An Analysis Of Conceptual Metaphor In Chinese College Entrance Examination

Conceptual Metaphor Theory was first proposed by Lakoff and Johnson in their masterpiece Metaphors We Live By in 1980, which brought the study of metaphor into a cognitive field. The cognitive research on metaphor makes metaphor get rid of the traditional rhetorical study. With the development of the research, many scholars applied conceptual metaphor theory in the field of teaching, but these research is mainly about English vocabulary and reading. With the object of the study being college students, the study of the compositions written by Chinese high school students is rarely seen.From the point of view of conceptual metaphor theory and through a qualitative analysis, the author discusses the conceptual metaphors which is used in students’ compositions for the university entrance exams, collected from the years 2010 to 2014.The study finds that the students use a lot of metaphorical expressions in their compositions, especially the structural metaphor, ontological metaphor and orientational metaphor. Based on the research finding, the author puts forward some suggestions to the teaching of Chinese composition in senior high school.