The Application Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory To College English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary teaching is an important element in the process of English teaching. However, under the guide of traditional teaching methods, students are only required to recite English vocabularies, grasp their Chinese meanings and do some translation exercises between English and Chinese. These methodologies fail to help students to master the comprehensive meanings of vocabularies. As a result, it is difficult for them to apply what they have learnt correctly and vividly in practical communication. What’s worse, they even make some mistakes in comprehension. To change the current situation, scholars at home and abroad apply metaphors to vocabulary teaching.It is generally believed by traditional metaphor theory that metaphor is a kind of rhetorical device used for comparison in literary works. However, Lakoff and Johnson published Metaphors We Live By in 1980, and it has been widely accepted that metaphor, in essence, is the cognitive code in human’s abstract thought. They hold that conceptual metaphor is a cognitive activity in which people use the experience of a certain conceptual domain to cognize and understand that of another; it is also a powerful tool for us to explore, describe, experience and explain new scenarios. Metaphors help us to use the known and concrete objects to comprehend the unknown and abstract objects. So it is practicable and accessible to apply metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching, and Conceptual Metaphor Theory closely combines them together.This thesis, to begin with, briefly introduces the current situations and development directions of English vocabulary teaching abroad and at home. Next, theoretical frameworks of Conceptual Metaphor Theory are given, such as, definition, basic elements, working mechanism and classification to make clear the relationships between conceptual metaphor and language expressions. Next, an analysis of the importance and current condition of college English vocabulary teaching and the implication of Conceptual Metaphor Theory on college English vocabulary teaching are presented, which demonstrates the sufficiency and necessity of applying Conceptual Metaphor Theory to college English vocabulary teaching. Then, the application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory to college English vocabulary teaching is illustrated and some advantages of Conceptual Metaphor Theory over traditional English vocabulary teaching methods are summarized. In the end, some suggestions are proposed for English vocabulary teaching: teachers should take conceptual metaphor as a mode of cognition and put it into college English vocabulary teaching. At the same time, they should pay more attention to cultivating students’ metaphorical competence.