1.1 Theory of conceptual metaphor
Metaphor has a long history in linguistics. Metaphor is a derivate from Latin(metaphora) and French (metaphor), with the meaning of transference. It is a kind ofmetaphor with implicit meaning which doesn’t refer to the objects of metaphor. It has2300 years of history to study metaphor, which can be traced back to the discussion ofAristotle. He declares that “so far, being an expertise in metaphor is the most magnificentthing”, and he thinks that metaphor is a language form, for which one linguistic form isreplaced by another yet the conveyed meaning remains unchanged. In general, thetraditional metaphor theory considers metaphor only as a device of language decorationand a form of rhetorical way of language, which is largely utilized by writers and poets.The contemporary metaphor research has made the great breakthrough to get rid of theconfinement of the traditional metaphor research, and develop towards cognitivelinguistics. Black and Richards are the first people to propose the concept of cognitivemetaphor. After that, the increasing attention has been attracted to research metaphor froma cognitive point of view. The book Metaphor We Live By was published by Johnson andLakoff marks the beginning of the new era of metaphor study. This book relates theinvestigation of metaphor to cognitive linguistics, and they hold the view that metaphor isa universal phenomenon, which exists not only in the language but also in what people actand think. It is metaphorical in nature that the everyday conceptual system on which werely to conduct acting and thinking. Traditionally, metaphor is merely acknowledged as arhetorical device, yet it is also viewed as thinking style currently. In a collaborative workof Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor is defined as a way of “undergoing or understanding anevent or object indirectly throughanother one”.
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1.2 Studies on vocabulary acquisition
Nevertheless, despite theimportance of vocabulary in learning foreign languages, much less work has been doneabout second language learners’ vocabulary compared to grammar, phonology anddiscourse studies, just as C. B. Zimmerman mentions “although the lexicon is central tolanguage acquisition arguably and use,… the teaching and learning of vocabulary havebeen undervalued in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA)” (Coady& Huckin, 1997:5)Fortunately, form the middle 1980s there has been a renewed interest in the role ofvocabulary in SLA, and the increasing number of empirically based studies of vocabularyacquisition have been conducted. These pedagogical materials and experimental studies onvocabulary learning and teaching indicate that language learners and instructors are awareof the importance of vocabulary increasingly.Most of these researches drop a hint that the enlarging language vocabulary has beenone of the aims of many English as Foreign Language learners and there has differentways to achieve this goal. The studies on vocabulary learning strategies are flowering:bilingual dictionary strategies, rote learning strategies/ mechanical, grouping strategies,key word strategies…etc. Different learners use different strategies. Schmitt’s study onvocabulary strategy reveals five vocabulary learning strategies and lists in the book “ATaxonomy of Vocabulary Learning Strategies” (Schmitt, 1991: 207，英语毕业论文，英语论文范文
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