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Article published In: Chinese as a Second Language (漢語教學研究—美國中文教師學會學報)
Vol. 55:1 (2020) ► pp.24–53

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The acquisition of conceptual metaphors in Mandarin Chinese

The effect of enhanced metaphor awareness

 | National Chiayi University
Published online: 26 March 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/csl.19007.gon
Abstract
This 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.
摘要
本研究的目的是探討漢語作為第二外語(CSL)學習者在提高概念隱喻意識後，是否更容易習得漢語隱喻。在實驗一中，我們將漢CSL學習者分為三組，並接受不同隱語學習方式。實驗一結果顯示，在詞彙、閱讀和寫作任務中，增強隱喻意識效應並沒有顯著性出現，但僅僅寫作任務中出現三組學習者邊緣顯著差異。實驗二是探討隱喻的篇章式或單句式呈現方式是否會影響CSL學習者寫作表現。段落組是透過段落閱讀的方式學習段落中的隱喻，並寫出一篇文章。而語句組者是透過逐句的方式來學習語句中的隱喻，之後寫一篇文章。實驗二的結果顯示，與語句組相比，段落組的寫作得分顯著性較高，以及隱喻使用頻率也顯著較多，這表示隱喻透過篇章呈現更能讓學習者理解隱喻間的相關性。另外，分析文章中隱喻的使用分佈，我們發現相較於語句組，段落組使用較多新穎和創造性的隱喻。總結，這兩個實驗顯示，增強CSL學習者的隱喻意識是有利於他們寫作表現，但對於詞彙記憶和閱讀理解是沒有太大助益。此外，學習隱喻時，應該加上篇章方式來呈現隱喻，這較能促進學習者理解隱喻間的關聯性，從而產生更連貫的寫作。本研究對CSL教師在設計漢語隱喻教學的課堂活動中具有實際應用建議。
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Acquisition of conceptual metaphors in L2
  • 3.The goal of this study
  • 4.Experiment 1: The effect of enhanced metaphor awareness on vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension, and essay writing
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Participants
      • 4.1.2Materials and design
      • 4.1.3Procedure
    • 4.2Results and discussion
      • 4.2.1Vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension scores
      • 4.2.2Essay writing scores
  • 5.Experiment 2: The effect of the presentation of metaphorical expressions on the essay writing task
    • 5.1Method
      • 5.1.1Participants
      • 5.1.2Materials and design
      • 5.1.3Procedure
    • 5.2Results and discussion
      • 5.2.1Essay writing scores
      • 5.2.2Metaphorical expressions produced in the essays
  • 6.General discussion
  • References
References (34)
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