An Empirical Study Of The Relationship Between Explicit Cultivation Of Metaphoric Competence And English Reading Proficiency

Metaphors are rhetorical devices,but more importantly,they are a way of thinking.Metaphor plays an important role in language learning.Metaphoric competence is as significant as linguistic competence and communicative competence.So there must be a bond between students' reading proficiency and metaphorical competence.The following two questions are addressed in this thesis:1)To what extent is the explicit cultivation of subjects'metaphoric competence effective to improve their reading proficiency?2)What is the subjects' attitude towards English reading teaching based on the explicit cultivation of their metaphoric competence?Based on the two questions,the author conducts an experimental study by doing an experiment on two classes in a high school in Shuyang county,Jiangsu province.One class is the control group,the other experimental group.The instruments include Gaolei's metaphoric competence tests and the reading proficiency test from the mid-term and final exams.The former are employed to test students' metaphoric competence while the latter are employed to measure students' reading proficiency.The test includes pre-test and after-test.The data of the pre-test are analyzed by SPSS 19.0.From the analysis we find that there is no remarkable distinction between the two classes in terms of students,reading proficiency and metaphoric competence,both of which are at a lower level.Then a one-term experiment was carried out to improve students' reading proficiency in the experimental class through cultivating their metaphoric competence while traditional teaching methods are adopted in the control class.After the experiment,after-tests on reading proficiency and metaphoric competence are adopted.The data collected is analyzed by SPSS 19.0,which reveals that remarkable distinction emerges between the two classes with regard to reading proficiency and metaphoric competence,and the experimental class's performance is much better on both dimensions.Afterwards,the author interviewed all the students in the experimental class,in order to understand their attitudes towards the application of conceptual metaphor in English reading teaching.Two conclusions are drawn from the experimental results.Firstly,the cultivation of subjects' metaphoric competence is prominently effective in improving their reading proficiency.Secondly,this teaching method gains currency and interest from the subjects.Therefore,this thesis advocates cultivating students' metaphoric competence in the English teaching process.It is advisable to let the students know more about metaphor,which enables them to understand the metaphoric expressions in English consciously and actively.It is also beneficial to cultivate students' metaphoric thinking.Starting from words,we should train students thinking patterns step by step,as well as their imagination and creativity.The similarities and differences between western and eastern culture is also of great importance,which makes the students treat the phenomenon of positive transfer and negative transfer in EFL appropriately,leading to the improvement of students' reading proficiency.Besides,in the pedagogical education and in-service teacher training,linguistic knowledge concerned as well as meta language should be developed,especially the awareness of metaphor,which prepare teachers for the explicit metaphor teaching.