A Cognitive Study Of Metaphor As A Component Of English Majors' Vocabulary

In recent years, there is a universally recognized problem in English teaching and learning in China, i.e. there is a large gap between an English major's receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. That means one's lexicon may be large enough and keep increasing, but words one can use freely in their output are rather limited.In order to solve this problem, many studies have been carried out from different perspectives. Most of these studies concentrate on classroom teaching and learning practices to discover problems in the teaching and learning process, and have proposed various suggestions on improving foreign language teaching and learning. So far, not many studies have attempted to explore the reasons behind the gap, or to seek theoretical explanations for this phenomenon in systematic ways.Metaphor has been an object of study since Aristotle in the west and Confucius in China. In recent years, researchers from various fields, such as linguistics, psychology, philosophy, etc. show more and more interest in metaphor. With the rising of cognitive sciences, a group of linguists, represented by Lakoff, carry out studies on metaphor from a cognitive perspective. The publication of Lakoff&Johnson's Metaphors We Live By in 1980 laid the foundation for cognitive metaphor. The basic claims of this approach are: metaphor is not simply a rhetoric device, but a prevalent phenomenon in ordinary language; metaphor is conceptual in nature; metaphor is systematic __one common metaphorical concept may give rise to numerous linguistic expressions, and different metaphorical concepts form a coherent network which underlies both our speech and our thoughts. Owing to these basic characteristics, metaphor has at least two linguistic functions: filling in the gaps in vocabulary and adding to the accuracy and vividness of language. Considering the ubiquitous nature and the linguistic functions of metaphor, if a learner manages to grasp English metaphors well and to use them freely, his/her productive vocabulary can be improved qualitatively.Therefore, this study attempts to find ways of alleviating the imbalance between Chinese learners'receptive and productive vocabulary by introducing cognitive metaphor. The basic hypothesis of this paper is that Chinese learners'ability of comprehending English metaphors and that of producing them are imbalanced, and that, to a great extent, is responsible for the imbalance between their receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. This paper verifies this hypothesis through a test, and analyzes students'performance in comprehending and producing different categories of metaphors to seek reasons for the imbalance, in the hope of making contributions to English teaching and learning.