An Empirical Research On Conceptual Metaphor Theory Applied To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

Research on metaphor has more than 2000 years' history. The traditional view of metaphor only regarded it as a linguistic phenomenon, a figure of speech used in literatures, a deviant usage of language. In the 1980 s, Lakoff & Johnson published Metaphors We Live By,and brought forward the theory of conceptual metaphor in this book, marking the real beginning of research on cognitive metaphor. Lakoff and Johnson(1980) claims that metaphor is pervasive in everyday language, structuring not only how we talk, but also how we think and act, and it is a way of human thinking or cognitive process; the core of conceptual metaphor is that it is a cognitive activity mapping from one specific and physical domain onto the abstract and non-physical domain; Metaphor is a tool for humans to understand the world. Research on metaphor's function on language study, especially on study of foreign language vocabularies from cognitive perspective is very helpful and necessary, and some experts have been trying to apply the theory of conceptual metaphor in university English vocabulary teaching. During my teaching practice, the author found out there are also metaphorical vocabularies and metaphorical expressions in senior high school books as well, so, the author is bringing forward a bold hypothesis that it's possible to improve senior English learner' metaphorical ability and vocabulary level by applying the theory of conceptual metaphor in senior English vocabulary teaching.This thesis first gives a detailed introduction on theories related to conceptual metaphor,including basic theory of metaphor, the definition, essence, classification and image schemes of conceptual metaphor; Next, it analyzed the connection between conceptual metaphor and English vocabulary study, analyzed phenomena such as polysemy, transformation of part-of-speech, idioms etc. of senior English vocabulary with conceptual metaphor, and summed up common metaphorical thought type in senior English vocabulary education; Then,this thesis applied the theory of conceptual metaphor to actual senior English vocabulary teaching, and designed teaching experiment; Finally, after collecting the data scientifically, I compared the test results of the experiment group and the control group, I found the integration of conceptual metaphor knowledge was conducive to the development of metaphorical ability and improvement of vocabulary level of senior English learners.Meanwhile, based on the discovery and experience during the experiment process, the author brought forward the necessity and possibility in senior English vocabulary teaching with the theory of conceptual metaphor, and analyzed the conceptual metaphor vocabulary teaching methods such as the study of English polysemy, English idiom, English vocabulary that have transformation of part-of-speech as well as the correlative memorization of English vocabulary using conceptual metaphor by means of this theory and vivid language examples.The conclusion part of this thesis summed up the entire thesis, analyzed the shortcomings in this thesis, and gave suggestions on other aspects of the research on conceptual metaphor theory for further in-depth study by experts, scholars and educators.