A Cognitive-Based Study On The Development Of Metaphorical Competence Of Chinese EFL Learners

In second language teaching, we are so often troubled by the unidiomatic L2 production of Chinese EFL learners, namely, the nonnative-likeness. It is not only a pedagogical issue, but also a cognitive one, which, however, is not firmly proved in theory. The cognitive view of metaphor has opened up a new theoretical perspective for the discussion of the present issue.The study of metaphor maintains that metaphor is a way of thinking. Ever with the frenzy of metaphor study, the proposal of"metaphorical competence"has help link the research of second language acquisition and cognitive linguistics. Metaphorical competence also helps us to perceive the underlying reasons for the long-time- devotion-but-low-efficiency problem which most of the EFL learners experience. This paper aims to research on nonnative-likeness from the perspective of metaphorical competence.This paper studies the current metaphorical competence of Chinese English learners by way of an empirical study in the aim of revealing the reasons for nonnative-likeness, namely, the lacking of metaphorical competence to reach conceptual fluency. The subjects of this study are 75 non-English majors and 57 English majors from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and 41 overseas students from Gannan Medical College in Jiangxi Province. The test paper is a modified version of Natalie's, consisting of two parts: metaphorical production ability and metaphorical comprehension ability. For the former, English majors and native speakers are chosen as the comparative groups of non-English majors, while in the latter, only the English majors are chosen.The main findings of the current research are:1. there is a big gap between Chinese English learners and the native speakers in terms of metaphorical competence;2. non-English majors share the same difficulties with English majors in metaphorical competence, with their metaphorical comprehension ability higher than metaphorical production ability;3. metaphorical competence is one of the important indicators of one's language proficiency level, and the performance of English majors shows that they have an edge over non-English majors.This paper also makes contribution to the theoretical aspect. From the cognitive point of view, the reason for low metaphorical competence of Chinese EFL learners mainly lies in the differences in the two conceptual systems of Chinese and English, which lead to the learners'"conceptual transfer". So, a Cognition Space which includes both L1 and L2 is added to the Blending framework and this space, and it helps us analyze the influence of L1 conceptualization upon L2 comprehension and production.The present study also illuminates that metaphorical competence can be acquired through learning and practice, and it is even possible to achieve native-like conceptual fluency, namely, nonnative-likeness can be surmounted. As the improvement of metaphorical competence facilitates the development of language proficiency; the teachers should attend to cultivate the learners'metaphorical awareness.