An Investigation On Pragmatic Competence Of English Human Body Metaphors-a Case Study

Extremely few empirical researches have been focused on the pragmatic competence of metaphors at home and abroad so far,and much fewer on the English human body metaphors.Based on Cognitive Metaphor theory put forward by Lakoff&Johnson,the present paper adopted,at the end of 2014,the anonymous questionnaire to investigate the overall level and problems of pragmatic competence in terms of the appropriate application of English human body metaphors in the specific contexts for 21 postgraduate freshmen in grade 2014,who major in English Linguistics from a university in Guangxi Province.This study is a quasi-survey.Furthermore,since the participants are all master students majoring in English Linguistics at Guangxi Normal University,their English grammatical competence is generally at a higher level.Moreover,compared with other postgraduates in the same grade,they are much more familiar with linguistic theories.Meanwhile,they are studied on the purpose of shedding light on their future postgraduate study and application of Linguistics:not only should their scholastic aptitude be enhanced,but also their pragmatic competence especially the one of English human body metaphors should be developed.So,the data are collected by means of pragmatic measuring tools including Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Task(MDCT)and Written Discourse Completion Task(WDCT).At the same time,these data are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively,in order to answer the following two questions:1)How is the overall level in the students' pragmatic competence of English human body metaphors in the survey?2)What are the problems reflected by the results in regard to the participants pragmatic competence of English human body metaphors'?This survey was conducted during the period of 10 minutes after class,and the scenarios and choices in the questionnaires were made by referring to the designing methods of the Multiple-choice Discourse Completion questionnaire in Li Huaikui(2013).During the survey,21 questionnaires were given out according to the number of participants and finally they were taken back.After the survey,the questionnaires taken back were closely read,analyzed and corrected,the grammatical errors excluded.It could be discovered that the marks of 5 among 21 questionnaires were in the range of 0-59(disqualified),those of 12 in 60-79(qualified),of 2 in 80-89(fine)and of only 2 in 90-100(excellent).On the whole,the subjects' pragmatic competence of English human body metaphors was inclined to be only qualified(namely the marks in the range of 60-79),proving that their pragmatic competence of English human body metaphors was not spontaneously improved with the increase of their linguistic competence;from their performances in doing the specific items,the students' errors of discourse comprehension and production were mainly due to the cognitive differences in body-part metaphorical meanings,indicating that the disparities in the cognitive ways can be considered as one of the reasons for the second language learners' low pragmatic competence.The study will enable the students to understand the cognitive disparities in metaphors between English and Chinese cultures,which can make them aware of their lack of English body-part metaphorical pragmatic competence.Thus,it is necessary to carry out pragmatic instruction on English human body metaphors in college English teaching.