A Study Of Chinese English Learners' Metaphoric Competence In Conceptual Metaphor

According to the conceptual metaphor theory and the definition of metaphoric competence,research questions are raised mainly based on whether language has a significant influence on metaphoric competence and what is the nature of metaphoric competence.Adopting a visual metaphor representation,this study aims to explore English language learners' identification,comprehension and production ability in English and Chinese conceptual metaphors,as well as provide some empirical evidence for studying the nature of metaphoric competence.The experiment includes two parts.Firstly,152 English major postgraduates from Southwest University were randomly selected to complete a visual metaphor test.Their scores were sorted in descending order and 76 participants were further divided into two groups.Then each participant was required to finish three experimental items(metaphor identification,comprehension and production)in 45 minutes.The independent variables were 2 languages(Chinese,English),2 metaphoric competence levels(high level,low level).The dependent variables were different in the three experimental items.In metaphor identification,accuracy was a dependent variable,and two groups' participants needed to judge conventional metaphors from 20 sentences.The software E-prime was used to record their accuracy and reaction time(two dependent variables)in the test of metaphor comprehension.In metaphor production,productive quality was a dependent variable.The participants were required to complete 10 sentences as creative as possible.The major findings are as follows:This study finds that there are significant differences between the high and low level group in the visual metaphor test.By analyzing the accuracy for identification and comprehension and productive quality,for the high(low)level group,there are no significant differences in metaphor identification,comprehension and production intwo contexts as a whole.It presumes that different people possess different metaphoric competence levels,and this competence may not be significantly affected by languageIn the same language context,the accuracy,reaction time and productive quality of the high-level group are significant better than that of the other group.Related to the previous finding,this study assumes that the main factor that affects the research results is likely to be the participants' different metaphoric competence levels so that this study presumes that metaphoric competence is inclined to be a cognitive competence in essence.The present study further finds that for the two groups,the accuracy for identification and comprehension is higher than productive quality(percentage)in two contexts,which further presumes the imbalanced relationship among the three components.The results of this study provide some methods and perspectives for discussing the nature of metaphoric competence in China.