The Application Of Conceptual Metaphor To English Reading Teaching For College Non-English Majors

Foreign language teaching has been the focus of the teaching reform in colleges and universities, English reading teaching can be the priority for all. In recent years, some of the new teaching ideas are introduced in the reading teaching reform, and metaphor has engaged English teachers and researches’ more attention due to its cognitive feature.Metaphor is a universal linguistic phenomenon and its history can be traced back to ancient Greece two thousand years ago. As the metaphor research moves along, metaphor has not only been considered as rhetoric device but also an essential cognitive mode of human being. Meanwhile, many studies both at home and abroad have shown that metaphor teaching plays positive role in promoting second language acquisition. However, most researches’ efforts have been made to apply metaphor teaching in vocabulary teaching, its research in English reading teaching are not complete.The thesis aims to explore the effects of the application of the conceptual metaphor to non-English majors’ reading teaching in English reading class. The participants in this study are seventy students from two parallel classes in Liaoning Institute of Science and Enginerring in Jinzhou. One class is randomly selected as the control class, which is adapted with traditional approach. While the other is chosen as the experimental class, in which the conceptual metaphor teaching is added in the process of regular teaching. Through the metaphoric competence test, comparative analysis of English reading scores in two classes before and after the experiment and students’ interview in the experimental class, this study aims to answer the following three research questions:1. What is the general state of metaphoric competence of the non-English majors in college?2. Can conceptual metaphor teaching enhance the non-English majors’ reading comprehension proficiency in college?3. Can the non-English majors’ interest in English reading be stimulated by conceptual metaphor teaching?The findings of the research indicate that non-English majors’ comprehension competence is in low level, and it is effective to add the conceptual metaphor to English reading teaching. On the one hand, conceptual metaphor teaching cultivates students’ metaphor awareness and enhances students’ metaphor competence. On the other hand, conceptual metaphor teaching can improve non-English majors’ ability of English reading comprehension and have positive effects on the students’ English proficiency. What’s more, the students’ interest in English reading has also been improved. At the same time, the author also analyzes the limitations of the experiment and gives the suggestions for the further study.