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摘 要

随着概念隐喻的提出，隐喻不再只被认为是一种修辞手法而是一种重要的认知工具，并且我们的语言中包含大量的隐喻,因此在英语词汇教学中隐喻的认知作用不可忽视。本文首先系统地呈现概念隐喻包括概念隐喻的定义、运行机制和分类。其次，阐述对学生隐喻意识的培养，并从多义词、习语、派生词和单词的文化含义等方面研究概念隐喻在英语词汇教学中的应用。

关键字：概念隐喻；英语词汇教学；隐喻意识

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1Aristotle’s comparison view 1

2.2 Lakoff amp; Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory 2

2.3 Studies applying the conceptual metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching 3

3. The Premise of the Application: Cultivation of Students’ Metaphorical Awareness 4

4. Applications of Conceptual Metaphor Theory in English Vocabulary Teaching 5

4.1 In teaching polysemic words 5

4.2 In teaching idioms 6

4.3 In teaching derivational terms 7

4.4 In teaching the cultural implications of words 9

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

In a long time, teachers have focued more on vocabulary when teaching English. Learning vocabulary covers learning words’ meanings and words’ usages in concrete contexts. People can use words correctly on the premise of knowing the words’ meaning. English teachers need a good way to teach words’ meaning, and conceptual metaphor is one of cognitive tools to acquire words’ meaning. Due to huge amount of words in a second language, students inevitably have problems in the process of learning English words. Therefore, it is highly recommended for teachers to apply the conceptual metaphor theory into English vocabulary teaching.

The significance of this thesis can be known from three points. Firstly, metaphor has a cognitive significance, so this thesis can bring a new way to teach English vocabulary. Secondly, this thesis helps students and teachers develop the habits of learning things with metaphoric thinking. Thirdly, this thesis encourages more people to apply the conceptual metaphor to other academic fields. The purpose of this thesis is to encourage teachers to use the concept metaphor in English vocabulary teaching.

The content of this thesis can be divided into four parts. Part one is about the background and the significance of this thesis. Part two is Aristotle’s and Layoff’s views on metaphor and the studies adopting the conceptual metaphor theory into English vocabulary teaching. Part Three puts forward applications in English vocabulary teaching on the basis of the conceptual metaphor. Part Four gives a short summary of the thesis.

2. Literature Review

2.1Aristotle’s comparison view

Aristotle plays an important role in the field of classic theory of metaphor. In The Poetics, he defines that “metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else” (qtd. in Kjargaard, 1986:11). This is a traditional definition which emphasizes the transference of meaning. Its mechanism is “the application of an alien name by transference from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion” (qtd. in Mahon, 2001:71). As to the function of metaphor, he believes “metaphor can raise the diction above the level of the commonplace” (qtd. in Hawkes, 1980:8). He thinks metaphor is a kind of rhetoric and metaphor could just be used in literary works. Aristotle’s opinion is later developed into the comparison theory.

2.2 Lakoff amp; Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory

In the process of metaphor’s development, there is a theory of metaphor called conceptual metaphor theory. According to the famous cognitive linguists Lakoffamp; Johnson, “we have found that metaphor allows us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another” (Lakoffamp; Johnson, 1980:117). They call the domain with the knowledge we have learnt “the source domain” and the domain with the knowledge we will learn “the target domain”. Most source domain knowledge comes from our daily life and they are our experience. The progress from the source domain to the target domain is called mapping. The criterion of mapping is the metaphor and cultural coherence.

Lakoff and his colleague study the metaphor theory and make progress. They think the working mechanism is the transference of meaning between the source domain and the target domain. For example, in the concept metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, the source domain is the journey which is the thing we are familiar with, and the target domain is life which is the abstract concept we want to learn. We may explain that the destination of the journey is thought as the aim in one’s life; the barriers in the journey are equal to the difficulties in his or her life.

The conceptual metaphors consist of three types according to the types of source domains.

Structural metaphors

In structural metaphors, “one concept is structured in terms of another in a metaphorical way” (Lakoff amp; Johnson, 1980: 14). It means we can learn the unfamiliar and abstract concept from the familiar concept. For example, we all know the concept ARGUMENT, so we can firstly study the following conceptual metaphor with some sentences on an argument.

ARGUMENT IS WAR

He attacked every weak point in my argument.

His criticisms were right on target.

If you use that strategy, he will wipe you out.

We can find we always use the concept of war when we argue. In fact, there is really no war but some features of a war in the structure of an argument, as reflected in words like defense, attack, strategies, etc. In western culture, the situation of argument is really like a war. Two groups make thorough strategies in order to achieve the victory of the argument. In this situation, we apply one concept of the structure of war to the structure of an argument.

Orientational metaphors

The orientational metaphor is different from the structural metaphor in its source domain. The source domain covers the whole concept of the target domain. The source domains of orientational metaphors are concerned with spatial orientation. Usually, spatial orientation includes in, out, up, down, etc. Most expressions of orientational metaphors come from physical experience and cultural experience in daily life. For example, erect posture can give us the information that someone is in a good mood, so we always use “up” to represent “happy”. We can say I feel up today. Humans usually lie down when sleeping. When humans awaken, they often stand up, so we use “up” to represent “conscious”. We can say I often wake up at 7 o’clock.

Ontological metaphors

In ontological metaphors, we can identify our experiences as entities or substances (Lakoff amp; Johnson, 1980: 25). We must talk about the container metaphor when we mention the ontological metaphor. We can discuss the container metaphor in three aspects. In the aspect of land area, an area is a container. For example, there is a lot of land in China. In the aspect of visual field, the visual field can be considered as a container. For example, the lovely girl in red is out of sight. Now let’s look at the following examples in the aspects of the events, actions, activities and states.

“Are you in the race on Sunday?”

In sweeping the floor, I found a coin at the corner.

I spend much time in carrying these heavy boxes.

He is in love.

2.3 Studies applying the conceptual metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching

Since Lakoff and Johnson (1980) put forward the conceptual metaphor, the metaphor has not been just considered as a kind of rhetoric but an important cognitive tool. Our language contains a huge amount of metaphors. We cannot ignore metaphor in our language teaching. Some western scholars began doing some researches on English teaching according to the conceptual metaphor, such as Baker (1998: 13-14), Littlermore ＆Boers (2005: 241-261), Boers (2000: 137-147) and so on. Some Chinese scholars also encouraged to teach English under the guidance of the conceptual metaphor, such as Su Dingfang＆Tang Benqing(2002: 1-6), Cai Longquan(2005: 21-26) and so on. Their researches are mainly about the feasibility and necessity of the link between English teaching and the conceptual metaphor. Jiang Xianju (2010: 44-50) did the empirical research on the cultivation of the metaphorical awareness of Chinese students.

3 The Premise of the Application: Cultivation of Students’ Metaphorical Awareness

The conceptual metaphor is an essential tool to know more about semantic changes, so teachers should help students construct the awareness of the conceptual metaphor: firstly, teachers should let students know the conceptual metaphor theory is an important tool to help them learn vocabulary. Only if this theory gets students’ attention, they will try to apply this knowledge into practice; secondly, teachers can give a clear explanation of conceptual metaphor’s working mechanism. We can understand metaphor by using two conceptual domains to conduct a mapping. For example, in the sentence “conceptual domain (A) is conceptual domain (B)”, A is the target domain that we want to learn about and B is the source domain of which we have learnt the concept. Teachers can help students understand target domain according to its connection with people’s physical experience. This teaching approach can make students have a deep comprehension of what they have learnt; thirdly, let students do some homework about the knowledge of conceptual metaphor. For instance, teachers can ask students to translate English metaphorical expressions into Chinese. In this way students will think about the metaphorical expressions’ meanings. Teachers can also let students fill the blanks with metaphorical expressions or write a paper by use of a metaphorical expression; fourthly, English teachers should try their best to improve their metaphorical awareness first. Then they can import their metaphorical awareness to their students in school life. If teachers often communicate with their students in the way of metaphor, students will understand the conceptual metaphor well and they are willing to accept the conceptual metaphor. Most students would find it is interesting to talk with metaphor. Students put the conceptual metaphor into practice by themselves, which is the stepping stone to develop the metaphorical awareness. If English teachers can cultivate metaphorical awareness systematically, this will accelerate the process of the formation of metaphorical awareness immensely. The wrong behaviour teachers need to avoid is to force students to do the exercise on metaphor. The cultivation of metaphorical awareness is a long and gradual progress. Otherwise, students may be reluctant to accept the conceptual metaphor or even reject this theory, which is not beneficial to English vocabulary teaching.

In this way students can bear in mind the mechanism of the conceptual metaphor and improve their metaphorical competence. What is more, we develop the metaphorical thinking of students and encourage students to train their creativity and imagination. In English vocabulary teaching, metaphorical awareness can bring interesting cultural implications to the boring vocabulary study. There is no doubt that it can attract the attention of students well and develop the interest of learning English vocabulary. In the long term, students and teachers can make a good atmosphere of teaching English vocabulary with metaphorical awareness. The metaphorical competence of students can improve the efficiency in the memory of vocabularies.

4. Applications of Conceptual Metaphor Theory in English Vocabulary Teaching

4.1 In teaching polysemic words

In general, students have a lot of difficulty in memorizing many words let alone using them skillfully. They usually remember words in a mechanical way rather than in a systemic way, so this memory won’t last long. In other words, they often recite the vocabularies slowly but forget them quickly. What is more, teachers have to finish their practice of teaching all words in class, which will also increase teachers’ teaching difficulties. Besides, a word usually has many meanings. In English language, there is a large amount of polysemic words. Students can find polysemic words when they look through textbooks and dictionaries. Let’s show an example of “head”. Many Chinese students know that “head” is an organ of our body. But “head” can be regarded as an important person, leader, the brain or mind. Many Chinese students only know the first meaning but are not familiar with the rest for the reason that they just remember words in a mechanical way rather than establish connections between meanings.

Chinese students may apply the conceptual metaphor theory to facilitating the acquisition of vocabulary. Based on people’s everyday experience, we know head is an indispensable controlling centre of our body. It is the top part; meanwhile, it controls the operation of the whole body. According to these features, when we transfer the original meaning of “head” to other domains, “head” has some other meanings in the expressions such as “head of department”, “the head of government” and “the deputy head”. If young Chinese students develop the awareness of metaphor, they will guess the new meaning of “head” even though they never learn this meaning. In short, we will learn polysemic terms much easier if the underlying links between meanings of the same word can be understood through metaphorical thinking.

4.2 In teaching idioms

The idiom is generally a kind of conventional formation with its own meaning. People cannot understand them only in terms of the combination of each word’s meaning; so many idioms’ meanings are regarded as being arbitrary in many cases. Idioms’ linguistic meaning is independent of human beings’ conceptual system and traditional knowledge but related to human beings’ cognitive way of thinking, exactly speaking, with conceptual metaphor for the reason that idioms are fixed phrases and have fixed meanings. However, many Chinese students and teachers do not recognize the fact. They just learn and teach the second language in a mechanical way. This unreasonable way just results in a bad effect. Teachers often teach students idioms in pains in the long term, and students usually learn idioms with much effort but forget them quickly. The phrase “make one’s blood boil” is a case in point. People should know its connotation and bear it in mind. We know liquid can be heated up to the boiling point from our personal experience. This idiom exactly derives from such experience. “The boiling point” means that someone is angry. If teachers cannot help students establish the connection between idioms and our personal experience, it is very difficult for students to grasp the idioms well. So it is necessary for teachers and students to apply conceptual theory into our vocabulary learning.

Metaphor exists in many idioms about our daily life. It is effective and efficient to learn idioms through the conceptual metaphor. We study the sentence “Love IS a JOURNEY”, and we often use the expression of a journey to modify our love. We can find the correspondence between the expression in idioms and the meanings of these idioms. For example, the idiom “We are spinning our wheels” does not mean that the car cannot move but that there are some problems in love. The source domain is the problem that the car cannot move in the journey. The target domain is the problem in love. If they want to enjoy their journey, they have to solve this problem together. From the aspect of metaphorical thinking, they have to deal with the problem in their love together if they love each other. Let’s study another example. We know the idiom “She sank into a coma” means she is unconscious in the orientational metaphor “UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN”. According to the ontological metaphor, states can be viewed as containers. For example, the idiom “be in low spirits” means someone is depressed. If teachers always use the conceptual metaphor to understand idioms and help students develop this habit, students will learn idioms efficiently and understand them easily.

4.3 In teaching derivational terms

Vocabulary is the first barrier when students learn English. Many words are derivational terms, so it is very necessary for students to learn the affixes well. However, many students do not find the importance of affixes and just memorize the derivational terms in a mechanical way. Some teachers think it is too difficult for students to learn affixes which are not included in the teaching task. Even though teachers teach students affixes, most students just remember one meaning of an affix and forget this meaning in a short while.

We know most derivational terms consist of bases and affixes in lexicology, and many affixes have their own meanings in the words. According to Li Pingwu (2003:44), affixes can be classified from meanings because both prefixes and suffixes have the semantic value. Affixes define, modify and complement bases. In general, as long as we combine all the meanings of bases with those of affixes, the basic meanings of derivational terms can be infered. However, many meanings of derivational terms are not simply equal to the conjunction of the original meanings of affixes and bases, and we need to study and understand them on the base of the emergence and development of the meanings of derivational terms.

According to Lakoff (1980:6), “the most important claim we have made so far is that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical.” Here, we can use metaphorical thinking to understand the derivational terms. For instance, “up-” is a common affix, and it exists in many derivational terms, such as “upstairs”, “uptight”, “upcoming”, “upright” and “upbeat”. The original meaning of “up-” is equal to the preposition “up”, which means “toward or in a higher place”. The examples are the derivational terms “upturned” and “upstairs”. The prefix “up-” has other meanings in the aspects of the following domains according to the conceptual metaphor. Firstly, in the emotional domain, we find “up-” means happy and this is a positive emotion. We can know that the meanings of the derivational terms “upbeat” and “uplifted” consist of “happy”. If we want to learn the mechanism of this mapping, we have to learn the relationship between the spatial domain “up” and the emotional domain “happy”. We always have the experience that we keep an erect posture when we are in a good mood. That is the reason why we use “up-” to represent “happy”. Secondly, in the conscious domain, students may encounter such derivational terms as “uprouse” and “uptight” in the process of learning the vocabulary. We know humans usually lie down when sleeping. When humans awaken, they often stand up. So “uprouse” and “uptight” are both concerned with consciousness. It is a mapping from the spatial domain to the conscious domain. Thirdly, in the quality domain, the derivational terms, such as “upmarket”, “upswing”, “upturn” and “upgradation”, can be understood if we map the spatial domain “up-” onto the quality domain. This is based on the conceptual metaphor GOOD IS UP. Here, we always have the common experience that we use “up” to express what is good for our health and life. In this sense, “up-” means “good”. The derivational terms listed all contain the meaning of “good” or “becoming better”. Fourthly, in the virtue domain, we find the examples of the derivational terms “upright” and “upstanding”. “Up-” means “virtue”. We can find these words are based on the conceptual metaphor “VIRTUE IS UP”. To be a moral citizen is a moral requirement of a society. Virtue is an indispensable factor in the culture of a society. English teachers can tell students that “upright” and “upstanding” both have the meaning of “behaving in a moral and honest way”. Then, students can use metaphorical thinking to understand the derivational terms with the prefixes “up-”.

The structural metaphor also exists in affixes. For example, “melancholia” is a medical term. This word means a mental illness in which the patient is depressed and worried by unnecessary fears. “Melan-” is an affix from Greek. It means “black”. Different colours symbolize different meanings in western countries according to their own culture. Here, “black” represents solemnity, depression and sadness and so on. “Chol” is “bile”. According to the structural metaphor “Black is depressed”, it is easy to find that melancholia is concerned with depression. Let’s study another example. In the conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE CUTTING INSTRUMENTS, we can get some sentences according to our life experience, for example, “That is an incisive idea.” and “He cut her argument to ribbons in the front of their classroom.” Now, let’s look at a word “oxymoron”, and you find there is a prefix “oxy-”. This is also an affix from Greek, and it means “sharp”. We all know “sharp” is an adjective to modify something that can cut or make a hole in something. “Moron” means “foolish”. Here, “sharp” modifies a contradictory idea. It conforms to the conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE CUTTING INSTRUMENTS. Ideas hurt and have effects on someone like cutting instruments. Thus, English teachers can employ the structural metaphor to teach this word, which can help students apply these words well in the correct context.

The container metaphor must be mentioned if we study ontological metaphors. Ontological metaphors refer to viewing abstract things as concrete things. Such words as “asleep” and “exonerate” are the good cases. In the container metaphor, actions and states can be viewed as containers. Here, “a-” means “in”, so “asleep” means “in sleeping”. We usually use “in” when something is in an object or a substance. So, here, sleeping, an action, can be considered as a container according to the container metaphor. Likewise, “exonerate” can be divided into three morphemes. Here, “ex-” means “out of”, “oner” means “burden”, and “-ate” means “to make”, so burden can be considered as a container.

In brief, the conceptual metaphor exists in affixes indeed. There is no doubt that the conceptual metaphor of affixes can help students learn the derivational terms better and store them in long-term memory and even enable them to guess the meanings of new words.

4.4 In teaching the cultural implications of words

That people can recite lots of words does not mean that they can have a better understanding of words’ usage. Sometimes, even if learners bear words in mind, they don’t know how to employ them into concrete context because there are different cultures in different languages. If people cannot understand the western culture well, they will not understand many idioms correctly. Metaphor theory also reflects cultural connotation. Therefore, it’s necessary to take advantage of metaphor to recognize and use the phrases correctly.

Different languages contain different cultural implications, and metaphorical expressions can reflect a language’s cultural background. For instance, there are many idioms about dog in English language. For example, it rained cats and dogs yesterday and every dog has his day. In those phrases, people can see that dog is generally related to those people’s daily life in English-speaking countries, and those phrases have certain cultural meanings, namely, those phrases related to dog are all positive. In western countries, dogs are regarded as people’s honest friends, and westerners usually use dog to refer to a person: he is a lucky dog. Here, a dog is the source domain, and an honest and good person is the target domain. When teachers teach the idioms about dog, they can firstly use the conceptual metaphor to combine this knowledge with this language’s culture so that students can memorize them clearly for a long period. Besides, if someone wants to learn a foreign language well, he must have a better understanding of this language’s culture. A language could not exist without its culture, and learning culture is beneficial to the correct use of language. More importantly, good awareness of a foreign language’s culture can also bring a successful conversation with foreigners. Therefore, teachers should bring cultural introduction to students’ vocabularies learning in the process of teaching.

5 Conclusion

Metaphor is just a kind of rhetoric in the view of Aristotle; however, we now believe that it can lead us to know this world as a tool. The conceptual metaphor helps us understand the things which are not familiar, concrete and intuitional. The conceptual metaphor not only gives us a new way to observe the world but also benefits remarkably English vocabulary teaching.

This paper proposes some applications on how to apply the conceptual metaphor theory to vocabularies’ teaching in the following aspects. In the beginning, we talk about the cultivation of the metaphorical awareness because a good metaphorical awareness is the premise of the applications. Then, we study the applications in four aspects. Firstly, when English teachers explain polysemy to students, they can use the cognitive mechanism of the cross-domain mapping to interpret the change from the primary meanings of words to the new meanings of words, which makes students understand and remember words better. Secondly, it is essential for teachers to teach idioms according to the conceptual metaphor, which let students think like native speakers and use idioms in the correct context. Thirdly, the conceptual metaphor also exists in affixes. By explaining the metaphors in affixes, teachers can help students understand or even guess the meanings of words more effectively. Fourthly, teachers can introduce the cultural background and analyze words from source domains to target domains when teaching the cultural implications of words.

There are still some limitations in this thesis. Firstly, this thesis does not specifically combine the conceptual metaphor with the actual teaching situation in English lessons. Secondly, in the study of English derivational terms, this thesis just studies the conceptual metaphor existing in prefixes but not involving suffixes.

Works Cited

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