Correlation Between Metaphoric Competence And English Writing Proficiency

The last two decades has seen an upsurge of studies on metaphorical cognition.These studies have broadened the scope of research on metaphor from traditional rhetorical perspective to many other disciplines.It is argued that better metaphoric competence(MC)contributes to improve students' cognitive,logical and writing abilities.Some studies claimed that there was a positive correlation between students' MC and their writing proficiency.However,few studies have been done on Chinese middle school students,especially concerned with the correlation between their MC and English writing proficiency.Related studies will be of great value for middle school English writing education in China.The present study takes School X,a middle school located in Sichuan,as a case,aiming to explore the developing patterns of middle school students' MC and its correlation with their English writing proficiency.107,103 and 118 students were recruited from junior 2,senior 1 and senior 3 respectively.Based on their average English writing scores in two monthly-tests.The subjects in each grades were all divided into high,intermediate and low levels according to their English writing proficiency.Littlemore's metaphoric competence test was used to measure students' MC.The results show that while Chinese middle school students' MC are generally low,their MC improve as they grow older.Although there is no statistically significant difference in MC between senior 1 and senior 3 students,significant difference was found between junior 2 and senior 3 students.Among all the students from three grades,a statistically significant positive correlation has been found between their MC and English writing proficiency.The correlation coefficients indicate that the stronger the students' MC,the higher their English writing proficiency,.This is true in all three subgroups of high,intermediate and low English writing proficiency.The findings suggest that MC might be an important factor influencing middle school students' English writing proficiency.To help improve Chinese middle school students' English writing proficiency,teachers may adopt adequate measures to enhance students' MC in a due course.