On The Effect Of Conceptual Metaphor On The Learning Of Polysemies

Polysemy is very common in almost every language. Every word was used to refer to a thing or a phenomenon at first, but following the social development, lots of words were denoted with other meanings related to the original one. In fact, monosemies are extremely rare in English except many technological terms. It is estimated that over40%of English words have more than one meaning (Durkin&Manning,1989). Thus, the polysemies learning poses great pressure and mental burden to English learners, particularly the learners who learn English as their second language, for polysemous words have so many divergent meanings that are not easy to memorize.Since Lakoff and Johnson (1980) published Metaphors We Live by, metaphor has been clearly regarded as an indispensible cognitive tool for human to organize the conceptual system. Metaphor is neither a linguistic phenomenon nor a rhetorical style, but it is a cognitive tool for human to conceptualize in abstract categories. It is defined as a tool to comprehend something unknown by other given things. Lakoff&Johnson's theory is innovative and revolutionary, which has provided a new path to polysemies' teaching and learning. Though a polysemous word might have many different meanings, there is surely only one basic meaning of each word, and other meanings are derived and created from the basic meaning. According to physical experience, people always get to know unknown categories by known objects, while the learning of polysemous words is also a process from the basic meaning, which are already known to us, to unknown meanings by the cognitive tool of human being.Conceptual metaphor is the key of polysemous words learning, which could help learners to construct interrelations between different senses of a polysemy. When learners know the basic meaning of a word, the prototype of the word will activate the metaphorical concept in their brains, thus to help them cognize and learn the metaphorical meanings of a polysemy. In this way, the conceptual metaphor facilitates the learning of English polysemies, reduces the mental burden of memorizing vocabulary, and gets effective short-term and long-term retention of the different senses of the word.This thesis is intended to explore the relationship between conceptual metaphor and the teaching and learning of polysemies, and the feasibility and effectiveness of applying conceptual metaphor into polysemies teaching and learning. To analyze this, an empirical study was undertaken intended to test the metaphorical awareness and competence of Chinese college students, and their capacities of comprehending and using metaphorical words and expressions. The results showed that the subjects benefit from the metaphorical thinking and can basically derive the metaphorical meanings from the basic one. Therefore, the hypothesis conceptual metaphor contributes to the polysemies learning is proved.In addition, some pedagogical implications and two approaches of applying conceptual metaphor theory to polysemies teaching are put forward, based on the problems and weaknesses exposed in the empirical study. It is believed that conceptual metaphor theory will be applied to polysemies teaching and learning and promotes students'metaphorical competence and lexical competence as well.