An Empirical Study On Metaphoric Competence And Lexical Cognitive Ability Among International Chinese Learners In China

The current study investigated the lexical cognitive ability and metaphoric competence among 100 international Chinese learners in China.The study first examines general picture of learners' lexical cognitive ability and metaphoric competence,and then explores the relationship between the two.The testing tools employed for assessing learners' lexical cognitive ability are Receptive Vocabulary Size Test and Chinese Vocabulary Association Test.The testing tools adopted for measuring learners' metaphoric competence are Metaphor Recognition Questionnaire,Metaphor Comprehension Test and Metaphor Interpretation Test.The data collected were processed by SPSS(24.0).After statistical analysis,the main findings are as follows:First,learners' lexical cognitive ability is above average.Learners' breadth knowledge for Chinese vocabulary is excellent,which basically meets the requirements of the "Outline for HSK Vocabulary and Chinese Characters Level" for preliminary Chinese learners.Learners' depth knowledge for Chinese vocabulary is at a medium to high level,proving to have a good grasp of the pronunciation,form,meaning,collocation of Chinese words within HSK level 4.Second,learners have excellent metaphor recognition ability,and are capable of recognizing the common metaphoric expressions and sentences in Chinese language easily.Learners have relatively good metaphor comprehension ability.Learners'ability to interpret metaphors is poor,and can only decipher the metaphoric expressions from a single and shallow perspective.Third,there is a positive correlation between the lexical cognitive ability and the ability of metaphor recognition and comprehension,but the correlation is low;there is no correlation between the lexical cognitive ability and metaphor interpretation ability.Furthermore,there are significant differences in metaphor recognition ability and metaphor comprehension ability between learners whose lexical cognitive ability is in high-score group and that of low-score group,but no significant differences are found in the two groups in terms of their metaphor interpretation ability.Based on the findings of the current study,we believe that lexical cognitive ability is one of the factors affecting learners' metaphoric competence,but there are other factors playing more important role.Vocabulary k:nowledge is the basis on which learners can have a general understanding of metaphoric expressions and sentences.However,in-depth understanding of the concepts embodied in the metaphoric expressions involves more factors,such as cultural background,mode of thinking,individual differences and so on.Also,the improvement of metaphoric competence will also play a positive role in enhancing learners' lexical cognitive ability,especially in expanding their depth knowledge for Chinese vocabulary.Finally,this paper also provides some enlightenment for the improvement of lexical cognitive level and metaphoric competence.