cognitive linguistics–inspired empirical study of chinese efl teaching认知linguistics-inspired中国英语教学的实证研究.pdfVIP

Creative Education 2011. Vol.2, No.4, 354-362 Copyright © 2011 SciRes. DOI:10.4236/ce.2011.24050 Cognitive Linguistics—Inspired Empirical Study of Chinese EFL Teaching Youmei Gao Department of Translation, School of English Studies, Tianjin Foreign Studies University, Tianjin, China. Email: gaoyoumei@ rd th th Received July 23 , 2011; revised August 28 , 2011; accepted September 4 , 2011. Aiming to verify how and why insightfulness of the CL-inspired approach can facilitate L2 or FL learners in the process of learning English as a second or a foreign language, an empirical study of Chinese EFL learners has been carried out in the authentic Chinese EFL classroom on the campus of Tianjin Foreign Studies University. After the classroom treatment, the EG outperformed the CG by 21.7% based on the results from the delayed posttest in Experiment 1; by 6.73% in Experiment 2; by 6.61% in Experiment 3; by 21.7% in Experiment 4. The study has concluded that through awakening students’ metaphoric awareness and analyzing features of the im- age schematic structure, the CL-inspired approach benefits L2 or FL learners in the process of learning English as a foreign language with respect to lexical and grammatical competence, metaphorical and pragmatic or socio- linguist compe