Metaphor Acquisition Research Of Chinese Basic Colour Words Of Native English Speakers

Color words,especially basic color words,are not given due emphasis in the process of Chinese teaching as a second language.Basic Chinese color words are rich in metaphorical meanings that they embody the unique way of thinking and cultural connotation of Chinese nation.Metaphor is an important way of understanding the world and metaphors of color words in different nations not only share some similarities but also have their own unique features.This thesis analyzes the metaphorical meaning of basic Chinese color words and those of English and compares the similarities and differences between them.On the basis of this,a questionnaire is designed to explore the acquisition of the metaphorical meaning of color words for foreign students in order to give some suggestions about how to learn basic Chinese color words for foreigners.I hope this thesis could give some help to Chinese teaching as a second language.This thesis is divided into six chapters:Chapter 1 is the introduction part.In this chapter,I will discuss the significance of this topic,the metaphor theories,background of metaphor study home and abroad,color words study from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and the current studies about Chinese color words and English color words.On the basis of this,I established my research ideas.Chapter 2 introduces the metaphor cognition of basic color words in Chinese and English.Firstly,I will review the theories of basic color terms.On the basis of the previous theories,I concentrated my study on six basic color words,namely:black,white,red,yellow,green and blue;then I will elaborate the work mechanism of metaphor.Metaphor is a process of learning one thing from another.Based on that,I analyze the metaphorical meanings and their extension process of the six color words and draw a diagram to explain the metaphorical meanings.We can see that the basic meaning of Chinese color words and English color words are all referring to specific colors and those colors can be sub-divided into many categories.Because of the different cultural background and ways of thinking between China and English nations,the sub-categories have different meanings.Chapter 3 compares the similarities and differences of the metaphorical meanings of the six basic color words between Chinese and English.Based on it,I categorize the metaphorical meanings into five corresponding types,namely:the same metaphorical meaning under the same color categories,partly the same metaphorical meaning under the same color categories,the same metaphorical meaning under different color categories,the lack of corresponding metaphorical meaning in the basic color words,different project meaning in their original meaning.According to C.Practor' s "difficulty level" theory,I managed to put the five types into different levels.According to the previous constructive analysis,Chapter 4 designs a questionnaire to 48 native English speakers who are learning Chinese in China to explore the situations of their acquisition of the metaphorical meanings of Chinese basic color words and try to analyze the elements that hindering their understanding the metaphorical meanings.The probable reasons are as follows:the sub-categories of basic color words;the frequency of using the basic color words;different social and cultural backgrounds;the mechanical transformation of metaphorical meaning from English to Chinese.Chapter 5 puts forward five suggestions on how to teach Chinese basic color words as a second language.Firstly,we need to raise the sense of metaphorical meaning of color words.Secondly,we need to set different learning goals according to different learning levels.Thirdly,we need to increase the input of metaphors.Fourthly,we need to emphasize the culture teaching.Lastly,we need to enhance the constructive analysis of metaphors between Chinese and English and improve metaphor awareness.At last,I summarize the previous parts and make a conclusion.No matter what kind of methods are taken in the teaching process of Chinese basic color words,the final purpose of metaphor study is to help students to understand and use Chinese basic color words better and improve their ability to use language.