A Corpus-Based Study of Conceptual Metaphor—On Chinese English Learners’ Use of “Wind”

Pei Ding

doi:10.4236/jss.2021.910031

Abstract

This article is intended to analyze Chinese English learners’ use of “wind” and compare it with the use of “wind” by English speakers. Similarities and differences of conceptual metaphor of the two “winds” are analyzed. The main research method is to use corpus: COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and CLEC (Chinese learners in the Chinese Learner English Corpus). Besides, qualitative method is involved in the analysis and discussion. The research found that there are both similarities and differences in conceptual metaphor of “wind” by English speakers and “wind” by Chinese English learners, due to both positive and negative transfer from “feng” in Chinese to “wind” In English. This research is aimed at giving a better understanding of conceptual metaphor of vocabulary and suggesting some effective strategies in foreign language vocabulary teaching.

Highlights

Does our language reflect our cognition, or how we see this world? This question has attracted many linguists, philosophers, anthropologists and psychologists, who have tried to find the answer
Over the last three decades, with the rising of cognitive linguistics, scholars have become interested in linguistic relativity again
It can be seen that Chinese English learners make positive and negative transfer when learning L2 vocabulary

Summary

Introduction

Does our language reflect our cognition, or how we see this world? This question has attracted many linguists, philosophers, anthropologists and psychologists, who have tried to find the answer. Many scholars have conducted deep research on this subject and created different theory systems, one of which is linguistic relativity. The most representative and influential scholars on linguistic relativity are Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, whose thought are called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Over the last three decades, with the rising of cognitive linguistics, scholars have become interested in linguistic relativity again. Among the representatives of the cognitive linguists are Lakoff, Langacker, Talmy and so on. They are trying to understand the construction of language as conceptual content organization, from the perspective of human’s cognition mechanism. Conceptual metaphor is one of the hottest topics in studying how we understand the relations between language and mind (Steen, 2011)

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