Conceptual Metaphor Theory And Its Implications For Vocabulary Teaching And Learning

It is commonly thought that metaphor is only a completely linguistic phenomenon,and is a rhetoric or poetic device employed to achieve the effect of comparison inliterary works. Comparison view and substitution view, both of which are based onAristotle's view on metaphor, and Richards and Black's interaction theory all claim thatmetaphors are used chiefly for rhetoric or ornamental purpose. As a matter of fact,metaphor is more a matter of thought and action than a matter of language. As Lakoffand Johnson (1980) state, metaphor is a basic human thinking way or cognitive processand it is pervasive throughout everyday language structuring not only how we talk, butalso how we think and act, and most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphoricalin nature. Therefore, metaphor is a cognitive tool. Since Richards (1936) first putforward that metaphor had the cognitive function, more and more studies on metaphorhave been focused on its cognitive function. Conceptual metaphor theory advanced byLakoff and Johnson is a more systematic one of cognitive metaphor. Language is aproduct of human cognition and metaphor is a tool of it so that it is of great importanceand necessity to study the role of metaphor, especially conceptual metaphor, in foreignlanguage teaching and learning.This thesis is intended to offer some implications of conceptual metaphor theory forEnglish language teaching and learning, especially vocabulary teaching and learningand further to facilitate teachers to teach metaphorically and students to learnmetaphorically with the careful exploration of its theoretical background, the definition,mechanism, classifications and features of conceptual metaphor and through theapplications of this theory to vocabulary teaching and learning in analyzing polysemy,idioms, cultural implications in vocabulary and words connection. In addition, thesuggestion is also made to conduct more research and empirical experiments ofapplying conceptual metaphor theory to other aspects of foreign language teaching inthe conclusion of the thesis.