On The Covert Nonnative-Likeness Phenomenon In Lexical Domain Of English-major Students

Recent research has demonstrated that Covert Nonnative-Likeness Phenomenon (CNLP) could not be ignored in foreign language learning and teaching. With an empirical study, this paper makes an investigation into the existence, representation and causes of CNLP within lexical domain among English-major college students from the perspective of cognitive metaphor. The efforts are also made to probe into the development of their metaphorical competence. It is expected that these endeavors may offer some instructive suggestions for contemporary Chinese foreign language learning and teaching under the framework of cognitive linguistics.This paper first reviews relevant research on CNLP, including the popping of this term, the supportive evidence and discussions on its causes. Then the introduction of the theory of Conceptual Fluency and Metaphorical Competence are presented. What's more, the research on lexical learning is also taken into reviewing.Based on the previous studies, four specific predictions are put forward regarding CNLP in lexical domain. The results unveil that CNLP largely exists in English-major college students'acceptable L2 expressions. CNLP may decrease and metaphorical expressions may go up with the promotion of language proficiency. However, their development level of metaphorical competence is limited. It is notable that their awareness of avoiding CNLP is significantly obvious which proves the developability and learnability of metaphorical competence and CNLP can be finally avoided.