The relationship between topic and metaphor in second-language learners’ essays

IF 0.9 Q2 LINGUISTICS

Metaphor and the Social World Pub Date : 2021-10-12 DOI:10.1075/msw.00018.gol

A. Golden

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

In this article I investigate to what extent the use of metaphorical expressions in language learners’ texts vary according to the topic they have chosen to write about. The data come from the Norwegian learner corpus ASK, where the texts are from written assignments produced by adult second-language learners as part of an official Norwegian test and texts. Texts from two different prompts are selected, which are related to friendship and nature. Metaphors are defined according to conceptual metaphor theory and a triangulation of methods is used, alternating between a manual and an automatic extraction method. The results confirm the hypothesis that the two different prompts given to the learners in a language test not only triggers different metaphorical expressions but also influences the amount of metaphor used in the learners’ writing. This knowledge is important to researchers for comparing the use of metaphors between different groups, such as between different learners or between students in different stages of education. It is also important for test designers who decide on topics to be used in tests and teachers who help learners prepare for their tests. In addition, it is of interest for researchers, educators in general and the learners themselves who are interested in the effect the use of metaphors in texts have on raters’ evaluations in high-stake tests.

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第二语言学习者作文中主题与隐喻的关系

在这篇文章中，我调查了语言学习者的文本中隐喻表达的使用在多大程度上根据他们选择的主题而变化。数据来自挪威学习者语料库ASK，其中的文本来自成人第二语言学习者的书面作业，作为挪威官方测试和文本的一部分。从两个不同的提示中选择了与友谊和自然有关的文本。隐喻是根据概念隐喻理论来定义的，并采用三角方法，在人工和自动抽取方法之间交替进行。研究结果证实了语言测试中两种不同的提示不仅会触发不同的隐喻表达，而且会影响学习者写作中隐喻的使用量。这一知识对于研究人员比较不同群体之间，如不同学习者之间或不同教育阶段的学生之间隐喻的使用是很重要的。对于决定考试主题的考试设计者和帮助学习者准备考试的教师来说，这也很重要。此外，研究人员、一般教育工作者和学习者本身都对文本中隐喻的使用对高风险测试中评分者的评价的影响感兴趣。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Metaphor and the Social World LINGUISTICS-

CiteScore

2.20

自引率

11.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： The journal Metaphor and the Social World aims to provide a forum for researchers to share with each other, and with potential research users, work that explores aspects of metaphor and the social world. The term “social world” signals the importance given to context (of metaphor use), to connections (e.g. across social, cognitive and discourse dimensions of metaphor use), and to communication (between individuals or across social groups). The journal is not restricted to a single disciplinary or theoretical framework but welcomes papers based in a range of theoretical approaches to metaphor, including discourse and cognitive linguistic approaches, provided that the theory adequately supports the empirical work. Metaphor may be dealt with as either a matter of language or of thought, or of both; what matters is that consideration is given to the social and discourse contexts in which metaphor is found. Furthermore, “metaphor” is broadly interpreted and articles are welcomed on metonymy and other types of figurative language. A further aim is to encourage the development of high-quality research methodology using metaphor as an investigative tool, and for investigating the nature of metaphor use, for example multi-modal discourse analytic or corpus linguistic approaches to metaphor data. The journal publishes various types of articles, including reports of empirical studies, key articles accompanied by short responses, reviews and meta-analyses with commentaries. The Forum section publishes short responses to papers or current issues.