论文总字数：36493字

摘 要

隐喻在体育新闻报道中很常见。隐喻不仅是一种修辞，而且在语言学习中发挥至关重要的作用。如若忽视对隐喻的学习，语言学习者在阅读目的语新闻报道时会遇到一定的困难。但国内相关研究凤毛麟角。本课题以体育新闻报道为范围，以非英语专业学生为对象进行研究，旨在了解非英语专业学生的体育隐喻识别能力，及其相关影响因素。

研究的具体问题如下：（1）非英语专业学生的体育隐喻能力如何；（2）哪类体育隐喻更容易被识别；（3）学生的体育隐喻能力与其英语阅读水平的关系如何；（4）学生的体育隐喻能力与其阅读体育新闻报道频率的关系如何。

本研究通过对研究对象进行隐喻测试的方式展开。共有50名非英语专业的大学二三年级的学生作为调查对象，其中女性20名，男性30名。10人来自物理系，20人来自机械学院，其余20人来自人文学院。本测试从12篇路透社和BBC关于2014年世界杯的新闻报道中选取了十个含有隐喻用法的典型句子来测试其体育隐喻能力，根据调查对象参加英语四级考试的阅读成绩评定其英语阅读水平。

依据对问卷的调查结果的统计与分析，主要有以下发现：（1）非英语专业学生的隐喻识别能力参差不齐，但总体水平较低；（2）体育报道中的战争隐喻相对容易被识别；（3）体育隐喻识别能力与英语水平呈正相关；（4）调查对象中定期阅读体育新闻报道的极少，而少数几个阅读新闻报道频率高的学生的隐喻识别能力较强。

本研究主要通过问卷调查和测试的方式来分析体育隐喻识别能力与英语阅读水平和阅读频率的关系，试图提出在第二语言学习与教学中隐喻能力的培养的建议，进而为语言教学提供新思路。

关键词：体育隐喻识别能力；非英语专业；英语水平；阅读频率

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iv

Table of Contents v

List of Tables and Figures vii

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Significance of the Study 2

1.3 Layout of the Study 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 Studies of Metaphoric Competence 4

2.2 Studies on Sports Metaphor 5

2.1.1 Foreign Studies 5

2.2.2 Domestic Studies 6

2.3 Summary 6

Chapter Three Research Methodology 8

3.1 Research Questions 8

3.2 Research Subjects 8

3.3 Research Instrument 9

3.4 Data Collection and Analysis 9

Chapter Four Research Results and Discussions 11

4.1 Non-English Majors’ Sports Metaphoric Competence 11

4.2 Sports Metaphors Learned Easily 12

4.3 Sports Metaphoric Competence and English Proficiency 13

4.4 Sports Metaphoric Competence and Reading Frequency 14

Chapter Five Conclusions 16

5.1 Major Findings 16

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study 17

References 18

Appendix 20

List of Tables and Figures

Figure 1: Subjects’ Scores of the Test of Sports Metaphoric Competence…………. ...11

Figure 2: Relationship between Sports Metaphoric Competence and English Proficiency……….……….……………………………………………………………13

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Seven Categories of Sports Metaphor……………..12

Table 2: Relationship between Sports Metaphoric Competence and Reading Frequency…………………………………………………………………………... ..14

Chapter One Introduction

Metaphor, an important language phenomenon in people’s daily verbal communication as well as in literary works, has enjoyed a long discussion. The relationship between metaphoric competence and second language teaching is attracting researchers’ attention. This chapter gives a brief introduction to the thesis, presenting its background, purpose, significance and organization.

1.1 Background of the Study

The publication of Metaphors We Live by by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980 signals the beginning of metaphor study from the cognitive perspective. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. With the development of cognitive metaphor theory, researchers start to investigate the significance of the cognitive study of metaphor to second language acquisition. Gardner and Winner (1980) firstly put forward the concept of metaphoric competence, which runs parallel with Chomsky’s linguistic competence and Hymes’ communicative competence. Littlemore proposed four aspects of metaphoric competence: originality of metaphor production, ability to find meaning in metaphor, speed in finding meaning in metaphor, and fluency of metaphor interpretation. He also emphasized that metaphoric competence forms, as an important part of communicative language ability, might bring inspirations to second language teaching (2001, p.462).

In the wake of researchers’ ever-increasing interest in metaphor, they turned their eyes on war metaphor. The study of Lakeoff and Turner (1989) have proved that war metaphors are helpful in achieving communication by describing what abstract and unfamiliar in the familiar concepts of war. Wei (2008) studied metaphors in sports reports where war metaphors are prevalent. And plenty of scholars have studied metaphoric competence and the factors. For example, Zhao (2002) studied the relevance of metaphoric competence to English proficiency. Feng (2008) studied metaphoric competence in foreign language teaching and learning. However, studies of metaphoric competence in sports field have not been found.

The present study aims to explore the relationship between the sports metaphoric competence and English proficiency, and the relationship between sports metaphoric competence and reading frequency of non-English majors. By doing so, some suggestions were expected to shed light on second language learning and teaching.

1.2 Significance of the Study

Influenced by the traditional view of metaphor, we regarded metaphor as a figure of speech. Since the 1990s, the turbulent wave of metaphor mania surged into China and many researchers like Lin (1997), Cai (2003), Wang (2004) first introduced the influential works abroad. Then more and more scholars drew our attention to exploring deeper in the aspect of integrating metaphor competence with second language teaching. Zhao (2003) and Feng (2008) further discovered that the cultivation of second language learners’ metaphoric competence is especially significant for language learners.

This thesis intends to call the attention of both teachers and students to the importance of sports metaphoric competence and the cultivation of metaphor competence. If sports metaphoric competence can be proved to be related to English proficiency or reading habits, the results of the current study would contribute to second language teaching and learning.

1.3 Layout of the Study

The whole thesis is organized in five chapters.

Chapter One gives a brief introduction to the thesis, presenting its background, purpose, significance and organization. Chapter Two depicts previous studies of metaphoric competence and sports metaphors both at home and abroad. Chapter Three mainly describes the research methodology including research questions, subjects instruments and data collection. Chapter Four presents the results of the statistical analyses and the study in line with the questions put forward in chapter three. Chapter Five summarizes the major findings of the study, pointing out the limitations and gives some suggestions for further study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

This chapter mainly describes previous studies of metaphoric competence and sports metaphor. The shortage of these studies is pointed out and the particular definition of metaphor in this study is given.

2.1 Studies of Metaphoric Competence

Lakoff and Johnsen argue that “metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action” (2003, p.4). They also point out that the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Since then linguists began to investigate the relationship between the ability to acquire, produce and interpret metaphors and language learning, thus the concept “metaphoric competence” emerged at the right moment. In 1980, Gardner and Winner put forward the definition of metaphoric competence, which means “the capacity to paraphrase a metaphor, to explain the rationale for the metaphor’s effectiveness, to produce a metaphor appropriate to a given context, to evaluate the appropriateness of several competing metaphoric expression” (1980, p.121).

Danesi (1986) is the first one who introduced metaphoric competence into second language acquisition. According to him, metaphoric competence is taken as one’s ability in metaphor identifying and producing the process of communication or writing. Metaphoric competence in his view consists of two aspects: the context-appropriateness which means the knowledge of what the appropriate images in the target culture are in metaphorical concepts; the other one is the strategy-instrument which implies the ability to use conceptual images for strategic or instrumental communicative purposes (p.1). Low suggested that the metaphoric competence could be taken as “the ability to construct plausible meanings” and “to differentiate between new metaphors, conventional metaphors and idiosyncratic extensions of old ones” (1988, p.25).

Littlemore gives a more particular definition of metaphoric competence which he thinks consists of four components: originality of metaphor production, fluency of metaphor interpretation, ability to find meaning in metaphor, and speed in finding meaning in metaphor (2001, p.461). Originality of metaphor production refers to the ability to think up one’s own unconventional metaphors. Fluency of metaphor interpretation refers to the ability to find more than one possible meaning for a single given metaphor, in other words, to identify several possible grounds for comparison between the topic and the vehicle. Ability to find meaning in metaphor refers to the ability to think up a plausible meaning for a novel metaphor. Speed in finding meaning refers to the ability to think up a plausible meaning rapidly and under pressure.

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