An Experimental Study On The Effect Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory-based Instruction On Senior High School Students' Acquisition Of English Polysemy

Polysemous words are a common phenomenon in language learning as well as an important and difficult aspect in English vocabulary teaching.However,in our conventional polysemous word teaching,teachers either require students to recite all the meanings of a polysemous word,or ask them to infer the various meanings according to the context,the results of which is not satisfactory.The development of cognitive linguistics has made people come to realize that there is a reasonable relationship between the different meanings of the polysemous words,more and more cognitive linguists believe that the polysemous words are mainly realized by metaphorical or metonymical way of thinking.Based on the conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson(1980),this thesis conducted an experiment on the high school students' acquisition of polysemous words,aiming to answer the following two questions:1.Does conceptual metaphor theory-based instruction facilitate the high school students' comprehension of the target polysemous words?2.Does conceptual metaphor theory-based instruction facilitate the high school students' production of the target polysemous words?A 6-week teaching experiment was conducted to testify the effect of conceptual metaphor theory-based instruction on the high school students' polysemous words acquisition.The conceptual metaphor theory was utilized to teach polysemous words in the experimental class(N = 33)while polysemous words were taught employing the conventional teaching method in the control class.Three immediate tests and three delayed tests were respectively used to test the participants' comprehension and production of the target polysemous words.The means of participants' vocabulary test performance were analyzed by SPSS 17.The results show: 1)Conceptual metaphor theory-based instruction could facilitate the high school students' comprehension of the target polysemous words.2)Conceptual metaphor theory-based instruction could facilitate the high school students' production of the target polysemous words.Therefore,conceptual metaphor theory-based instruction on high school students' polysemous words teaching can promote the students' acquisition of English polysemous words.Furthermore,it is possible for students to reduce their burden of polysemous words learning.