An Empirical Investigation into Acceptance of English Metaphors by Chinese Learners of L2 English开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义

Metaphor, with its diverse andimaginative features, has become one of the most representative rhetoricaldevices. With the deepening of the study of metaphors, researchers begin tofind that it is not merely a figure of speech, or just a linguistic phenomenon,but has become a significant mode of thinking. Taking native Chinese speakers(college English major students classified according to the grades of TEM4) asobjects, this research adopts the method of questionnaire survey to study thedifficulty of production caused by different types of metaphors as well asunderstand metaphorical productive competence of learners at different proficiencylevels. The main significances of this topic are asfollows:

1. In the long run, the cultivation of metaphors productive competence can not only help the students to enrich their language expression, but also attribute to develop their innovative thinking ability, enhancing their interest and confidence in English learning process.
2. On this basis, the research of metaphors has produced the enlightenment for foreign language teaching. Regarding it as a new teaching approach, English teachers can adjust and improve their teaching methods according to the difficulties of diverse types of metaphors and the differences of metaphorical production level of native Chinese speakers, bringing new vigor to English teaching.

2. 研究内容和预期目标

taking native chinesespeakers (college english major students classified according to the grades oftem4) as objects, this research adopts the method of questionnaire survey tostudy the difficulty of production caused by different types of metaphors aswell as understand metaphorical productive competence of learners at differentproficiency levels. the mainresearch contents are as follows:

1. through literature review, this topic introduces the different classifications of metaphors from existing literature.
2. by designing a multiple-choice questionnaire on the comprehension of metaphors in two different types, this topic studies the difficulty of production caused by different types of metaphors.
3. compare the metaphorical productivecompetence of learners at different proficiency levels.

2.2 关键问题

3. 国内外研究现状

as a part of cognitive linguistics, metaphor hasdeveloped rapidly in recent years. as a whole, the study of conceptual metaphorin china is on the rise. with the frequent culturalexchanges and communications between china and the western countries, variouslinguistic theories have been known to the domestic academic circles,especially georgelakoff and johnson mark''''s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory. based on this, many experts and scholarshave started to carry out relevant studies.

in thearticles related to this topic, many scholars have made a large number ofinvestigations and researches on native chinese speakers'''' metaphoricalcompetence and production levels. they have also putforward some concrete countermeasures against the low level of english metaphorability, which gives some enlightenment to english teaching.

aseel zibin (2016)selects one hundred advanced speakers native of jordanian arabic whose majorenglish language and literature. they have the sufficient degree of englishproficiency required for the test. by asking participants to analyze thefigurative meaning and conceptual basis of metaphors in the examples sentencesprovided, the study reveals the extent to which jordanian language learners areable to create metaphors in english. the results reveal that even though theparticipants'''' scores were poor, they exhibit a general capacity to producemetaphysical expressions that are similar in meaning to the ones required onthe test, sparing their 1conceptual and linguistic knowledge. on this basis,the author suggests that second language teachers should pay more attention to metaphorical/metonymicalexpressions, especially to the importance of metaphor ineveryone’s daily expression.

4. 计划与进度安排

1．before 2022-11-10 —— topic selection

2．before 2022-11-27 —— opening report

3.before 2022-01-18 —— textcollection and part 2-4

5. 参考文献

aseel zibin,(2016). on the production ofmetaphors and metonymies by jordanian efl learners: acquisition and implications. topics in linguistics, (17(2), pp. 42-44).