College Non-english Majors’ Metaphoric Competence In English:the Status Quo,Causes And Strategies From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

According to the conceptual metaphor theory(CMT),metaphor is not only a rhetoric device,but also a matter of human thought and action.The cultivation of students’ metaphoric competence(MC)in English is regarded as an effective way to avoid Chinglish expressions and improve their English proficiency.This research is aimed at studying the status quo of college non-English majors’MC,exploring the causes of low MC in English and searching for suitable strategies to improve students’ MC and remove unidiomatic English production.It’s expected that the results of the research can provide some insights for reference to the college English teaching reform.This thesis explores the status quo through an empirical study with the form of MC test.The results show that the students’ MC is not high in nearly all the aspects of MC that include identification,interpretation and production and that the MC in English is lower than that in Chinese.Great efforts are made to explore the main causes which include differences between Chinese and English in conceptual systems and thinking patterns;differences between Chinese and English in cultures;negative transfer of the Chinese concepts and conceptual system;teacher factors;and individual factors.Coping strategies are proposed to solve these problems.First,college English teachers should accumulate more knowledge of CMT and enhance metaphoric awareness and competence for the purpose of properly guiding and inspiring students in classroom.Second,students should be guided to cultivate metaphoric awareness which can be achieved by helping them form the habit of metaphoric thinking,and meanwhile their English cognitive thinking pattern will be built therein.Third,English culture input should be strengthened to provide students with more real English contexts.Fourth,metaphor teaching should be implemented.Teachers along with scholars of metaphor study can develop a new metaphoric syllabus and its corresponding series of textbooks,and based on that,the most basic teaching activities,such as the teaching of vocabulary,reading and writing could be performed and thus exert influence on the students.English course assessment should also be reformed to highlight the test of students’ MC.