The acquisition of conceptual metaphors in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

AbstractThis study aimed to determine whether learners of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) could more easily acquire Mandarin metaphors in vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension, and essay writing tasks after enhancing their metaphor awareness. Experiment 1 divided CSL participants into three groups and received three types of instructions on metaphors. The results showed that there was no effect of enhanced metaphor awareness across the three kinds of instructions in the vocabulary, reading, and writing tasks, while a marginally significant effect of enhanced metaphor awareness in the writing task. Experiment 2 aimed to determine whether the discourse-based or the sentence-based presentation of metaphorical expressions would affect the CSL learners’ writing performance. The results showed that the paragraph group achieved significantly higher writing scores and frequency of metaphors produced compared with the sentence group. And, the paragraph group produced more new and creative metaphors in their essays compared with the sentence group. To conclude, the two experiments demonstrated that enhancing the CSL learners’ metaphor awareness was beneficial in the writing tasks, but not in the vocabulary and reading tasks. Furthermore, when the metaphorical expressions were presented in discourse to facilitate the connection of semantic relationships between metaphors, this resulted in more coherent essays. This study has practical implications for CSL teachers designing classroom activities involving the learning of Chinese metaphors.