Can Conceptual Metaphor Awareness Facilitate Chinese College EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Retention? - an Empirical Study : Can Conceptual Metaphor Awareness Facilitate Chinese College EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Retention? - an Empirical Study

Abstract:

Much research has been made in the vocabulary field (e.g. Meara, 1989; Nation, 1990; Arnaud & Bejoint, 1992). Few researchers, however, have given methodological suggestions on how to improve vocabulary acquisition, The theory of Conceptual Metaphor provides a new proposal to be applied in vocabulary teaching and learning. Many studies have proved that raising EFL learners’ metaphor awareness can facilitate their vocabulary learning, espacially polysemous words and idiomatic expressions (e.g., Lazar 1996; Herrera and White 2000; Kondaiah 2004; Csabi 2004; Boers 2004).

Based on the conceptual metaphor theory and its role on semantic change, the author aims to find out whether the vocabulary teaching strategy which focuses on raising students’ metaphor awareness can facilitate Chinese students’ performance in vocabulary (especially polysemous words and idioms) acquisition and help short-term and long-term vocabulary retention.

An experiment was carried out to check the effect of the application of CMT (conceptual metaphor theory) on vocabulary acquisition and retention. Two parallel classes participated as the EC (the experimental class) and the CC (the controlled class), the EC was taught with conceptual metaphor instruction while the CC was taught in a traditional way, an immediate test and a one- week delayed test were carried out to check the experiment results. The results indicate that the CMT application can facilitate short-term vocabulary understanding, and it has positive influence on the long-term vocabulary retention.