The Application Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory In College English Vocabulary Teaching

According to cognitive linguistics,metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon but the most common form of cognitive thinking.Being widely used in our daily life,it is one of the basic means for people to perceive and understand the objective world.All languages are metaphorical in nature,making metaphorical thinking an important factor in foreign language teaching,especially in vocabulary teaching,which is regarded as the major task of foreign language teaching,as vocabulary is the foundation of all languages.Yet it has often been noted that most non-English majors in Chinese colleges spend a lot of time on English vocabulary without much effect and still find it hard to use the words they have learnt in real-life communication.Many scholars emphasize the correlation between metaphorical concepts and English vocabulary acquisition,saying that a majority of English words can be learnt through metaphors.Therefore the thesis discusses the feasibility of applying conceptual metaphor theory by Lakoff and Johnson to college English vocabulary teaching in terms of the three research questions:1.How does the Conceptual Metaphor Theory affect college students'motivation for their study of English vocabulary?2.Does metaphoric teaching promote college students' metaphorical competence?3.How does metaphorical competence help college students to lern English vocabulary?The author carries out an contrastive teaching experiment covering a pre-test,a post-test,a period of experimental teaching and two questionnaires with two sophomore classes at a key university as the subjects,one being experimental class and the other being controlled class.In the experimental class,students are introduced to a systematic instruction of metaphors,whereas traditional methods are adopted to teach vocabulary as usual in the controlled class.The teaching materials for both classes come from New Standard College English,which is co-authored by experts from China and Britain,promoting a learner-centred approach and encouraging students to personalize the process of language acquisition.It has a small extra word book which allows students to take it along for self-study.The research shows that the new method based on conceptual metaphor theory galvanizes students'motivation in learning English vocabulary and increases their metaphorical competence which leads to better results of their vocabulary acquisition.In conclusion,the research confirms the feasibility of metaphoric teaching and lays the groundwork for future study.It is suggested that college English teachers should attach more importance to the cultivation of students' metaphorical competence so as to improve their English.