Innovation in Language Learning

During the last decades, various theories dealing with a foreign language acquisition have taken up a question of how to eliminate the negative language transfer. These approaches deal with many methodologies such as Method of Total Physical Response (Asher, 1969), Natural Order hypothesis (Dulay & Burt, 1974; Fathman, 1975; Makino, 1980), the Didactic of Multilingualism (Meissner,2004) etc. Still, the stated approaches hardly cover the conceptual differences of non-native-like utterances.

According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, culture and language are interrelated, thus learning the  target language implies learning the target  culture as well. The cognitive theory of metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) gives insight into the interrelationship between cultural input and the linguistic output. They were the first who stated the source and target domains as the way of experiencing the world and its linguistic description. We suggest that learning English metaphors, which provide cognitive schemas in everyday communication, and understanding the source and target domains will help to reduce negative lexical transfer. 

The empirical analysis is based upon the tests which contained basic spatial metaphors (containing «up» and «down») in order to find the correlation with the students’ source language and the level of their metaphors  understanding in  the target language. In English the spatial metaphors with «up» tend to mean something positive / happy, eg: I’m feeling up. But in Chinese «up» compare with 上 (shang) means «to begin something», eg. 上班 (go to work); 上来(begin/start). English spatial metaphors with «down) mean imply the meaning of sadness, eg: I’m feeling down. Chinese «down» compare with 下(xia) means «to finish something», eg: 下班 (to finish work);下工( to knock off work). The research shows that Chinese learners tend to metaphrase English metaphors and, as a result ,misunderstanding and negative lexical transfer dominate.

As the conceptual competence is one of the major factors in our ability to communicate across borders (Schmidt, 2002), special attention should be paid to teaching students how to understand  and use metaphors in case the target domains differ.