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, it has been found that 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 image 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 sociolinguist competence, including semantic comprehension in reading, writing and translation, particularly in terms of long-term retention of memory.
KeywordsCognitive Linguistic ApproachChinese EFL Teaching
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