A Study On College English Writing Teaching Based On Conceptual Metaphor Theory

People's research on metaphors has a history of more than two thousand years.Until 1980,Lakoff & Johnson published the book The Metaphors We Live By,which marked the beginning of research on conceptual metaphors.Therefore,it also provides a new perspective for language teaching.In English language learning,writing is the focus and difficulty of teaching.The focus of traditional English teaching in China is on the explanation of basic knowledge and grammar,which leads to a single,fluent but not authentic expression of language learners.According to previous studies,metaphorical thinking and metaphor competence have a positive effect on learners' language ability and text fluency.Based on the internal relationship between metaphor theory and English writing teaching,this article combines metaphor theory to study its application in college English writing teaching.The purpose of this research is to verify whether writing teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory can effectively improve learners' metaphor competence,writing interest and achievements through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research.The research questions are as follows:1.Can writing teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory increase students' writing interest?2.How does writing teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory affect students' metaphor competence?3.How does writing teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory affect students' writing achievements?In this study,two parallel classes of college sophomores were selected for experiments.A total of 58 participants were selected.The experiment consisted of pre-questionnaire,pre-test,post-questionnaire,post-test and interview.The experiment lasted 9 weeks.The two parallel classes are divided into control class(CC)and experiment class(EC).In the course of the experiment,in order to ensure the effectiveness of the experiment,the two classes were taught by the same teacher and the teaching time was equal.CC adopted the traditional writing teaching mode and EC were taught under the guidance of the conceptual metaphor theory.The experiment began with a pre-questionnaire and pre-test of the two classes in order to measure students' writing interest,metaphor competence and writing achievements before experiment.Students of two classes undergo post-questionnaire,post-test and interview at the end of the experiment.The difficulty and the number of test are the samewith pre-questionnaire and pre-test.Analysis of the data from the pre-and post-questionnaire surveys showed that the writing interest of the CC has basically remained unchanged,and the writing interest of the EC has increased.Analysis of the data from the pre-test,post-test,and interview showed that CC's metaphor competence and writing achievements have not improved significantly,while EC's metaphor competence and writing achievements have improved significantly.Although the research is still inadequate,it is also concluded that: First,the research showed that English writing teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory has positive influence for students' writing interest,and it has profound significance for the theory and its application.Second,through the understanding and learning of conceptual metaphors,students' metaphor competence and English writing achievements are improved.Finally,the application of conceptual metaphor theory to college English writing teaching is still at the experimental stage,and there are still many shortcomings,so the writer puts forward some pedagogical implications and research limitations in order to provide suggestions for future research.