A Comparative Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Chinese EFL Scholars’ And English Native Scholars’ Academic English Writing

Conceptual Metaphor Theory(CMT)proposed by Lakoff and Johnson(1980)claims that metaphors are pervasive in daily life and exist in our thought.As the genre accounting for a large proportion of metaphors,academic discourse is worth great attention.The existing studies on conceptual metaphors in academic discourse mainly focus on comparison between different registers and languages and the analysis is limited to specific metaphor category or certain part of an article,failing to present a full picture of metaphors in academic discourse.In view of the growing trend for Chinese scholars to publish internationally and the important role of conceptual metaphors,it is necessary to make a comprehensive analysis of metaphors in academic discourse.Besides,with the aim to help Chinese scholars improve academic English writing,a comparison of metaphor use between Chinese EFL scholars and English native scholars is of value.Based on CMT,this study explores the use of conceptual metaphor by Chinese EFL scholars and English native scholars in academic writing on the topic of second language acquisition.The data consists of 30 research articles selected from four international journals,15 of which are written by Chinese EFL scholars and the other 15 by English native scholars.The quantitative method is used to calculate the type and token of metaphorical expressions while the qualitative method is employed to group the metaphor categories,analyze the mappings and discuss the similarities and differences.This thesis draws the following conclusions: first,in both Chinese EFL scholars’ and English native scholars’ academic writing,conceptual metaphors from ten source domains are most frequently used,namely HUMAN,JOURNEY,MACHINE,BUILDING,MONEY,DRAMA AND PLAY,GAME AND SPORT,WAR,PHYSICAL PROPERTY and AREA.Most of the elements of source domains are correspondent with the elements of target domains concerning research and second language learning process.Second,similarities coexist with differences.In terms of category,the ten most frequent metaphors used by Chinese scholars are the same as those by English native scholars,but the mappings are not exactly the same.Meanwhile,the two author groups bear much resemblance in metaphorical expressions.In terms of resonance,English native scholars and Chinse EFL scholars differ in the tokens as well as the percentage of total resonance of each metaphor category.Differences also exist in the frequency of metaphor use in some subcategories.Similarities can be attributed to the universal experiences,the academic writing convention and the strong awareness of identity construction.Differences are rooted in different bodily experiences,which lead to different cognitive preferences and styles.In addition,scholars’ language expertise also exerts impact on metaphor use.Theoretically,the study further proves the pervasiveness of metaphor in human life and enriches the understanding of the relationship between metaphor and culture,as well as between metaphor and identity construction.Methodologically,this study uses the corpus analysis and comparison tool W-matrix to identify the metaphors semiautomatically.Pedagogically,a comprehensive analysis of metaphors can be helpful for Chinese scholars in understanding and conducting academic English writing,especially for those who want to publish internationally,and offer some inspirations to teachers of academic English writing courses.