The Roles Of Metaphorical Concepts In L2 Teaching And Learning: An Empirical Study

According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphors pervade human language and thought. They discover the systematicity of metaphors and propose the notion of Metaphorical Concepts (MC). They maintain that linguistic expressions are reflection of human thinking process and that in many cases, a battery of systematical metaphors reflect a common concept, which in turn governs a series of linguistic metaphorical expressions. This concept is called Metaphorical Concepts, also known as Conceptual metaphors or root metaphors. This study was conducted both quantitatively and qualitatively with the purpose of identifying the possible positive effects metaphorical concepts might have on L2 teaching and learning and analyzing how these effects were produced so as to improve the second language (L2) teaching and learning.The subjects involved in this study were 200 freshmen from Yangzhou University. They were divided into four groups according to their Placement Test scores. There was not significant difference between the Experimental Groups and Control Groups. Group 1 and Group 2 participated experiment 1, in which Group1 is the Experimental Group and Group 2 is the Control Group. After Group 1 finished Test 1 in 30 minutes, their papers were collected. Then after MCs relevant to the test were taught to them, they finished the test again in 20 minutes. At the same time, Group 2 finished Test 1 in 50 minutes. Interviews with three of Group 1 who improved the most remarkably were held immediately after their papers were graded.Experiment 2 was conducted with Group 3 and Group 4 exactly in the same way. Data collection was realized in the form of Sentence Completion Test (SCT), SCT 1 and SCT 2, respectively.The major findings of the study are as follows:1) MCs can play a positive role in L2 teaching and learning. They improve the L2 learners' understanding of the target language. For example, the students with a relevant knowledge of MCs feel more confident about their lexical choices.2) MCs can help L2 learners understand the target language through deduction: with a knowledge of MCs in mind, L2 learners identify conventionalized metaphors more easily and can have associations of similar metaphorical expressions; therefore, they can remember and understand them better.The above findings are suggestive for our L2 teaching and learning. Firstly, L2 teachers should pay adequate attention to the input of MCs in classroom. Secondly, in L2 teaching, MCs can be employed to analyze polysemy. Thirdly, L2 teachers should help and encourage students to learn and comprehend MCs in the target culture. Finally, L2 teachers themselves should also try to generalize or induce new MCs from conventionalized metaphorical meaning. To sum up, if MCs could be effectively employed in L2 teaching, they would greatly help students memorize and internalize the target language...