Chinese College English Majors' Comprehension Of English Metaphors

Although studies on metaphor in western countries enjoy a long history, traditional approaches to metaphors view metaphors as a figure of speech. It is not until 1980s that a great breakthrough was made in the academic field of metaphor. The publication of the masterpiece titled metaphors we live by written by Lakoff and Johnson turned a new leaf in cognitive study of metaphor. It is in this book that the two authors first linked metaphors to conceptual systems and proposed revolutionary conceptual metaphor theory. According to conceptual metaphor theory,"our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature". Accordingly, from the perspective of cognition, an influential relevance theory was produced by Sperber and Wilson, the theory assumed that the hypothesis of cognitive context of the hearer plays a vital role in utterance understanding.Domestic metaphor studies, which mainly focus on conceptual metaphors, conceptual blending, spatial metaphors and metonymy, are fruitful. Because the beginning of studies on metaphor at home is comparably late, some aspects of studies on metaphor do not spread in detail. For example, studies on metonymic concepts, comparative studies on conceptual basis of English and Chinese. In addition, the applicable value of cognitive metaphor theory is not embodied in learning and teaching. Based on previous studies on metaphor at home and abroad, the present study tries to combine metaphor and metonymy from the cognitive-pragmatic perspective, and explores the issue of metaphor comprehension. The questions to be solved are: (1) Do conceptual basis and context affect L2 learners'metaphor comprehension? (2) Do subjects understand metaphorical expressions with equivalent conceptual basis between English and Chinese easier than those with different conceptual basis? (3) What are the implications to learning and teaching?From the perspective of cognitive metaphor theory, the research selected materials relevant to metaphorical expressions of body-part domain and emotion domain. The materials were originated from corpora, dictionaries and magazines. Kovecses pointed out that the linguistic form should not be neglected in the comparative study of conceptual metaphors. Deignan et al suggested that a comparative analysis of conceptual metaphors could fall into four possible types of variation between two languages, and Charteris-Black put forward six possible types. The present research compared the metaphorical expressions of English and Chinese. From perspectives of conceptual basis and linguistic forms of the two languages, metaphorical expressions in the present research were subdivided into 5 types: (1) equivalent conceptual basis, equivalent linguistic form (2) equivalent conceptual basis, similar linguistic form (3) equivalent conceptual basis, different linguistic form (4) different conceptual basis, equivalent linguistic form. (5) different conceptual basis, different linguistic form.Subjects involved in the study were sophomores from two intact parallel classes in Lanzhou City's College. The English level of the two classes was relatively proximate. The subjects who participated in the test totaled 83, and 3 test papers were considered to be invalid. There were two sets of test papers which contained the same metaphorical expression, the variation is that the test for Class B involved relevant context. After the test, the mean scores were analyzed by ANONA, and multiple comparisons were made. The result showed statistical significances (p<.05) between types with equivalent conceptual basis of the two languages ( e.g. Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3) and ones with different conceptual basis of the two languages (e.g. Type 4 and Type 5) , and the second question was explored. ANONA showed that type and context have statistical significances (p<.05) with regards to metaphor comprehension. Thus the first question was explored.The tentative conclusions drawn from the research are: Conceptual basis and relevant context influence metaphor comprehension, and the subjects understand metaphors with equivalent conceptual basis of the two languages easier. In addition, the research claims that type and context have interactive effect and the linguistic form also effects subjects'metaphor comprehension.Some suggestions for the establishment of conceptual syllabus and the application of cognition-based approach to learning and teaching are made. From the theoretical perspective, the present research analyzes the role that context plays in metaphor comprehension.