Research On Application Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory To Senior High School Students’ English Vocabulary Teaching In Reading Class

Each word is inextricably linked with one another in different ways rather than being an isolated linguistic unit,which integrates these complex words into a text.In the English language teaching,teachers mainly instruct vocabulary via two ways:learning words directly and learning words in context.However,these two methods are not uncommon,even insipid.To some extent,they would also weaken the learner’s learning motivation.Reading is the most important part in nearly all English tests in China.Characterized by simplification,difficulty and abstraction,metaphors exist in people’s language and thinking.The application of conceptual metaphor to vocabulary teaching is undoubtedly a fresh perspective.In the past decades,the study of conceptual metaphor has become more and more popular,and becomes relatively stable and mature.Many researchers applied conceptual metaphor to reading teaching and vocabulary teaching respectively,but few of them involved in the study of combining both,that is,focusing on the vocabulary teaching in reading class.Adopting the strength of the above two kinds of traditional vocabulary teaching,this thesis tries to test whether the conceptual metaphor theory influences students’ deep vocabulary,reading and learning motivation.Two parallel classes with the same level and teaching contents were selected to carry out an experiment for a four-month study.The controlled class remained the traditional teaching without any change.While the experimental class adopted conceptual metaphor theory to guide corresponding vocabulary teaching.Firstly,according to direct vocabulary teaching method,the author explains and penetrates the classification theory of conceptual metaphor to new words in the reading text.Then,in terms of the context teaching method,the author uses the working mechanism of conceptual metaphor to associate the metaphorical words with the gist of the text,apart from consolidating and strengthening the new words again.With the help of SPSS 23.0 analysis software,both vocabulary and reading tests’ scores from the two classes were analyzed quantitatively;the learning motivation was evaluated by questionnaires as well as semi-structured interview,taken as the supplement of quantitative study to ensure the reliability and validity of this study.The results of reading and vocabulary experiment reveal that there are significant distinctions between the two classes in the post-test.And conceptual metaphor theory has a positive impact on the students’ vocabulary and reading performance of theexperimental class: 1.It enhances the depth of students’ vocabulary,by applying conceptual metaphor theory to direct vocabulary learning,students can digest the part of speech and diverse meanings of polysemous words;by applying conceptual metaphor to context vocabulary teaching,students can understand words more deeply and achieve dual effect.2.It improves the students’ reading scores,especially for questions of main idea and guessing word meanings.Students can combine the traditional method,summarizing the general ideas of paragraphs with conceptual metaphor theory,establishing a mapping process,so that they can also understand the context in a double way.Moreover,the results of questionnaire and interview demonstrate that the theory of conceptual metaphor can arouse the learning motivation of students at different levels,which can be summarized as four stages: 1.passive,2.concerned,3.acceptable,4.active.Last but not the least,the author clarifies the relationship among vocabulary,reading and learning motivation once more,reconfirming conceptual metaphor theory plays a significant role in students’ vocabulary,reading and learning motivation.In addition,due to the limitation of time and personal reasons,there are still some problems and deficiencies in this thesis.The author hopes that this study can also provide reference for further research.