Chapter 1 General Introduction

1.1 Introduction

The study of metaphor has undergone quite a long history of over 2,400 years, during which a number of competing, if not all, conflicting theories about it have been advanced.The earliest research into metaphor can be traced back to about 300 B.C.Ever since then, we have witnessed a period when constant arguments about and unremitting efforts at metaphor have attracted the attention from a constellation of sciences, ranging from philosophy, anthropology, psychology, sociology, linguistics, neurology as well as pedagogy（Martinich 1990; Richards 1965; Searl 1978;Sperber & Wilson 2001; Gibbs & Steen 1997; Ortony 1998;Fitzgerald 1993; Hu 2002; Cameron & Low 2001; Low 1988;Goatly 2000; Lakoff &Johnson 1980; Littlemore 2001; Paul 1998;Boers 2000a,2000b; Bailey 2003; Moser 2000; Guerrero &Villamil 2000; Rohrer 1995; Kimmel 2004）.This boundless enthusiasm for metaphor reached its climax in 1970s, and thereby resulted in what Mark Johnson called a metaphormania in the academic circles（Yu 1998:2; Chen 2003:361）and became a topic of the utmost importance in cognitive science in 1990s.This was the situation in the western world.However, comparatively speaking, this phenomenon of the prosperity of and zeal for metaphor study in the outside world appeared to go, to some extent, if not at all, unnoticed in China（Shu 2003:1）before 1990s.Thereafter, things seemed to turn out to be different.In the past fifteen years, papers on metaphor have been published in large volumes（Shu et al 2004）.Nevertheless, a careful reading of these publications reveals that a big proportion of them is mostly focused on the ontological and psychological aspects of metaphor and a small, if not all, percentage are targeted on metaphor in language teaching and learning.This is especially true of the situation in foreign language teaching and learning（FLTL）not only in Chinese context, but also in the western world（Lindstomberg 1997; Low 1988; Bailey 2003:5-6; Johnson 1999; Pang & Ding 2002:9; Jiang & Zhang 2003;Cai 2005）.Cameron & Low（1999:77）makes it even clearer,“The study of metaphor has exploded in the last decades, but little of the impact of that explosion has so far reached applied linguistics.”Although Cameron & Low are somewhat exaggerating, at least the problem has not received rapt attention of many of the FLTL researchers and practitioners.

And it is from these bare facts that the present research takes its initial inspiration.