Levels of Processing and Producing Conventional Metaphors by English Foreign Language Learners in Written Language

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate EFL learners' ability to process and produce metaphorical expressions in English and whether these expressions are conceptualized in their mother tongue, Arabic. One hundred and twenty five Saudi female EFL students participated in the study. A questionnaire and a writing task were used as instruments to collect the data of the study. Thirty English metaphorical expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear and love were first distributed to 125 EFL learners to test their ability to process and understand metaphors in English. Then a writing task of five paragraphs on daily experiences of emotions was provided to examine the extent of learners' productivity of metaphorical expressions. The study concludes that EFL learners have the ability to process and produce English metaphors but in variable rates. The most frequent metaphorical expressions are metaphors of happiness, sadness and love. Fear and anger metaphors were significantly lower.