performance in tasks representing the assessment of different component parts of metaphoric competence. When challenged to write in a foreign language, they are not capable of using metaphor to explain an abstract topic. There is a positive correlation between metaphoric competence and communicative competence but it remains obscure how closely they interact.Test results provide evidence for theories about the constitution of metaphoric competence and about the cultural influence on metaphors. Students show uneven performance in coping with questions testing the acquisition of different component parts of metaphoric competence. This means metaphoric competence is not a unitary construct but includes a set of interrelated skills. Besides, students understand metaphorical expressions better when they detect similarities between English and Chinese metaphors. This supports the argument that metaphors are bounded with culture and social conventions and, as such, more difficult to acquire than linguistic knowledge.In writing this thesis, the author hopes to raise the awareness of both instructors and learners of the important role of metaphor in language as well as metaphoric competence in language acquisition.