An Empirical Study On The Application Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Year-2 Students Of Senior High School

Vocabulary,as one of the three key elements of language,is the foundation of constructing language.Vocabulary teaching is the top priority of English teaching,and its teaching effect impacts the quality of English teaching as a whole.However,at present,due to the high density of high school English vocabulary and the complexity of word meaning changes,the effect of high school students’ English vocabulary learning is not satisfactory.At present,the vocabulary teaching methods adopted by most teachers generally have certain defects.In teaching,teachers usually focus on the surface meaning of vocabulary and its use in specific language environments,but seldom explain the meaning and use of vocabulary from a cognitive level.In this way,even though the students spend plenty of time memorizing words after class,their efforts proved of little avail.For the sake of ameliorating this circumstance,studying the application of conceptual metaphor theory to senior high school English vocabulary teaching from the perspective of cognitive linguistics has become the main content of this study.This theory highlights the cognitive factors of human beings in the process of vocabulary understanding,and provides a new research direction for senior high school English vocabulary teaching.On the basis of the previous studies,this study took constructivist teaching theory and cognitive psychology theory as the theoretical foundations.Through a three-month teaching experiment,it explored the feasibility and effectiveness of applying conceptual metaphor theory to senior high school English vocabulary teaching.In this study,a total of 103 year-2 students from Class 15 and Class 16 in Urumqi Senior High School were selected as the research objects.Among them,Class15 was the control class,which was taught with the traditional vocabulary teaching method;Class 16 was the experimental class,which was taught with the vocabulary teaching method based on conceptual metaphor theory.And the following questions were addressed in this research: 1.What is the current situation of English vocabulary learning of year-2 students in Urumqi Senior High School? 2.Can the application ofconceptual metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching improve the students’ English vocabulary scores in grade two of high school? 3.Can the application of conceptual metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching enhance the students’ interest in vocabulary learning in grade two of high school? The research tools of this experiment included questionnaires,vocabulary tests and interview.The author analyzed the collected experimental data in detail adopting SPSS 17.0.The major findings were presented as follows: After a three-month teaching experiment,it was confirmed that the students’ vocabulary scores in the experimental class were markedly improved compared with those in the control class.This shows that applying conceptual metaphor theory to vocabulary teaching is a practical and effective vocabulary teaching method that can improve the students’ English vocabulary scores.In addition,from the results of the post-questionnaire and the interview,it was concluded that vocabulary teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory greatly increased students’ interest in vocabulary learning,enabled students to memorize vocabulary on the basis of understanding,thereby transforming the vocabulary learning process from passive memorization to active exploration.