A CLEC-based Study on the Spatial Metaphor of HIGH Collocations

Abstract

Metaphor is conceived as understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Metaphor is pervasive not just in language, but also in our thoughts and actions. The conceptual system is metaphoric in nature. Previous studies on metaphor are done through linguistic researchers’ intuitive analysis. Few quantitative studies have been done to metaphor from corpus and the perspective of learners in second or foreign language learning. This paper, based on CLEC corpus, attempts to explore the relationship between spatial metaphor and second language acquisition and learning. Using ‘HIGH’ as a spatial measurement adjective, the paper hopes to understand different types of metaphorical collocations of HIGH in CLEC—a Chinese EFL learners' corpus, and to indicate the relationship of metaphor output ability with learners’ language proficiency. The studies have demonstrated eight types of HIGH collocations from Chinese EFL learners and the metaphor output ability is directly related to the learners’ language proficiency.