A Study of Chinese Metaphor Comprehension Competence and Affecting Factors of Thai University Students
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The purposes of this research were: 1) to investigate the Chinese metaphor comprehension competence of Thai university students; 2) to analyze the affecting factors of the Chinese metaphor comprehension competence of Thai university students and put forward corresponding teaching suggestions. The empirical research methods used were questionnaire and interviewing. The participants of this research were 545 third to fourth year university students of 2017-2018 who were selected from majors in business Chinese, teaching Chinese language, and Chinese language and culture of the school of Sinology at Mae Fah Luang University. The results of the study were as follows: 1) In general, the Chinese metaphoric comprehension competence of Thai university students is relatively limited. This is basically consistent with the acquisition of other foreign Chinese second language learners, which is the result of a variety of subjective and objective reasons. 2) Both the Chinese level and context intensity have significant effects on the Chinese metaphor comprehension competence of Thai university students, but is not affected by semantic category factors. 3) Relatively speaking, it is easiest for Thai university students to understand those Chinese metaphor words such as numerals and food or daily supplies, while the most difficult ones are about plants, the body and its parts. Based on this conclusion and combined with previous studies, we put forward some teaching suggestions for cultivating and developing the Chinese metaphor comprehension competence of Thai university students.
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