Metaphor: A Cognitive Approach To Improve College English Vocabulary Teaching

Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a well-established western cognitive approach to language and thought is still new in China. According to this theory, metaphor is not only a prevalent language phenomenon but also an indispensable cognition tool to human beings, which bears close relationship with language learning especially vocabulary learning. Nowadays, the importance of metaphorical competence starts to be recognized by scholars.With the purpose of introducing metaphor as a cognitive approach to improve college English vocabulary teaching, this paper firstly offers a systematic and critical overview of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Secondly, based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and vivid linguistic evidence, it further reveals the specific significance of metaphor in improving the learning of polysemy, word cultural implications and idiomatic expressions. Thirdly, a test is designed to measure Chinese College English learners' metaphorical competence and vocabulary level. The test result manifests: their original metaphorical competences are in big spread from the highest to the lowest; their vocabulary level still needs further improvements; the capacities of identifying metaphors and creating metaphors bear significant relationship with vocabulary level. Fourthly, this paper also provides suggestions for initiating systematic metaphor teaching practice in China.On the whole, teaching English vocabulary through metaphor is a promising virgin land in China, which may become the trend of applied linguistics in the near future. Relevant parties including education authorities, teachers and learners etc. should devote enough attention to this area.