Metaphor And English Teaching

Metaphor has been studied for over two thousand years. Traditionally it was only treated as a kind of linguistic ornament, the frosting on the cake merely, sweet tasting but not necessary. While the contemporary theory holds that metaphor is a matter of thought and a way of cognition. Human beings can find metaphor everywhere in their life and language. What's more, it is generally accepted by most specialists that metaphor plays a basic structural part in forming people's conceptual system. In this thesis, I make use of the contemporary metaphor theory and analyze it as a way of cognition based on the fundamental introduction of general metaphorical concepts. The intimate relationship between metaphor and language can benefit the contemporary English teaching a great deal.The introduction of metaphor to English language teaching injects some new life to the current English language teaching in our country's higher educational institution. It accesses students to learning and grasping English with the help of English principle. Besides, it transforms the previous dull teacher-centered classroom activity into student-centered teaching methodology. It's worth pointing out that it is only a tentative exploration to apply metaphorical strategy to English teaching. More feasible and practical metaphorical English methodologies have to be hunted and studied.