An Empirical Study On English Writing Teaching In Senior High School From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

In recent years,a wave of metaphorical cognitive research has been set off.With the deepening of cognitive research,conceptual metaphor has gradually become the research goal of many disciplines.Writing is a significant part in English learning and a comprehensive expression of learners’ English proficiency.In the current high school English teaching,teachers pay more attention to the explanation and analysis of vocabulary and grammar,neglecting the cultivation of students’ English writing ability.As a result,students attach too much importance to the correctness of words and grammar in the process of English writing.Most of the writing vocabulary is single and the text is incoherent.Based on these facts,this thesis will answer the following two questions:1)What types of metaphors are primarily used in high school English writing?2)What aspects of English writing can be effectively improved by metaphor ?The subjects of the experiment are from Class 10,Grade 1 in Jinghua senior high school,Jiangsu Province.There are 50 students in total.The conceptual metaphor theory is applied to the English writing teaching in the experimental class.This experiment lasts 10 weeks.The metaphoric competence test,writing test and an interview are the experimental instruments,which integrates the quantitative and qualitative research methods.The author measures what aspects of students’ English writing have been improved through questionnaires and pre-test and post-test questions.In addition to explaining conceptual metaphor,students are trained in vocabulary richness,sentence diversity and discourse coherence through a large number of exercises.Analyzing and comparing the experimental data,the author concludes that metaphor can enhance students’ writing in vocabulary richness,the diversity of sentence patterns and discourse coherence.In addition,structural metaphor and orientational metaphor are the two main types of English writing in senior high schools.Applying conceptual metaphor theory into high school English writing teaching is only a tentative method.There are numerous limitations and the further research is needed in the future.