中国英语学习者的隐喻理解策略及理解模型建构

This article examines comprehension strategies of metaphor by Chinese EFL learners,with aview to constructing a comprehension model based on the strategies employed by the learners.Undergraduate students from Zhejiang University were required to write down their comprehension answers and how they got the answers in interpreting the metaphors.Results show that Chinese EFL learners mainly use sentence context and literal meaning translation to understand metaphors,aided by their English and native cultural knowledge.In addition,they also use structural analysis,mental image and guessing to interpret metaphors.The strategies point to an analytic model in metaphor comprehension by Chinese EFL learners.Thus,metaphor comprehension models used by English monolinguals cannot fully explain EFL learners' metaphor comprehension.