Developing and validating instruments for measuring English-as-a-second/Foreign-Language (L2) learners’ metaphor awareness

Research has shown that metaphor is ubiquitous in English and that \nknowing and being able to use metaphor relates to higher language \nproficiency. Meanwhile, learners face challenges in metaphor reception \nand production. The first step to address these challenges would be \nmeasuring to what extent the students can recognise metaphor and \nare aware of the different dimensions of metaphor. However, instruments for measuring metaphor awareness developed in relevant \nresearch did not seem to have been checked for quality, and the functions of metaphor in discourse as an important component of metaphor \nawareness were neglected. This study thus aimed to develop three \ninstruments for measuring awareness of linguistic forms of metaphor \n(e.g. flow of information, feeling down), metaphorical concepts commonly used in English and connections between literal and figurative \nmeaning (e.g. spending time is like spending money because time is as \nprecious as money), and communicative functions of metaphor (e.g. to \nexplain abstract concepts). The instruments were administered to 293 \nChinese undergraduate English majors at intermediate to advanced \nEnglish proficiency levels and demonstrated good validity and reliability. The participants had difficulty recognising metaphorical prepositions (e.g. in a bad mood), adverb (waited long), and adjectives (e.g. low\ncredit scores) as metaphorical and establishing connections between \nthe basic meaning and the figurative meaning of conventional metaphors in thought. These could be the areas that language teachers need \nto focus on in teaching metaphor.