A Study Of EFL Vocabulary Learning Based On Conceptual Metaphor

According to cognitive linguistics, metaphor is not just a matter of language, but of thought and reason. It is the main mechanism through which we comprehend abstract concepts and abstract reason. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) argue that when one conceptual domain is understood in terms of another conceptual domain, we have a conceptual metaphor. For example, we understand life in terms of journey; we understand time in terms of money. So we have conceptual metaphors LIFE IS JOURNEY, TIME IS MONEY. Hence we have such expressions as"We're at a crossroad";"We can't turn back now";"waste time";"invest time"and so on. The fact that a large amount of expressions are closely linked with conceptual metaphors contributes new insights into foreign language vocabulary learning. The application of conceptual metaphor theory has been drawing increasing attention within applied linguistics (Gibbs 1994, 1997;Kovecses & Szabó1996; Boers 2000). However, there is general lack of empirical support in EFL vocabulary learning in authentic college English learning and teaching in China for a long time. The present thesis is intended as an attempt to explore the effectiveness of the conceptual metaphor in college English vocabulary learning and teaching since vocabulary has been a top concern for many EFL learners in China. It is argued in the thesis that conceptual metaphor plays a positive role and produces better results than the traditional approach in vocabulary learning. In order to verify the effectiveness, an empirical study was undertaken. Two classes at Soochow University, being more or less the same in language proficiency, participated in an experiment, where different learning methods were employed. The experiment lasted two months. It consisted of a pre-test, a post-test, a delayed test, open-ended interviews as well as a series of classroom teaching and learning activities. The learning process and the development of the learning materials were designed in light of cognitive linguistic theories and the subjects'language proficiency.After the careful experiment and a systematic analysis of the statistic data via...