Effects Of L1 Knowledge And Context On L2 Metaphor Comprehension

Studies have investigated effects of context and learner's native language on second language metaphor comprehension.But previous studies have not yet rested on common ground.Moreover,few studies have explored the role of learner's language proficiency on metaphor comprehension.More efforts,therefore,should be invested to explore the three factors:L1,context and L2 language proficiency of learners.Following this objective,the current study aims at finding out the effects of these three factors on L2 metaphor comprehension.Three research questions are raised as follows:(1)How does L1 knowledge influence Chinese L2 learners'metaphor comprehension?(2)How does context influence Chinese L2 learners'metaphor comprehension?(3)How does English proficiency influence Chinese EFL learners' metaphor comprehension?The present study invited 180 participants in total,who were divided into two groups(the higher proficiency group and the lower proficiency group)based on their performances in an English placement test.Each of the two proficiency groups was further divided into three subgroups.Three metaphor translation tests were designed in the present study.The three tests contained the same 18 English metaphors,but the metaphors in the three tests were presented in three different contexts,i.e.,metaphors used in sentences,metaphors in dialogues,and metaphors in short passages.The metaphors in the tests were classified into three categories based on the similarities with and differences from their Chinese counterparts in terms of the conceptual and linguistic knowledge.Each of the higher/lower proficiency groups took one of the three metaphor translation tests.The participants' translations were rated on the scale of 0-1 on the premise of whether the translations yielded accurate understandings of tested metaphors.Results indicated that L1 knowledge had a positive effect on learners'comprehension of English metaphors.The participants scored significantly higher in the passage-form test than they did in the dialogue-form test,and the scores of dialogue-form test were significantly higher than those of sentence-form test.It was also found that context could facilitate their comprehension,but its effect diminished when English metaphors and their Chinese equivalents were conceptually and linguistically similar to each other.No significance was found when comparing the translation scores of one category across three test except the category of metaphors with no conceptual nor linguistic similarities.For this category,participants scored highest in the passage-form test and their scores were significantly higher than those in dialogue-form,with the latter significantly higher than those in sentence-form test.No effect of proficiency was found on metaphor comprehension:participants of higher language proficiency did not score significantly higher than participants of lower language proficiency across the three tests or three categories of the metaphors.The findings in this study shed some light on the improvements of pedagogical methods in teaching L2 metaphors.