Correlation between receptive metaphoric competence and reading proficiency

Abstract

Metaphoric competence is an essential part of language concept fluency and communicative competence.Since metaphor is pervasive in language, when Chinese second language (L2) learners are engaged in reading process, one of the barriers to influence their comprehension is metaphor. This paper aims to empirically investigate the relationship between the receptive metaphoric competence and reading proficiency of Chinese learners of English, in order to arouse Chinese English teachers’ attention to metaphor instruction. The results show that the two are significantly correlated, however, the metaphoric competence of English learners in China is ranked middle or low, and the L2 learners who are skilled at L2 reading are more inclined to be at a higher level of metaphoric competence.