Metaphors Used In Students’ Conversations: A Cognitive Study

Abstract

In light of Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), this study aims to investigate the conceptualization of LEARNING in English and Vietnamese students' film conversations. As a result, the study's goal is to identify LEARNING metaphors in both languages. In terms of metaphors in cognitive periods, which serve to construct the theoretical framework for this research. Methodologically, the data are collected from English and Vietnamese films between the 1990s to present. Contrastive method is mainly employed combining with descriptive method, and the assistance of qualitative and quantitative methods. Especially, the thesis employed the method of the identification of conceptual metaphors proposed by Steen (2007) and Pragglejaz Group (2007). Thus, the combination two methods of metaphor analysis, namely Metaphor Pattern Analysis (MPA, Stefanowitsch, 2006) and the version of the Metaphor Identification Procedure developed at Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU, Steen et al. 2011) to characterize how conceptual metaphor of LEARNING is expressed. Research findings discloses 12 conceptual metaphors of learning in both English and Vietnamese. The two languages share 11 conceptual metaphors, and there is 1 conceptual metaphor that is unique to one language but not the other. It can be concluded that there are both similarities and differences in metaphorizing the entity of LEARNING in English and Vietnamese. The factors related to the phenomenon are given based on the educational philosophy. As briefly described above, it is hoped that the dissertation will make a significant contribution to the teaching, learning, and translation of English and Vietnamese.