The Application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory to the English Vocabulary Learning

底红玉 030090140

Abstract: Vocabulary knowledge is an important component language proficiency points. Therefore, vocabulary teaching is the key to raising the standard of English. Conceptual metaphor theory, as a new paradigm in cognitive linguistics, is playing an important role in vocabulary teaching in college. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, this paper proposed the application of conceptual metaphor theory in teaching English vocabulary.

Key words: vocabulary, conceptual metaphor theory, application

1.The conceptual metaphor theory

The language study of cognitive linguisticsis based on our experience of the world, as well as understanding and conceptualization of the world based on the way, is "research and perception, knowledge-related human language" (Wen-xu, 1999).Cognitive linguistics, including phonetics cognitive, cognitive semantics, cognitive grammar, cognitive pragmatics and other branches of the contents of its research widely, covers wide areas and its research is still mainly on the semantics and syntax.

Among them, cognitive metaphor research is one of the core contents in cognitive language.Laknff and Johnson (1980) "The Metaphors We Live By " is considered one of the cornerstones of it .Metaphor is a powerful cognitive tool of our abstract conceptualization of areas , the only way for understanding the human cognitive ability, an indispensable manner of language understanding and acquisition. By mapping ,it will enable us to use more familiar, more specific concepts to gain the indirect perception and abstract thinking,.In other words, it directly involved in the formation of people's conceptual system, that is to say., peoples' cognitive styles and behavioral patterns are metaphorical.the conceptual metaphor is systematic and coherent, therefore it has great explanatory power (Wen Xu, Ye kuang, 2003).Cognitive linguists have placed it in a prominent position , the research about it has constituted a specialized body of knowledge, emphasizing its independence, although some related issues needed to be made further explanations.At home and abroad, a large number of the publication on the metaphor , such as Lakoff's "Women", "Fire", and "Dangerous Thing Lakoff" and, "Metaphors We Live By" by Johnson and "The Philosophy in the Flesh", and "cognitive linguistics and metaphor research"by lan-chun also represents the establishment of a mature disciplinary framework.

2. The application of the conceptual metaphor theory

In the traditional vocabulary teaching, we put much emphasis on the meaning of the word in the text or the explaination of its common sense, but very little further information on its metaphorical significance.This is a matter of disadvantage to learn vocabulary, at least to grasp the overall meaning of words.This may be subject to the mainstream over the traditional language research ideas.In the past, too many schools held the idea that metaphor phenomenon is only the result of changes in the use of the language, and essentially took the metaphor out of the language outside the field of research.The only exception would be school of cognitive linguistics which take metaphor as a very important phenomenon in language to study and draw a lot of discovery. Cognitive linguistics school think that "metaphorical thinking, with the development of human cognition, has emerged as an creative thinking ability which is the advanced stage of cognitive development and an indispensible cognitive ability for people to understand the world, especially the abstract things "(Yan-Fang Zhao, 2001:102). In the prototype effect, people always understand things on the basic areas of the basis things. For example, we firstly recognize ourselves, and then realized things around, furthermore , understand the more distant things. On this basis, we begin to understand abstract concepts.

The concept of the basic category formed a similar share for the family of the concept of similarity of many prototypes, based on the concept of many others is often the use of the existing basic concepts, expressed through the metaphor and the other had some contact with themconcept.This is because, With the increase in human understanding of things, categories of membership has gradually increased, but people can not go on to add the members endlessly for this area, so that it is neither possible nor economic, furthermore, it will bring a heavy burden to our memory, and too many words is not conducive to the communication.The human brain's approach is a clever and sophisticated way: metaphor, namely the use of the relevance between one thing and another thing,in which it directed to the terms of the things from one conceptual domain onto anothe thatr is intended to express, thus forming a cognitive cognitive linguists, say, mapping or cognitive mapping. Cognitive linguists Lakof & Johnson (1980) think the metaphor as people's thinking, behavior and expression, as an indispensable way of thinking.They pointed out that in everyday life, people tend to refer to the familiar, tangible, concrete generous concept to understand, thinking, experience the intangible, difficult concept, thus forming a cross-language concept of cognitive way of thinking. This way of thinking is essentially on the basis of metaphorical concept.

Thus, in vocabulary learning, students should be warned not only to master the basic meaning of the word, but also attention the metaphorical meaning of it. As a college English teacher, in the basic rules, how to use metaphors to enhance the vocabulary teaching? I believe that the way is mainly on the meaning through association, that is, the concept of mapping to tap the extended meaning of words. A word in a particular moment and in a certain system state not only should have a few meaning which are accepted ,but also has some other meaning based on the acquired new meaning, that is, its extended meaning. These extend meaning arise out of the basic ones, well-founded, form through family resemblance to the concept of metaphor mapping correspondence .Therefore, in the vocabulary teaching, teachers should inspire students to think, to explain the specific meaning of some key words and abstract meaning , the link between items, so as to not only enable them to understand the meaning of the law of development of words, a deep understanding of the evolutionary mechanism, but also help them improve their ability to use the words. Many English words are polysemous words commonly used in daily life. This type of vocabulary, in accordance with the original meaning of the word, can guide students to think of their metaphorical meaning of it. For example, the word "fade" . Its original meaning is something like go slowly away until it is no longer there, gradually fade away, weakness.Starting from the original meaning, teachers inspire students to use a wealth of associations, and actively take the initiative to seek, to associate extended meaning. With the awareness and ability of this, it is not difficult for students to understand these sentences in the following deep meaning, for example:

A color may fade．(颜色变淡，褪色)

A TV picture fades(图像 肖失)

Music fades．(声音变小) ’

Memories fade．(记忆已成云烟)

Our looks fade．(容颜老去)

Someone can fade into the background．(渐渐消失)

After analyzing these few sentences, teachers also inspire students to conduct association, what can disappear and get weak in this way. Fully mobilize the imagination, taking the books, movies, TV shows or their own experiences as the material, students can come up with the following sentence::

(1)My girlfriend’S love for me is fading．It’S hard for

me to accept it．

(2)The singing stars’influence faded．

(3)His hatred faded after SO many years．

(4)As I spoke loudly，my nervousness faded．

Through this association and deep way of thinking, there is no doubt that the students can enhance creativity, broaden their horizons so that their language is more colorful.

3. Summary

In short, in reality, Many schools and college students blindly pursue the number of vocabulary words to the neglect of basic proficiency, leading to a series of vicious circle: rote memorization, ;inappropriate use of high-frequency words; jerky vocabulary indiscriminate use, misuse; learning "less effective" and so on. In response to this situation. According to the terms of the scope of cognitive linguistics theory, prototype theory and conceptual metaphor theory, I believe that vocabulary teaching in college should be to further strengthen the fundamental areas of vocabulary teaching, vocabulary instruction and conceptual metaphor meaning and the prototype teaching, starting with the most useful and most frequently used basic category terms. Teachers should enhance the training such as the multi-righteousness, mix and Pragmatic Analysis of areas to enable the students to have a more solid foundation of knowledge, which further help students to effectively expand vocabulary, improve the comprehensive ability to apply their English. Specifically, that is, taking the basic category terms as the central task of teaching vocabulary; In the study of specific vocabulary, emphasis should be placed in the center of vocabulary items on the sense (the prototype meaning).At the same time, we can not ignore the metaphorical meaning of vocabulary learning.On this basis, students can expand their vocabulary network to grasp the core meaning and the deep and intrinsic link among vocabulary words, thereby expanding the vocabulary of students and improving their ability of using the vocabulary.

参考文献：

[1] 杜桂枝．认知语言学 中的若干相关概念[J]．外语学刊，2003 （3）．

[2] 赵艳芳．认知语言学概论[M]．上海：上海外语教育出版社，2001．

[3]．Lakoff G, Johnson M．Metaphors We Live By[M]．Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980