Metaphor As A Cognitive Instrument And Its Application In English Teaching

This thesis is trying to make an initial research on the modern cognitive theoryof metaphor. There are three major modern theories on the nature of metaphor:substitution theory, comparison theory, and interaction theory. All the modern theoriesof metaphor can find their origins in Aristotle and Richards. Metaphor can be studiedfrom different perspectives. Metaphor is traditionally viewed as one kind of tropes inrhetoric. It is more or less an ornamental device in language. In addition, metaphorcan also be studied from semantic and pragmatic point of view. With the birth anddevelopment of cognitive linguistics, metaphor is observed from a new andexperientialist cognitive point of view.From cognitive perspective, metaphor functions as a "bridge"for us to gain abetter cognition and understanding of the new, abstract and not well delineatedconcepts. Metaphor is the structural mapping from the source domain onto the targetdomain in a systematic and asymmetric way. Metaphorical cognition is the result ofthe progress of human cognitive ability. It is the senior level of human cognitiondevelopment. It is a requisite cognitive ability to cognize the world, especially theabstract world. The understanding of metaphors is based on our bodily and physicalexperience. The everyday experience plays an important role in the metaphoricalstructures. Metaphor functions as a cognitive instrument of the cognition of newthings on the basis of daily experience.Language and human cognition interrelate with each other. Language is a meansand the most important means of recognizing the world; cognition is well reflected inlanguage, for language is at the same time the sediment of cognition. Metaphor has itscognitive functions in that it is a medium to observe the world around us and in that itcan create new senses and get new ideas across from the well-known knowledge. Ourlanguage is fundamentally metaphorical; our mind is fundamentally metaphorical.Therefore it is vitally valuable to apply metaphor theory in teaching and learning.From 1980's, foreign language educators, affected by the modern cognitive metaphortheory, have realized the significance of the application of metaphor in teaching andlearning and have made some achievements in educational use of metaphor.Metaphor is ubiquitous in language, which is well shown in the linguisticphenomena of polysemy. Polysemy causes great difficulty to language learners. If the...