Application Of Cognitive Function Of Metaphor To Textual Vocabulary Teaching

Based on the similarities and mappings between two domains, the known and the unknown, cognitive function of metaphor of spatial metaphor, structural metaphor and conceptual metaphor, helps students to get meanings of vocabularies and eventually to understand the whole discourse with some connotations. In the book "Metaphor We Live By(1980)", Lakoff and Johnson suggested that cognitive function of metaphor acts as a powerful tool to help students learn the unknown meanings of words, phrases and sentences at discourse by analyzing the whole content of text. Thus, the author thinks that the cognitive function of metaphor can be used as an effective method for textual vocabulary teaching.The problems in vocabulary learning lie in the students’ neglect of discourse and the failure in grasping the polysemous meaning of words at discourse, therefore, the study focuses on two questions: 1)Based on the understanding of the vocabulary’s original meaning, whether the cognitive functions of spatial metaphor and structural metaphor can help learners perform better in understanding this vocabulary ’ s extended meaning? 2) Whether cognitive functions of the conceptual metaphor can enable students to perform better in derivation of the unknown vocabulary and understanding of the whole discourse by grasping the relationship between the known and the unknown vocabularies?During the study, 97 non-English major sophomores from Shanxi University are selected as subjects to take pretests and post-tests for the collection of corresponding data. All the data are analyzed with Wordsmith, as the main textual analysis tool, to illustrate the effects of spatial metaphor and structural metaphor and conceptual metaphor in vocabulary teaching through tests, questionnaires, etc.The major findings of this research shows that EG(empirical Group) students conducted with studying of cognitive function of metaphor are at a higher level than that of NEG( non-empirical Group) in vocabulary and discourse understanding. And obviously, students conducted with studying of cognitive function of metaphor can be cultivated and expanded to be more professional in textual vocabulary learning in a short period of timeIt is expected that the above findings of this study will have some educational implication for textual vocabulary teaching. With the guidance of the teacher, students can grasp the unknown meanings of words at discourse accurately and correctly so as to understand the whole text.