1.1 Background of the Research
Cognitive linguists hold that the meaning of language mainly comes from theinteraction between human and the objective world. In recent years, researchers began toemphasize the application of the latest research achievements of cognitive linguistics to thestudy of second language acquisition. Among them, metaphor, as an interactional window inthe cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition and psycholinguistic theory, hasbecome a platform for exploring the relations between language, world and humanself-understanding. Under this background, research of learners’ metaphor comprehensionability has become one focus in the application of cognitive linguistics research. A growingnumber of studies have found that metaphor is a characteristic of native speakers. It reflects ahigh level of ability of the second language learners in the aspect of associative thinking andcritical thinking. For foreign language learners, since metaphor carries different culturalbackgrounds, learners’ relatively low level of language proficiency puts them at an obviousdisadvantage in the process of understanding metaphor.Many scholars have conducted research on language proficiency in the role ofmetaphor comprehension among English native speakers and second language learners. Dueto differences between Chinese English majors and non-English major students, the resultsdiffer a lot. This study contributes further evidence by making a comparative study of thedifferent types of metaphor comprehension between the arts and science students under thepremise of similar language proficiency, discussing whether there is significant difference inmetaphor comprehension ability between different subjects of English learners?
………….
1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research
Since the early 1980s, metaphoric theories have attracted much attention fromresearchers of second language acquisition (SLA) at home and abroad, including manyempirical studies. From the macroscopic view, metaphor researchers gave main concerns tocorpus, especially the comparison between Chinese corpus and English corpus in terms of theapplication of metaphors in various fields; while from the microscopic view, researchers paymore attention to mechanism of production and development of metaphor and so on. In thisthesis, we intend to investigate the relationship between the metaphor comprehension (MC)ability and different subjects. The research dimensions are illustrated in the following.(1) Through investigating the status-quo of metaphor understanding of SLA innon-English majors, we intend to see the learners’ current status of metaphoric competence.(2) Whether there are any differences between science and arts majors in English learningstyles? If so, whether these differences have impact on their MC ability?(3)Whether there are significant differences between the science and arts majors in foursub-types of MC?Based on these questions, the study hopes to shed some light on the relationship betweenMC ability and different subjects. Through systematical analysis, this study discusses whetherdifferent subjects can influence the understanding of metaphor. Through analyzing the data ofthe experiment systematically, this research aims to make learners pay more attention to thecultivation of TM and give certain enlightenment for E，英语毕业论文，英语论文
|
