A Study Of Non-English Majors' Beliefs About English Learning: A Metaphor Approach

In developing metaphor analysis as a research tool we have built on the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1982, and 1999), Munby (1986) and Ortony (1993). Working from this position it is assumed that metaphor is not a purely linguistic phenomenon, it is rather a phenomenon of thought, at the heart of everyday thinking and language. It is a way of making sense of our experience, which is often abstract, emotional and complex, in terms of more specific and solid phenomena. It cross-maps our overall abstract and sensory experience of the world into the solid structures that underpin our concrete everyday life.Thus, employing metaphor analysis methodology grounded in Lakoff and Johnson's work on conceptual metaphor and adopted in many previous studies, this paper reports on the small-scale survey on learners'belief tertiary level non-English major learners at Zhejiang Wanli University. This study examines and classifies the metaphors that they formulated to describe the concepts of"teacher"and of"English learning". The study seeks to identify learners'metaphor preferences about their English learning and the characteristics they saw in each that made it descriptive of their learning.The specific research objectives were to:Gather the actual metaphors chosen by participants ;Identify conceptual categories that can be derived from these metaphorical images;Determine qualitatively whether metaphor choice is related to the participant's English learning background;Participants who were asked to create metaphors for themselves as learners completed the prompts 1)"English learning is like . . . because ..."; 2)"My English learning is like . . . because ..."and 3)"A good English teacher is like . . . because ..."by focusing on metaphor(s) to indicate their conceptualization of teaching and learning. The data were analyzed qualitatively (i.e, inductive analysis).According to the results, the Chinese learners are predisposed to conceptualize English learning in the following major categories: MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING, CONSUMPTION, SEA, SNAIL, SPORTS, and BUILDING. The major themes of the images of a good teacher are FRIEND and SUN. Also, the results indicate the majority of English learners in Zhejiang Wanli University rated themselves as unsuccessful English learners. Results showed that learners attributed their unsuccessful English learning most to their own effort and least to ability factor.The implications of the study to teaching are fairly touched upon. And the study concludes that metaphor is a powerful research tool in gaining insight into language learners'beliefs about teaching and learning.