Liu & Hsieh (2020)

Received: 14 July 2019 | Accepted: 20 June 2020
DOI: 10.1111/flan.12483
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Developing metaphorical awareness and

competence in Chinese as a foreign language
through concept‐based instruction
Shuyuan Liu1 | Chen‐Yu C. Hsieh2
The Challenge
The development of metaphorical competence, that is, the ability to use and understand
metaphors, is essential to L2 education. However, qualitative research on teaching
metaphors of languages other than English is scant. How can an explicit, systematic
pedagogical approach facilitate individual students' learning of L2 metaphors? How
may learners at different proficiency levels react to the instruction?
1
Department of Applied Linguistics,
The Pennsylvania State University, Abstract
University Park, Pennsylvania Due to the importance of metaphorical capacity for L2
2
National Taiwan University of Science and learners, metaphor instruction is increasingly con-
Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan
sidered a crucial part of language education. To con-
Correspondence tribute to the still growing literature, the current study
Shuyuan Liu, Department of Applied
reports a project of teaching Chinese animal metaphors
Linguistics, 234 Sparks Building, University
Park, PA 16802. to learners of Mandarin as a foreign language, following
Email: szl290@psu.edu the framework of systemic‐theoretical instruction for
concept‐based instruction (CBI). Given the conceptual
nature of metaphors and their role in the conceptual
understanding of a language, a concept‐based approach
is therefore hypothesized as relevant in the develop-
ment of learner's metaphorical capacity. By analyzing
the surveys, coursework, and assignments completed by
and the audio recordings of instructional sessions con-
ducted with three focal participants, this research
shows that CBI is effective in growing the learners'
metaphorical awareness and competence, despite their
difference in general language proficiency and the
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LIU AND HSIEH | 479
seemingly short period of instruction. As such, this re-

search reveals both the mechanisms of L2 metaphor
learning and the effects of CBI on the practice of L2
metaphor instruction.
KEYWORDS
pedagogy/instruction, Chinese (Mandarin), foreign/second
language learning, cultural competence, case study, sociocultural
theory, metaphor
1 | INTRODUCTION
Foreign language (FL) education has the potential to develop the linguistic as well as cultural
competence of the next generation of global citizens participating in intercultural interaction
with respect, understanding, and acute self‐awareness (American Council on the Teaching of
Foreign Languages [ACTFL]). Figurative instruction, among other things, is an integral part of
FL learning (Andreou & Galantomos, 2008), as metaphors are rooted in and key to language,
culture, and cognition (Kövecses, 2005; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). They represent crucial con-
ceptual and cultural models in a linguistic community that a language learner should be able to
appropriate (Lantolf, 1999). The term “metaphoric(al) competence” has even been coined to
refer to a speaker's ability to use and understand metaphors, usually in a second or foreign
language, and the links between such competence and general L2 proficiency have been em-
phasized (Littlemore, 2001a; Littlemore & Low, 2006).
Despite the substantial amount of research on metaphors, the teaching of metaphor in FL
education has only begun to attract attention (e.g., Boers, 2000a, 2004; Chen & Lai, 2015;
Lantolf & Bobrova, 2014). Most prior studies focused on English as a foreign language; however,
as metaphors may differ systematically from language to language, more languages should be
examined (Kövecses, 2005). Moreover, while many have investigated the connection between
metaphorical competence and language proficiency (e.g., Aleshtar & Dowlatabadi, 2014;
Littlemore, 2001a; Littlemore, Krennmayr, Turner, & Turner, 2013), few studies have examined
how students across different levels learn L2 metaphors, and whether factors like general
proficiency and learning history may influence the process as well as the product of learning.
Finally, while some identified the instruction method adopted in their research (e.g., Boers,
2000a, 2000b; Chen & Lai, 2015; Lantolf & Bobrova, 2014), most tended to report only the
quantitative results of their research. Few analyzed the qualitative aspect of the process, which
may also reveal much about FL education.
Considering these gaps, the present study aims to shed light on the teaching and learning of
L2 metaphors. It reports on the implementation of a concept‐based pedagogical approach in
sociocultural theory (SCT; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006) to teach Chinese animal metaphors to three
English‐speaking learners. A concept‐based approach centers around the mediated inter-
nalization of domain‐specific concepts embodied in a language; it is, thus, deemed appropriate
to develop L2 metaphorical competence since metaphors usually involve systematic mappings
between embodied as well as abstract concepts and are foundational to the conceptual un-
derstanding of a language (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Animal metaphors were chosen as the
focus since animal expressions in Chinese have been shown to contribute much to idiomatic
480 | LIU AND HSIEH
and figurative language, and commonly adopted animal metaphors may vary cross‐
linguistically (Hsieh, 2004, 2005, 2006). Moreover, animal expressions reflect the values of a
culture (Hsieh, 2004) and enable speakers to express emotions and evaluations (Hsieh, 2005;
Wei & Wong, 2012). By teaching Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners a set of animal
expressions and the underlying metaphors, this study explores how the concept‐based approach
influences the development of metaphorical competence and how SCT may provide insights
into the learners' conceptual and language development in their learning process.
2 | LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 | Concept‐based instruction (CBI)
CBI focuses on the systemic instruction and internalization of explicit and complete
domain‐specific knowledge categorized in SCT as scientific concepts (Lantolf, 2011). Ac-
cording to SCT, “all human psychological processes (so‐called higher mental processes) are
mediated by psychological tools such as language, signs, and symbols” (Karpov & Haywood,
1998, p. 27). It delineates two types of symbolic mediation: self‐regulation, which is the
ability to monitor self‐performance, and concept‐based regulation through the mediational
means of cognitive tools in specific “subject domains” (p. 28). SCT also distinguishes be-
tween spontaneous concepts, which derive from everyday experience and are susceptible to
incomplete or even erroneous understanding, and scientific concepts, which are explicit,
domain‐specific, and generalizable across a wide range of situations (Lantolf, 2011;
Vygotsky, 1986). Language, for example, embodies “the most pervasive concepts” including
lexical, figurative, and grammatical meanings (Lantolf, 2011, p. 32).
Regarding L2 conceptual development, the most commonly followed pedagogical theore-
tical framework was devised by Gal'perin (1970, 1989), who built upon the foundation of SCT,
formulated the theory of systemic theoretical instruction (STI), a term used interchangeably
with CBI in this article (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). Lantolf (2011) summarized the five phases of
Gal'perin's design implemented in the most recent CBI‐L2 studies: (a) verbal explanation of the
generalizable scientific concepts, (b) materialization of the concept using the schema for or-
ienting basis of action (SCOBA), (c) communicative activities using materialized tools as
mediation to accomplish specific goals, (d) verbalization of the concepts, and (e) internalization
of the concepts. A CBI‐based pedagogical design differs from traditional “rules of thumb”
(Krashen, 1981, p. 114) or form‐based instruction as it foregrounds the meaning‐based un-
derstanding of systematic language concepts (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). In contrast, a “rules of
thumb” approach presents learners with categorical rules for language tests and immediate use
in textbook‐like contexts, without explaining the underlying concepts. These are often in-
complete and erroneous in authentic communicative activities (Lantolf, 2011).
Among the pedagogical phases of a CBI approach, the SCOBA of the instructional design is
a central mediational tool facilitating the appropriation of concepts and gradually integrating
with learners' Orienting Basis of an Action (OBA), a term coined by Gal'perin
(1989, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c, 1992d) to define all the necessary sets of orienting elements that aid
the learner in performing an action. While the OBA signifies learners' actual orienting basis and
may change given appropriate instruction, the SCOBA becomes the orienting basis to be
adopted, which leads to the appropriate execution of an action (Haenen, 2001) and usually
remains fixed. SCOBA incorporates the essential condition to perform (verbal) action
LIU AND HSIEH | 481
appropriately, and it is an external aid that typically consists of models, flowcharts, diagrams, or
any other nonlinguistic but relevant representation of the concept. Working with a SCOBA
indicates that the action is conducted at the materialized level.
2.2 | The formation of mental actions
According to Arievitch and Haenen (2005), the core concerns of Gal'perin's theory from which
the STI model developed reside in “how human mental activity is formed out of the trans-
formation of 'external' activity” (p. 157). The formation of mental actions, according to
Gal'perin, is stepwise and follows three basic levels of abstraction—material, verbal, and mental
levels, as summarized in the following table by Arievitch and Haenen (Table 1).
Arievitch and Haenen (2005) suggest that a “fully fledged mental action” will be formed
after passing through these three levels (p. 159) and that in real learning circumstances,
Gal'perin's stepwise process of forming mental actions can be best illustrated as a spiral. That is,
the steps are not linear, but might be abbreviated, merged, or skipped, depending on variations
in learning tasks, learning history, and the like. Thus, the spiral cycle underlines the gradual
improvement in the quality of mental action, as it goes back and forth from the end‐stage to the
beginning, starting new cycles of further internalizing the mental action, as illustrated in
Figure 1.
2.3 | Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)
According to the CMT (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), a metaphor not only constitutes a trope in
rhetoric but also facilitates the understanding of many basic concepts and forms the foundation
of human cognition. It involves a systematic mapping from the source domain, usually the more
embodied concepts, to the target domain, usually the more abstract ones. In the metaphor
1
TIME IS MONEY, for example, the relatively tangible concept of money is employed as the source
domain to conceptualize the more abstract concept of time.
Under this framework, conceptual metaphors are distinguished from linguistic metaphors
(Lakoff, 1993), and primary metaphors from complex metaphors (Grady, 1997, 1999). Con-
ceptual metaphors represent structured cognitive mappings between two conceptual domains,
while linguistic metaphors consider specific linguistic devices in a language (Lakoff, 1993;
Littlemore & Low, 2006). For example, LOVE IS A JOURNEY is a generalized, conceptual metaphor,
in which LOVE and JOURNEY refer to abstract concepts, rather than specific expressions.
TABLE 1 Gal'perin's three basic levels of action, summarized from Arievitch and Haenen (2005)
Level Description
At the material level Learners act upon concrete, physical objects or their material representations.
At the verbal level Learners' actions are based on overt or covert speech; objects or their
representations give way to word concepts and speech; verbal actions are to
meet communicative or socio‐interactional requirements.
At the mental level Learners act upon pure conceptual thoughts; the actions “are kept in mind.”
482 | LIU AND HSIEH
F I G U R E 1 The spiral model of the

formation of mental actions (Arievitch &
Haenen, 2005)
In contrast, the clause we are at a crossroads per se is an instance of a linguistic metaphor

because the expression is more fixed and language‐specific.
Primary metaphors refer to metaphorical mappings acquired via bodily experience and are
more basic and cross‐linguistic (Grady, 1997), such as MORE IS UP. They can be combined into
a complex metaphor that is not necessarily motivated by the bodily experience. For instance, AN
ARGUMENT IS A BUILDING is a complex metaphor that contains at least two primary metaphors,
which are (a) LOGICAL STRUCTURE IS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE and (b) PERSISTING IS REMAINING ERECT (Grady,
1997). Such complex metaphors are more likely to vary cross‐linguistically (Grady, 1999;
Kövecses, 2005) and may pose difficulty for L2 learners (Littlemore, 2001b).
2.4 | Metaphor in L2 development
Many have highlighted the importance of developing the awareness of, and the ability to use as
well as understand, metaphors in L2 education (e.g., Danesi, 1986, 1993; Lantolf & Bobrova,
2014; Littlemore, 2001a; Littlemore & Low, 2006). For example, Danesi (1986) suggested that
learners' ability to metaphorize in L2 is essential to their capability of conducting effective
communication in the target language. Lantolf and Bobrova (2014) also contended that meta-
phorical capacity is key to advanced levels of L2 proficiency.
By distinguishing “metaphoric competence” from other language abilities, scholars have
proposed specific definitions for this competence. Littlemore (2001a) defined metaphorical
competence as a combination of four weakly related parts, including the originality of metaphor
production, the ability to find meaning in metaphor, the speed in finding the meaning in
metaphor, and the fluency of metaphor interpretation. Littlemore and Low (2006, p. 269),
extending this definition, characterized metaphorical competence as including “the knowledge
of, and ability to use, metaphor” along with the “skills needed to work effectively with meta-
phor” (Low, 1988).
One important research topic is the link between metaphorical competence and general
proficiency. In general, most studies have shown that the more proficient L2 learners appear to
be more metaphorically competent (Aleshtar & Dowlatabadi, 2014; Littlemore, 2001a; Lit-
tlemore, Krennmayr, Turner, & Turner, 2013). Much attention has been paid to the contribu-
tions of metaphorical competence to the development of general language proficiency or
communicative ability (Lantolf & Bobrova, 2014; Littlemore & Low, 2006); however, relatively
LIU AND HSIEH | 483
few studies have examined the influence of general proficiency on the development of meta-
phorical competence.
On the other hand, research arguing for the notion of conceptual fluency as an inherent
component of metaphorical competence seems to separate conceptual fluency, which concerns
the knowledge of how “language reflects or encodes its concepts on the basis of metaphorical
structuring” (Danesi, 1992, p. 490), from verbal fluency, which is more generalized and involves
the learner's grammatical and communicative ability. That is, verbally fluent L2 speakers may
not necessarily display equally high conceptual fluency. Nevertheless, little is known about how
learners across proficiency levels learn new metaphorical expressions and whether L2 profi-
ciency influences the learning of new metaphors.
Another relevant area is the influence of explicit instruction on learning L2 metaphors. Most
seem to agree that metaphors are teachable and that explicit instruction is essential to en-
hancing the learners' metaphorical competence (e.g., Boers, 2000b; Chen & Lai, 2015; Lantolf &
Bobrova, 2014; Pérez, 2017). However, as reviewed by Lantolf and Thorne (2006), Hays and
McCagg (1999) found no significant difference between participants who received explicit in-
struction on metaphors and those who did not. More research is needed to investigate whether
metaphors are indeed teachable to learners at different proficiency levels, given appropriate
pedagogy.
3 | METHODOLOGY
Situated in the SCT‐informed framework of CBI (Gal'perin, 1970, 1989; Lantolf, 2011), this
study adopted a multiple case study design to qualitatively explore CFL learners' developmental
processes of metaphorical awareness/competence regarding Chinese animal metaphors. In
brief, the central principle of SCT posits that the dialectical unity between human's biological
mental processes and socially appropriated “auxiliary stimuli” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 8),
including physical and psychological tools, gives rise to the development of human con-
sciousness. Among the types of auxiliary stimuli, language, along with the concepts embodied
in linguistic signs, is the most powerful and ubiquitous psychological tool that mediates the
higher forms of human cognitive development and activity.
To disentangle such dialectic unity from which human consciousness arises and develops,
Vygotsky (1978) proposed that the analytical methodology must be genetic (i.e., historical) to
uncover the dynamic and historical processes of development. A genetic approach studies “the
process as it changes” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 24), revealing both the source and the result
of development. Vygotsky's genetic method observes human developmental processes at four
interconnected levels: phylogenesis (history of the species), sociocultural history (evolution of
human cultures), ontogenesis (individual's life history), and microgenesis (developmental
changes throughout short periods).
Applying to the educational‐developmental processes of CBI, the ontogenesis and, espe-
cially, the microgenesis are relevant to observing the influence and construction of individuals'
educational histories and the processes of learners' developmental changes unfolding “right
before one's eyes” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 61). Therefore, in contrast to research methodologies that
quantify learner variables, this study primarily adopts a qualitative case study design to in-
vestigate the learners' developmental processes of mental actions. Moreover, a case study design
affords opportunities for a close examination of the local specificity of changes (Dyson &
Genishi, 2005), as well as the dialectical “educational praxis” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 63) of
484 | LIU AND HSIEH
teaching‐learning enacted within the idiosyncratic cases of each individual's needs and his-
tories. Previous CBI research (e.g., Kim, 2013; van Compernolle, 2012) frequently drew on the
interpretive power of qualitative case studies and focused on a microgenetic analysis of in-
dividual learners' developmental processes.
3.1 | Research questions
The overarching research question concerns how an STI/CBI approach, through different levels
of material and social mediational support, influences the learners' development of metapho-
rical awareness/competence regarding Chinese animal metaphors, and how learners as in-
dividuals across various proficiency levels would improve through an STI/CBI approach. The
main research question is: How does an STI design influence the learners' metaphorical
awareness/competence regarding Chinese animal metaphors? The subquestions are as follows:
(1) How would the same STI design influence the development of metaphorical awareness/
competence of the intermediate and advanced learners regarding Chinese animal
metaphors?
(2) How would individual learners with different learning styles and histories react to the same
STI design during their learning processes?
Adopting Boers' (2004) and Littlemore's (2001a) theories, this study refers to metaphorical
awareness as learners' awareness in recognizing the commonalities and cross‐cultural/linguistic
variations in (animal) metaphors and defines metaphorical competence primarily as their
ability to find the meaning of animal metaphors and the speed in doing so.
3.2 | Participants and research settings
Three students from a U.S. public university, Alice, David, and Lisa (pseudonyms), gave in-
formed consent and joined the study. They were all enrolled in the university for degree
programs at the time of the study and were native speakers of American English.
Both Alice and David were advanced learners of Chinese. Alice was an undergraduate who
had studied Mandarin for six years through classroom instruction and online courses. She
passed HSK 52 with a score of 61% and spent one semester studying abroad in China. David, a
first‐year M.A. student in the TESL program took Chinese classes for four semesters in college
and spent 1 year abroad in China teaching English and studying Chinese. He had passed
multiple official HSK 4 practice tests. Finally, Lisa was a first‐year undergraduate, double‐
majoring in Chinese and microbiology. Unlike the other participants, Lisa had no immersive
experience in the target culture and studied Chinese by taking online courses in high school and
classroom courses in college. Although she had not taken any internationally accredited stan-
dardized tests of Chinese, Lisa was described by her then Chinese teacher as an intermediate
Chinese learner.
Over 4 consecutive weeks, one of the researchers, a native speaker of Chinese, served as the
instructor and met with each participant individually for 1 hr/week in a group study room at the
library of the participants' university. Initially, the instructor delivered the instructional content
in Mandarin to all participants. However, it turned out to be too challenging for Lisa to converse
LIU AND HSIEH | 485
and comprehend information entirely in Chinese. Using Chinese as the main instructional
language was probably beyond her Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which is, according
to Vygotsky (1978), “the distance between the actual development level as determined by
independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through
problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (p. 86).
Considering that mediation in the learner's ZPD plays a central role in the developmental
process in educational activities (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014), the main instructional language was
switched to English in Lisa's sessions. Meanwhile, the teaching materials used in Alice's and
David's sessions were kept the same for Lisa as the amount of the target language input was
within her ZPD and she was able to comprehend and use the words, idioms, and sentences with
the mediation of the instructor and learning materials.
3.3 | Teaching agenda
The lessons were partly derived from the Chinese Metaphors Lesson Unit created by the
language education and research center at the participants' university. The unit on animal
metaphors was taken as the teaching focus. Metaphorical concepts related to three mammals,
monkeys, dogs, and tigers, in particular, were included in the lessons. The rationale for
choosing these three animals was as follows: (a) it was necessary to select a small number due
to the limited timeframe for the study, and (b) expressions involving these animals are highly
prevalent in Chinese.
3.3.1 | Design of SCOBAs
Given the scarcity of studies on Chinese animal metaphors, SCOBAs in this research were
designed largely based on Hsieh's (2006) and Kieltyka and Kleparski's (2007) theoretical
constructs. To materialize each animal's metaphorical concepts, semantic molecules were first
obtained from animal expressions to trace the derivation of figurative meanings associated
with the selected animal. These molecules were composed of “primitive semantic features”
(Goddard, 1998, p. 255) derived from the animal's appearance, habitat/behavior,
human–animal relations, and are supported by linguistic expressions (Hsieh, 2006). Next,
drawing on the network of the semantic molecules, core conceptual spheres that could be
mapped to figurative meanings were, then, generated.
SCOBAs of monkeys, dogs, and tigers

Following the procedure described above, semantic molecules of these three animals were first
extracted from their animal expressions (see the Appendix for sample lists). For the expressions
of hou [monkey],3 the main semantic molecules generally include kid, head, brain, hand, foot,
skinny, impatient, careless, restless, naughty, mischievous, shrewd, calculating, and sneaky. The
semantic molecules of gou [dog] mainly include leg, walk, flunky, abettor, brown‐nose, patron-
ized, bully, evil, defeated, fell, loser, and desperate. Finally, the semantic molecules Hsieh (2006)
summarized for hu [tiger] were used for tiger metaphors, containing big, great, strong, swal-
lowing, fierce, courageous, proud, powerful, important, energetic, robust, greedy, hungry, danger-
ous, violent, cruel, and so forth (p. 2212).
486 | LIU AND HSIEH
Combining semantic molecules with foundational conceptual spheres of animal metaphors

(such as APPEARANCE/PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS, BEHAVIOR/CHARACTER) summarized by Kieltyka and
Kleparski (2007), relevant conceptual spheres were generated. Semantic molecules were not
mapped word‐by‐word onto each conceptual sphere; rather, the spheres reflected the core
semantics of semantic molecules. Accordingly, conceptual sphere charts were created from
which the SCOBAs of the three animals were developed. Figures 2–7 below are the resulting
conceptual charts and SCOBAs made for the three animals:
3.3.2 | Pedagogical design and data collection procedure
For each animal, four expressions were selected as target phrases for instruction (as listed on
each SCOBA in Section 3.3.1) based on the researchers' judgment of the expression's prevalence
and representativeness in Chinese. An instruction session for each animal was approximately
1 hr long. Explanations of their metaphorical meanings were oriented by concept sphere charts
and SCOBAs. Afterwards, the students were shown word cards with one animal expression on
each and were asked to infer the metaphorical meanings of each expression oriented by the
SCOBA. The instructor further explained their metaphorical meanings after the learner's in-
ference. Following the word card activity, students were given a worksheet with fill‐in‐the‐
blanks exercises asking them to match the context described in each sentence to one of the four
animal expressions learned.
The preinstructional phase and Week 4 consisted of a presurvey, a posttest, and reflective
activities. The presurvey contained two parts. The first part presented questions that solicited
information about the participants' demographic, educational, and linguistic backgrounds. The
second part was a pretest of the participants' metaphorical awareness/competence regarding
Chinese animal metaphors before the lessons. All data collection instruments used in the
present study can be freely downloaded on the IRIS Database; iris-database.org. Table 2 outlines
a sequence of teaching activities and the data collection procedure.
3.3.3 | Data analysis
Two types of qualitative data were collected: (a) textual data including presurvey results, writing
assignments, and all the in‐class work produced by the learners as well as (b) audio‐recordings
documenting the instructional sessions.
FIGURE 2 Conceptual spheres chart of

monkey
LIU AND HSIEH | 487
F I G U R E 3 Schema for orienting basis of action of monkey [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
The data‐analysis procedure followed Vygotsky's genetic method. At the ontogenetic level,
the histories of the individual learners' developmental processes were reconstructed via in-
formation gathered from the data sets of presurveys, the participant's written classwork, and
audio‐recorded instructional sessions. In particular, it used a microgenetic approach to trace the
participants' levels of appropriation and internalization of the metaphorical concepts as per
Arievitch and Haenen's (2005) model of the formation of mental actions.
The participants' presurveys were reviewed and analyzed to gain qualitative knowledge
about their prior language learning histories and their prior knowledge about the target ani-
mals' metaphorical concepts before receiving the instruction (students' OBA). Each audio re-
cording of the instructional sessions was examined and transcribed to microgenetically identify
the learner's actions at the material, or verbal, or mental levels for each instructional or com-
municative activity. The students' written classwork was used as supplementary data to help
interpret their appropriation and internalization of the metaphorical concepts at the verbal and
FIGURE 4 Conceptual spheres chart

of dog
488 | LIU AND HSIEH
F I G U R E 5 Schema for orienting basis of action of dog [Color figure can be viewed at
mental levels. Lastly, the transcripts were thematically coded to highlight the participants'
learning styles and their reactions to the same STI design.
4 | FINDINGS
A total of 9 hr 38 m 31 s of audio‐recorded data was collected from the instructional sessions.

The textual data collected included 20 pages of written assignments, in‐class exercises, and
survey results. The following subsections present findings that are pertinent to the develop-
mental processes of CFL learners' metaphorical awareness/competence regarding Chinese
animal metaphors through the CBI approach.
FIGURE 6 Conceptual spheres chart of

tiger
LIU AND HSIEH | 489
F I G U R E 7 Schema for orienting basis of action of tiger [Color figure can be viewed at
4.1 | Findings from the pretest
The pretest results suggested that all three participants possessed little knowledge about the
animals' metaphorical meanings in Chinese, despite their proficiency levels. The first task of the
pretest examined the participants' metaphorical competence in interpreting the metaphorical
meanings associated with eight common animals in Chinese: monkeys, dogs, tigers, pigs, bulls,
dragons, horses, and snakes. The participants showed little understanding of the common
metaphors associated with these animals in Chinese despite their knowledge of the Chinese
names of the animals. Of the eight animals, only the metaphorical meanings of the dragon were
interpreted appropriately by Alice and David. These two participants appeared to derive their
interpretation from a limited number of Chinese idiomatic expressions (e.g., tiger mom) and the
literature they were exposed to. For example, they both interpreted the metaphorical meanings
of the monkey as a derivative of the qualities from Monkey King—a protagonist in the classic
Chinese novel Journey into the West. As for Lisa, she failed to fill out most parts of the table and
indicated that she had no idea how these animals were interpreted metaphorically in Chinese.
The second task asked the participants to self‐evaluate their knowledge levels (0–5) of the
metaphorical meanings of 20 selected animal expressions commonly used in Chinese, from
which 12 were selected to constitute the teaching items for the later instructional sessions.
Expressions with ratings over 3 indicated that the participants had some knowledge of them.
The participants' responses showed that they were not confident or inaccurate about their levels
of knowledge for most of the animal expressions. Alice rated only one expression over three.
Lisa rated two expressions at a score of 3. David rated 14 expressions over 3, among which 10
were teaching items. Later, during the instructional sessions, the instructor found that David
actually had much less knowledge about those 10 items than he claimed. He misjudged his level
of knowledge for at least 71.4% of the animal expressions evaluated.
490 | LIU AND HSIEH
TABLE 2 Data collection and pedagogical activities timeline
Timeline Teaching activities Data set
Preinstructional phase Presurvey Results of the presurvey

1. Background survey
2. Pretest
Week 1 Project introduction and animal metaphors 1. Texts of all in‐class work,
of hou [Monkey] drawings and students' notes
2. Audio recordings of the
1. Metaphor awareness activity
instructional session
2. SCOBA of hou
3. In‐class communicative activities:
word cards, fill‐in‐the blanks, drawing
activity
Week 2 Animal metaphors of gou (Dog) 1. Texts of all in‐class work,
students' notes, and homework
1. SCOBA of gou
assignments
2. Audio recordings of the
word cards, fill‐in‐the‐blanks, video
watching
3. Take‐home reflective writing
assignment
Week 3 Animal metaphors of hu (Tiger) 1. Texts of all in‐class work and
students' notes
1. SCOBA of hu
2. Audio recording of the
word cards, fill‐in‐the‐blanks, creating
a narrative
Week 4 The reflective session 1. Texts students produced during
the session
1. Verbalizing meanings of all word
2. Audio recordings of the session
cards
2. Creating participants' own SCOBAs
3. Posttest: metaphor transfer, cross‐
cultural reflection
4. Reflecting on SCOBA's roles
Abbreviation: SCOBA, schema for orienting basis of action.
4.2 | CFL learners' developmental process of metaphorical

awareness/competence during instructional sessions
This section presents findings based on data collected from individual instructional sessions
concerning the participants' conceptual developmental progress across the material, verbal, and
mental levels (Arievitch & Haenen, 2005) in growing their metaphorical awareness and com-
petence. Given the qualitative differences in the interactions with each participant (Kim, 2013),
in the following subsections, the findings will be presented case by case.
In general, regardless of their language proficiency, all the participants gradually formed mental
actions that facilitated their performance as they moved forward through the sequence of pedagogical
activities, mediated by their gradually internalized metaphorical concepts. Nevertheless, their uptakes
LIU AND HSIEH | 491
TABLE 3 Overview of participants' developmental stage
Participants
Levels of
actions Alice David Lisa
At the Object (SCOBA)‐regulated; Object (SCOBA)‐regulated; Object (SCOBA)‐regulated;

material Confusions with similar Pursue more form‐based Without much confusion
level conceptual spheres and knowledge (instructional language
semantic domains in English)
At the Speedily and effortlessly Gradually become more Verbally act upon the
verbal verbalize the majority of attentive to the conceptual concepts to evaluate the
level metaphorical concepts; meaning; concepts learned;
Verbally act upon the Appropriately verbalize the Capable of verbalizing most
concepts to construct core meanings of animal of the metaphorical
elaborate narrative expressions concepts
At the Act upon mental concepts to Act upon mental concepts to Act upon mental concepts to
mental create her own SCOBAs; successfully complete the generate reasonable
level metaphor‐transfer task; hypothesis for the
Deep reflection on cross‐
Actively created his own metaphor‐transfer task
cultural differences
SCOBAs
Abbreviation: SCOBA, schema for orienting basis of action.
of the same STI design varied possibly due to their learning styles, prior knowledge, and learning
histories. Table 3 summarizes and compares the participants' developmental processes.
The purpose of categorizing their development into three stages is to capture their developmental
progress, rather than to suggest that these levels are separate and linear. Instead, the participants
moved spirally across different stages of development to gradually increase their internalization of the
metaphorical concepts and improve the quality of the mental actions (Arievitch & Haenen, 2005).
Due to space limitations, this spiral process is mainly demonstrated in Alice's case. Examples of this
process from David's and Lisa's sessions are briefly presented in the discussion section.
4.2.1 | Alice's case
At the material level, Alice was largely able to use the SCOBAs to successfully orient her
thinking and performance based on the essential and distinctive concepts materialized in dif-
ferent conceptual spheres. For example, after the instructor explained the SCOBA of hou
[monkey], she managed to infer the metaphorical meanings of the expressions shou pi hou
(thin‐skin‐monkey—a very skinny person) and hou ji (monkey‐rush—very impatient/to be in
the rush to do something).
Excerpt 1:
The researcher (R): 这里有四个词, 你看它们属于哪个类别, 哪个 category, 是什么意思?

[Here on these cards, we have four animal expressions. Could you figure out what (con-
ceptual) spheres they belong to, which category, and what are their meanings?]
492 | LIU AND HSIEH
Alice (A): Umm…Uhm! 猴急应该是那样的, 就是很着急, 哈哈哈哈. [Oh! Hou ji is like that, it
means in a rush, hahahaha]
The researcher: 对, 猴急是. [Right, that is the meaning of hou ji]
Excerpt 2:
A: 我不记得这个字, 这个“瘦”。噢!这个就是这个, 哈哈哈哈。瘦皮猴, 就是这个样子, 很瘦.

[I do not remember this character, this character, this “shou”. Oh! This one belongs to this
category, hahaha. Shou pi hou; it's like this, very very skinny.]
R: 嗯, 对对对! [Yes, right, right, right!]
The two excerpts above show that after determining the literal meanings of both expressions
on the word cards, Alice was able to infer their metaphorical meanings using the SCOBA as an
orienting tool. She specifically pointed to the conceptual categories on the SCOBA, noting “it is
like that, it is like this.” At this material level, she used the external object to mediate her
thinking.
At the material level, it was also evident that she was at the initial stage of appropriating the
metaphorical concepts, and her thinking was still object‐regulated. There was a gap between the
knowledge of metaphorical concepts she learned through the SCOBAs and her performance in
the fill‐in‐the‐blanks exercise when she needed to apply the knowledge in specific contexts. For
her, the knowledge was still external, rather than internalized. During the fill‐in‐the‐blanks
exercise, she sometimes failed to distinguish between two similar conceptual spheres, MOOD
(more transient and context‐specific) and PERSONALITY (more stable character and disposition).
She also mixed up two metaphorical expressions of the same conceptual sphere yet matched to
different ends on a semantic continuum—like hu jin (tiger‐strength—great physical strength)
and hu jiang (tiger‐general—a person who is very capable and brave beyond the physical level).
Both belong to the same conceptual sphere of POSITIVE STRENGTH for tiger metaphors. For one
sentence that described people who possess great physical energy, Alice chose hu jiang to fill in
the blank. For another sentence that depicts people who played an important role in a company,
she selected hu jin instead. After the instructor's further explanation, Alice gradually cleared up
her confusion and developed a deeper understanding of both expressions: hu jin refers to a
person's strength, but hu jiang is a person; Jiang literally means a general who plays an
important role but yields to the leadership of political power and, therefore, metaphorically hu
jiang refers to important figures in an organization who are nevertheless not the highest‐
ranking leaders. Her deepened understanding further facilitated her performance in more ad-
vanced communicative activities as shown below.
As Alice gradually succeeded in appropriating the concepts, she was able to verbally act
upon the concepts. In the later narrating activity, Alice created a narrative using hu jiang to
describe some people she knew.
Excerpt 3:
A: Umm, 我觉得一定看到了很多虎将. [Umm, I think I must have met many hu jiang].

R: Um‐hum.
A:很多可能有点太多的意思。可是我觉得我有机会认识很多老师, 或者其他这样的 organiza-
tions, 或者在 school, 或者 club, 或者在教会这样的人。他们不是 in charge, 可是他们做的很多
很重要的事情, 是比较…可是, 我不懂, powerful, 不一定是powerful, 就是 like, very important.
LIU AND HSIEH | 493
[I said “many” might indicate a large size. However, I think I had met a number of people
like this, such as many professors, or people in organizations, schools, or clubs, or at
churches. They are not in charge, but they are doing numerous important things. They are
very…but I do not understand, powerful, they are not necessarily powerful, but they are like,
very important].
Their work is important.
R: 对, 他们不一定有 political power, 但是他们非常 important [Right, they may not have
political power, but they are very important], their work is their power.
A: 我觉得, 呃, 因为我学习的情况, 呃, 有一点特别。我, 好多次我要请老师帮我, 做一些事,
或者看一下, 噢, 这个可以不可以。所以这门课, 那门课, 这样的。然后我觉得有一些老师,
他们不一定是 department head, in charge of something, 那样的人。可是他们真的, 做的, 他
们做的是很
[I think, well because of my academic situation, um, is kind of special. I, many times, I had to
ask my professors to help me, ask them to do something for me, or take a look and see if this
is ok or not, like if I could choose this class, or that one. And then I feel like some professors,
they may not be the department head, in charge of something, people like that. But they are
really, what they did, what they did was really], to me, the work they do is very powerful and
important because it changes my opportunities here. 然后他们做的事, 做的很好, 做的很快,
那样。所以我不知道能不能说虎将 [And they always did a great job efficiently, like that. So,
I do not know if I could say they are hu jiang?]
R: 你可以说他们是这个department的虎将, 但是你不能说他们是你的虎将. [You could say
they are the hu jiang of this department, but they are not your hu jiang.]
Alice could use the metaphorical concepts of hu jiang properly to mediate her narrative. She
highlighted the important roles played by these people in their organizations and to her. At this
level, she was able to verbally act upon the concepts of hu jiang, in contrast with her previous
confusions about its meanings. At this verbal level, Alice raised “problem questions” (Arievitch
& Haenen, 2005) that further facilitated her understanding. For instance, she inquired about the
nature of the power of hu jiang. By continuously resolving confusion about the deeper aspects of
hu jiang's meanings, she gradually moved toward higher levels of internalization.
In the fourth week, after a series of pedagogical activities, Alice was able to readily and
effortlessly verbalize the metaphorical concepts of most of the 12 animal expressions. At this
stage, it was evident that she did not need external objects to mediate her mental actions, and
the material representations had been replaced by word concepts and speech (Arievitch &
Haenen, 2005).
During the reflective session, Alice demonstrated evidence of being able to act upon the
mental concepts in the internal plane to generate hypotheses to create her own SCOBAs and try
to work out the metaphorical meanings of new animal expressions. In creating her own
SCOBAs, she raised some possibilities to improve the conceptual explicitness of semantic
subdomains within the same conceptual sphere. One possibility was to use a series of mini
cartoon illustrations to visualize the action states (e.g., to visualize hou ji as being in a rush to do
something but have not been able to), or to visualize the affiliated relationship inherent in some
metaphorical concepts like hu jiang (affiliated with an organization). Near the end of the
reflective session, Alice introspected that her conceptualization of the use of animal metaphors
in Chinese culture had been substantially transformed. The prevalence of fixed animal ex-
pressions in Chinese culture revealed a distinct animal metaphor system in the Chinese lan-
guage intertwined with profound cultural and historical messages, such as metaphors of gou.
494 | LIU AND HSIEH
4.2.2 | David's case
Similar to Alice, David showed evidence of gradually forming mental actions passing through
three levels of abstraction as he progressed through the sequence of pedagogical activities. At
the material level, when his task performance was oriented by the physical representation of
concepts, like Alice, he experienced difficulties in capturing essential features that distinguished
two conceptual spheres like MOOD and PERSONALITY for hou metaphors, or between two semantic
subdomains within the same conceptual sphere, such as hu jin versus hu jiang.
Apart from these similarities, David had a distinctive learning style. In contrast to Alice,
who appeared to accept the meditational role of SCOBA visualization readily and wield it to her
use effectively, David seemed to resist using it, especially at an early stage, partly because the
presented SCOBA did not comply with his learning history and goals. This incompatibility was
evident at the material level where he was oriented to the SCOBAs and was supposed to
complete tasks according to their materializations.
First, he questioned the categorization of concepts on the SCOBA because it was at odds
with his prior understanding or OBA. For instance, he doubted the division between PERSONALITY
and MOOD.
Excerpt 4:
R: 那你觉得这个像什么呢? [What does it look like?]

David (D): Umm…猴子的 [Monkey's]…mood….mood. 就是情绪? [Is mood qing xu (mood)?]
R: 对, 是情绪。就是 personality是一个人的, 呃, 性格。可能他一直, always是这样子。
[Yes, it is mood. Personality is one's, um, and character. A person may always be like this.]
然后 mood是 [And, mood is], just at that moment.
D: Temporarily.
R: 对 [Yes], temporarily.
D: Umm…和我刚刚说的有点一样, 就是一个人, 他现在, um… [Just like what I said, this
picture shows a person. He is now, um…]
R: 你觉得这个图画像什么样子?哈哈哈 [What do you think it looks like? Hahaha.]
D: 就是, 不能管住, 和你刚刚说的。呃, 就是, 它, 我不知道是不是正确的。但是好像它, 它疯
掉了。就是它有点crazy, 它, 嗯, 嗯, 对, 就是, 嗯, mood…我觉得我就是, mood和我说的per-
sonality有点一样。我不知道怎么, 怎么, like, separate.
[It's like, you cannot control him, just like what you said. Um, it is, I do not know if I am right, but
it looks like this monkey is crazy. He is kinda crazy. Um, yeah, it's like, I feel like mood is
somehow similar to the personality I am talking about. I do not know how, how to, like, separate.]
In Excerpt 4, David revealed that he understood MOOD as somewhat similar to PERSONALITY

and that separating these two did not make sense to him. This confusion continued to the word
card activity when he was supposed to infer the metaphorical meanings of animal expressions
based on different conceptual spheres. For example, David was very uncertain whether he
should categorize the expression hou jing [monkey‐shrewd—a shrewd and calculating person]
into the category of PERSONALITY or MOOD. His disagreement with the conceptual division between
PERSONALITY and MOOD might have inhibited his further appropriation and internalization of
hou's metaphorical concepts in later materialization activities.
Moreover, David's learning goal seemed to be more form‐oriented rather than concept‐based,
and he turned away from using the SCOBAs for some activities despite the instructor's reminders.
LIU AND HSIEH | 495
During the first two sessions, David insisted on treating the fill‐in‐the‐blanks exercise as a self‐test
and made efforts to complete it without any mediational assistance. Fill‐in‐the‐blanks exercise is
highly common in FL education, and David's form‐based approach may have reflected his past
learning experience of dealing with this type of task. It was likely that he attentively picked up
relevant grammatical knowledge from the instruction and used them as rules of thumb to make
choices, but did not direct much attention to conceptual meanings. His explanation of his choices
was mainly based on structural rules instead of conceptual cues. For example, in one sentence, he
chose hou ji instead of hou jing because the sentence asked for an adjective. He made the right
choice many times but could not verbalize the sentences' meanings.
It was unclear whether David's learning style hindered him from appropriating the
metaphorical concepts. However, he gradually became more attentive to the conceptual
meanings as he made mistakes in the fill‐in‐the‐blanks exercise due to his lack of un-
derstanding of the concepts. David's developmental path implies that development is
spiral rather than linear (Arievitch & Haenen, 2005; Lantolf, Kurtz, & Kisselev, 2016) as
his use of past knowledge and experience may not always pave the path for immediate
improvement and development. Thus, to David, more mediation was needed, and a
concept‐based intervention seems particularly necessary, especially for FL metaphors.
Although David's learning style diverged from the activities' objectives at the material
level, he largely followed the pedagogical sequence and was constantly mediated to var-
ious types of materialization in addition to the SCOBAs. In the final session, he was able to
verbalize the core meanings of all learned animal expressions appropriately, though not as
speedily and effortlessly as Alice.
During the final reflective session, David acknowledged that the SCOBAs helped mediate
his memory, as he remembered the mental image in the SCOBAs and the position of each
animal expression in the domains of different conceptual spheres. Moreover, the categorizations
of different concepts helped him to better understand the metaphorical meanings of animal
expressions. Eventually, he seemed to internalize the SCOBAs as a chain of images at his
mental level to mediate his actions.
David actively engaged in the SCOBA creating activity, trying different ways to categorize
the metaphorical meanings of the animal. Instead of working on the expressions of each animal
separately, he considered all the animal expressions as one group before classifying them.
Excerpt 5:
D: Umm, keep trying to do different ways, but…(murmuring) appearance? similarity? I don't

know, I am just, I am just trying different ways. This is like, for me, um, like actions,
R: Ah
D: Sort of like consequences of actions, like the way you act, like zou gou, or, you, you know,
sang jia gou. Because of something you did. These like something like toward personality, or
maybe your mood or something, sort of like the inner things,
R: Um‐hmm.
D: And this is more like appearance or outer things.
R: Oh, ok!
D: I don't know. Basically, the way you did it is like, the most logical way. So, I just tried to do other
ways. I mean there was, the most useful way for me, I guess, is a little bit along these lines.
Knowing the differences between what is like describing someone based on the way they act, like
their actions, or is it a personality thing, or is it an appearance thing, I think this is useful, um.
496 | LIU AND HSIEH
David finally created three conceptual groups: ACTION, INNER QUALITIES, and APPEARANCE/OUTER THINGS
to classify the metaphorical concepts of the three animals. Notably, he put MOOD and PERSONALITY, with
which he had confusion in Excerpt 4, in the same conceptual group of INNER QUALITIES, which made
more sense to him. Moreover, for the metaphor transfer activity, he could infer almost all the
metaphorical meanings of the new animal expressions based on the concepts he had learned. For
these activities, his ability to act upon pure concepts demonstrated a transformation of actions from
the material and the verbal forms to the mental form.
4.2.3 | Lisa's case
Unexpectedly, Lisa turned ill in the third week, resulting in the suspension of the third session.
As a result, she had not learned metaphors of tiger and the reflective activities revolving around
the metaphors of the first two animals (monkey and dog).
Despite her health condition, Lisa also passed through three levels of abstraction and she
gradually formed mental actions by appropriately using metaphorical concepts to perform
mental tasks. Notably, she smoothly carried out actions at different levels, without much dif-
ficulty in capturing each concept's distinctive features.
Excerpt 6:
R: So why do you think it is hou [monkey‐child]?

Lisa (L): I thought they are just talking about a kid, and it's also the fact like, they are
describing this kid in one way not like he is currently at this exact moment, which is why I
don't think it would be hou ji. Um, so because they are saying like “very”' in a certain way,
kind of says he is always that way. So it's like a personality. And then, the personality describes
a kid, um, it says he is difficult or playful or something, so, hou er.
R: Yeah, yeah. And also, 谁也管不住他 [no one could keep him under control]. Like, no one can
control him.
L: Yeah,
R: So he is very, haha,
L: Difficult
R: Naughty, yeah, hahaha.
As shown in Excerpt 6, Lisa clearly explained how hou er [monkey‐child—a naughty and mis-
chievous kid] was fitting the context of the sentence. First, she pointed out that the contextual clues
asked for an expression describing PERSONALITY, and she was clearly contrasting essential features that
distinguished the conceptual sphere of PERSONALITY from that of MOOD. Later, she declared that the
context also indicated a difficult and playful kid, pointing out the essential features that distinguished
the metaphorical concepts of hou er from that of hou jing. Both examples were among many others
that demonstrated her high quality of action in appropriating metaphorical concepts. Compared with
Alice and David, Lisa displayed a clearer understanding of hou's metaphorical concepts, particularly
of the spheres of PERSONALITY and MOOD.
Proceeding from the material level, Lisa could gradually perform actions at the verbal level
in expressing her ideas and knowledge about the concepts learned. For example, in the final
reflective session, she was able to verbalize most of the metaphorical concepts and meanings of
the animals she learned. At the mental level, she also generated reasonable hypotheses on new
animal expressions, mediated by metaphorical concepts she eventually internalized.
LIU AND HSIEH | 497
Excerpt 7:
Lisa (L): Monkey head and monkey…I don't know the singular meaning of…
The researcher (R): Brain, brain
L: Brain? Oh
R: Yeah.
L: Dog and…this
R: Officer, like working for an institution or government.
L: Ok. Um, so I think for hou tou hou nao [monkey‐head‐monkey‐brain], it sounds like
might be describing a personality? I don't really know. Um, either like being hard to control
or calculating. Um, I suppose because brain is part of the word, and head, that kind of thing.
Um, I guess I would say that it is close to hou jing, something like that, maybe too smart, too
clever? Not necessarily a good way, maybe?
R: Umm‐hmm.
L: And for gou guan [dog‐officer], um, I think I would say the category would be when the
leader (owner) is present.
R: Um‐hmm, yeah.
L: So, that category, and the meaning, I guess, it reminds me of zou gou, where like they
might be a part of something larger, like an institution, or the government or something. But
those are my guesses.
In the above excerpt, Lisa inferred that hou tou hou nao [monkey‐head‐monkey‐brain] de-
scribed a type of personality similar to the meaning of hou jing, essentially based on the meanings
of tou [head] and nao [brain], which implicated a person's inherent mental qualities. Although
her inference was not conventionally appropriate, she was able to hypothesize a reasonable
interpretation mediated by the concepts she appropriated. For the new expression gou guan [dog‐
officer], she also captured its core metaphorical meanings aligned with what had been con-
ventionalized in Chinese culture. Generally, a gradual formation of mental actions can be seen to
proceed from the material level to the mental level in her learning process. Although the selected
excerpts may not substantially manifest a spiral progress, her learning trajectory of Chinese
animal metaphors, especially shown in the final reflective session, also had a spiral nature as she
raised questions that initiated a more advanced orientation toward the concepts' deeper features.
5 | DISCUSSION
5.1 | The gradual formation of mental actions
The gradual formation of a mental action that moves through the three levels of abstraction
contributes to the gradual internalization, enhances the quality of action supported by the
parameters of generalization and abbreviation, and ultimately leads to the mastery of a mental
action with speed and ease (Arievitch & Haenen, 2005). Such processes correspond with the
conceptual development of metaphorical awareness and the gradually increased mastery of
metaphorical competence that is maintained by the increasing mastery of relevant mental actions.
Clearly, following the STI approach, all the participants made significant progress despite the
relatively short period of 4 weeks. Step by step, they formed mental actions in using the gradually
internalized metaphorical concepts to find meanings in metaphorical expressions. Compared
498 | LIU AND HSIEH
with their prior knowledge revealed in the pretest results, the participants' performance in the
final reflective session evidenced the effectiveness of an STI approach in improving CFL learners'
metaphorical competence. Further, mediated by the STI pedagogical design, all the participants
showed an expanded metaphorical awareness in recognizing the commonalities and differences
in the animal metaphorical expressions of their L1 and L2 cultures. Usually, the metaphor lessons
started with warm‐up questions to engage with students' OBA, and which may have raised their
cross‐cultural awareness of animal metaphors, since they sometimes generated insightful cross‐
cultural reflections during the lessons as evidenced in Alice's case. However, since the develop-
ment of cross‐cultural metaphorical awareness/competence was not the focus of this study, this
paper only analyzes and discusses learners' development in their L2 metaphors. In addition, for
various tasks, the participants alternatively acted at the material, verbal, and mental levels, and
steadily made improvements that oriented them to more advanced levels of appropriating and
internalizing the concepts, attesting Arievitch and Haenen's (2005) spiral model. Besides Alice,
both David and Lisa's learning trajectories were also spiral, especially when they raised questions
that directed back to the materializations of the concepts but initiated further internalization
towards the concepts' deeper features. For example, while performing verbal communicative
tasks, David asked whom hu jiang's [tiger‐general] power serves—the organization or people
affiliated with the organization. After the researcher clarified that hu jiang is more at the service
of the organization's benefits rather than a particular person's, David achieved a deeper under-
standing of the nature of hu jiang's power. Likewise, Lisa further understood the different possible
relationships between the deplorable situation of sang jia gou [lose‐home‐dog] and the “powerful
figure” behind as she raised clarification questions during the learning tasks. However, due to
space limitations, this spiral process was only demonstrated in Alice's case in the findings section.
5.2 | Promoting L2 metaphorical competence/awareness across

language levels
This project also indicated that the same STI design is effective for L2 learners across different
language levels and various language learning experiences. Findings, especially from the
pretest, weakened the assertion that higher language proficiency corresponds to greater me-
taphorical competence (Aleshtar & Dowlatabadi, 2014). As illustrated in the findings, higher
language levels did allow for more extensive interpretations of L2 metaphorical expressions, yet
did not assure appropriate and complete interpretations. As revealed in the pretest results, more
advanced learners could misjudge their actual knowledge of metaphorical expressions and form
unreliable spontaneous concepts (Lai, 2012) from their limited exposure to particular expres-
sions or literary works in the target language.
Moreover, the immersive language experience both Alice and David had in China did not
seem to contribute much to their metaphorical competence, at least in Chinese animal meta-
phors. Accordingly, explicit instruction may be highly necessary for learners to appropriate
complete and proper metaphorical concepts as it helps them dispel their misunderstanding and
orients them to accurate and generalizable scientific concepts of culturally specific metaphors.
Lower language proficiency did not seem to get in the way of appropriating and inter-
nalizing L2 metaphorical concepts. In the end, all three participants showed a significant leap in
their metaphorical awareness/competence. Nonetheless, inadequate language proficiency did
sometimes limit the learners' access to broader linguistic and content resources without re-
course to dictionaries or other assistance.
LIU AND HSIEH | 499
However, lower language proficiency may require an adjustment of the main instructional
language if the use of the target language is beyond the learner's ZPD. In this study, the main
instructional language for Lisa was adjusted to her L1 to provide a high‐quality mediation in her
ZPD. In Kim's (2013) study, she also used the participants' L1—Korean as the instructional and
communicative language to mediate their internalization of the concepts of sarcasm in L2
English. However, it remains unclear whether the use of students' L1 would make a difference in
their appropriating and internalizing L2 concepts by making the concepts more transparent to
them. The developmental outcome may have been affected by other individual factors, as dis-
cussed below. Future studies may explore the role of different instructional and communicative
languages in the process of learners' conceptual development as well as how to balance FL
learners' linguistic and conceptual development in the target language.
5.3 | Individual differences in response to the same STI design
The participants' uptake of the same STI design varied throughout the learning processes. Alice
readily accepted a concept‐based approach and effectively wielded the SCOBAs to her use, though she
indicated that the SCOBA design could have been more explicit for certain metaphorical concepts. In
contrast, David's learning style was not at first compatible with the concept‐based approach. He
questioned some categorizations of the concepts since they went against his prior knowledge, such as
the case of PERSONALITY and MOOD for hou's (monkey) metaphorical concepts. He resorted to
self‐summarized “rules of thumb” (Lantolf, 2011, p. 40) and form‐based features to perform the tasks,
instead of using the SCOBAs as a mediational tool. In Lai's (2012) study, the participants also
discussed in their postsurvey that their acceptance of the explanation of the concepts had affected the
usefulness of the SCOBAs. In larger instructional sessions, such as classroom instruction, where
opportunities for teacher–student interactions are not as ample, it may pose challenges to both the
teaching and learning processes if the learners' learning styles, prior knowledge, and learning history
are at odds with the planned goals of a concept‐based approach.
Lisa's learning process, in contrast, revealed a slightly different type of progress from Alice and
David's pattern. She showed a better general understanding at the material level than the other
participants, who were more proficient in Chinese. The contributing factors were found to be opaque.
Lisa received the instruction in her L1, but it is not yet clear whether adopting the learners' L1 as the
instructional language would make a difference in their internalization of the concepts. Other in-
dividual differences may also affect learners' levels of conceptual understanding.
5.4 | Pedagogical implications
The findings of this study raise the FL educators' pedagogical awareness that the language
learners' verbal fluency does not necessarily assure a comparable development of con-
ceptual fluency (Danesi, 1992) in the target language. The need to receive explicit and
systemic instruction of L2 metaphorical concepts equally applies to learners across dif-
ferent language levels and from various learning environments. Moreover, educators do
not have to wait until learners are developmentally ready before they can implement a
concept‐based learning approach. Learners at lower language levels are capable of inter-
nalizing L2 concepts if provided with appropriate material and social mediation according
to their ZPD. Furthermore, a concept‐based approach seems effective in engaging
500 | LIU AND HSIEH
beginner L2 learners into agentive communicative practices that simultaneously promote

their conceptual and linguistic competence in the target language.
In addition, the findings from this study are adaptable to the instruction of FL metaphors in
an individual tutorial or an intact classroom setting. FL tutors and educators can design ac-
curate, high‐quality, and systemic cultural and conceptual tools such as SCOBAs to mediate
students' internalization of L2 metaphor concepts. Various communicative activities are needed
to engage learners in exploring their learning environments and solving problems by acting
upon the concepts, instead of adhering to right or wrong answers.
An STI‐driven pedagogical approach can be combined with developments of new technol-
ogies in designing digital conceptual tools as high‐quality mediational means, incorporating
digital learning experience into the stepwise instructional sequence. Furthermore, it orients
learners to the concepts embodied in the target language, promoting their internalization of
powerful psychological tools for meaningful and agentive cultural exploration, which further
fosters their identity as culturally competent FL learners in the global era.
6 | CONCLUSION
Despite the indispensable role of metaphor in foreign/second language communication, the

comprehension difficulties FL learners have experienced, and the high need for metaphor
teaching pressed by scholars (Boers & Demecheleer, 1998; Henderson, 1982; as cited in
Littlemore, 2001b), few studies have explored the pedagogical possibilities of teaching L2 me-
taphors explicitly. This project implemented a concept‐based pedagogical design that follows
the stepwise STI (Gal'perin, 1989; Lantolf & Poehner, 2014) to teach Chinese animal metaphors
to CFL learners. Drawing on the findings regarding the individual cases of three English‐
speaking participants with disparate Chinese language levels, we found that learners across
different language levels are equally in need of systemic and scientific instruction in animal
metaphors. Higher language levels may allow for more elaborate interpretations of L2 meta-
phorical expressions but do not guarantee their accuracy and appropriateness. The STI design
effectively fostered CFL learners' metaphorical awareness/competence by mediating their ap-
propriation and internationalization of the metaphorical concepts across the material, verbal,
and mental levels, despite their different L2 levels.
This study, thus, contributes to the growing literature on systemic metaphor instruction in
FL education. Essentially, this project directed the learners to explore meanings, concepts, and
cultural models embedded in a foreign language, enhancing their cultural understanding as
well as a disposition for cultural exploration and self‐reflection, all of which are essential to the
development of “global competence” (ACTFL).
ACKNOWLEDGMEN TS
This research was partially supported by the grant program of the Ministry of Science and
Technology (MOST 109‐2410‐H‐011‐001), Taiwan. We are thankful to our participants, who
made this research possible, and to the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education
and Research (CALPER) at the Pennsylvania State University, whose Chinese metaphor
teaching materials inspired the instructional design of this project. We are sincerely grateful to
James Lantolf and Celeste Kinginger for their invaluable comments on the earlier versions of
this paper. We would also like to thank Mohammad Moniruzzaman Akhand for his support
during the initial course of this project. Finally, we are indebted to the three anonymous
LIU AND HSIEH | 501
reviewers and Editor of Foreign Language Annals for their insightful feedback and support.
However, any errors in this article remain our own.
E N D N O T ES
1
In the literature of CMT, conceptual metaphors and conceptual domains are conventionally written in small
capitals in order to distinguish them from specific linguistic realizations of the concepts (Lakoff & Johnson,
1980). This convention is thus adopted throughout this article.
2
Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK), the Chinese Proficiency Test, is an international benchmark test which eval-
uates the language abilities of nonnative Chinese speakers. Six language levels are measured by the test. Learners
who passed level 4 should be able to converse fluently in Chinese with native speakers. Level 5 attests learners'
abilities to read magazines and newspapers in Chinese, understand Chinese films and plays, and give complete
speeches in Chinese.
3
For pedagogical materials and data excerpts included in this article, Chinese words, expressions, and discourse
are translated into English in square brackets.
ORCID
Shuyuan Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9054-0702
Chen‐Yu C. Hsieh http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4949-645X
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How to cite this article: Liu S, Hsieh C‐YC. Developing metaphorical awareness and
competence in Chinese as a foreign language through concept‐based instruction. Foreign
Language Annals. 2020;53:478–504. https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12483
APPENDIX
(sample lists of animal expressions)
1. Hou [Monkey] Expressions:

hou jing 猴精 [monkey‐shrewd—a shrewd and calculating person]
hou er 猴儿 [monkey‐child—a naughty and mischievous kid]
hou ji 猴急 [monkey‐rush—very impatient/to be in the rush to do something]
shou pi hou 瘦皮猴 [thin‐skin‐monkey—a very skinny person]
hou shou 猴瘦 [monkey‐thin—being skinny]
hou tou hou nao 猴头猴脑 [monkey‐head‐monkey‐brain—being restless, impatient and
naughty like a monkey]
hou shou hou jiao 猴手猴脚 [monkey‐hands‐monkey‐feet—being careless and reckless in
handling things]
tiao hou er 调猴儿 [naughty‐monkey—a naughty person]
2. Gou [Dog] Expressions:
zou gou 走狗 [walk‐dog—a flunky of an evil leadership]
gou tui 狗腿 [dog‐leg—an abettor and/or brown‐nose of a evil person or someone in
authority]
sang jia gou 丧家狗 [lose‐home‐dog—a previous bad guy who became an outcast, whose
backing power has been defeated, a loser]
luo shui gou 落水狗 [fell‐water‐dog—a bad guy who lost power, who has been defeated]
gou guan 狗官 [dog‐officer—a government officer who exploits his/her power to bully
and oppress people]
504 | LIU AND HSIEH
gou ji tiao qiang 狗急跳墙 [dog‐desperate‐leap over‐wall—a person (usually a defeated

bad guy) who has been cornered to a desperate situation will risk everything to get him
out of the impasse]
gou zhang ren shi 狗仗人势 [dog‐lean on‐master's strength—to be a bully under the
protection of a powerful person]
3. Hu [Tiger] Expressions:
hu jin 虎劲 [tiger‐strength—great physical strength]
hu jiang 虎将 [tiger‐general—a person who is very capable and brave]
hu dan 虎胆 [tiger‐gut—great braveness]
xiao mian hu 笑面虎 [smiling‐face‐tiger—a person who appears to be kind but with a
cruel heart]
mu lao hu 母老虎 [tigress—a woman who is fierce, ill‐tempered, and overbearing]
lan lu hu 拦路虎 [block‐way‐tiger—formidable obstacle that hinders development or
progress]
zhi lao hu 纸老虎 [paper‐tiger—someone or something that appears to be daunting,
but is in fact ineffectual]

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Received: 14 July 2019 | Accepted: 20 June 2020

Developing metaphorical awareness and

Shuyuan Liu1 | Chen‐Yu C. Hsieh2

478 | © 2020 ACTFL wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/flan Foreign Language Annals. 2020;53:478–504.

seemingly short period of instruction. As such, this re-

2.1 | Concept‐based instruction (CBI)

2.2 | The formation of mental actions

2.3 | Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)

F I G U R E 1 The spiral model of the

In contrast, the clause we are at a crossroads per se is an instance of a linguistic metaphor

2.4 | Metaphor in L2 development

3.1 | Research questions

3.2 | Participants and research settings

3.3 | Teaching agenda

3.3.1 | Design of SCOBAs

SCOBAs of monkeys, dogs, and tigers

Combining semantic molecules with foundational conceptual spheres of animal metaphors

3.3.2 | Pedagogical design and data collection procedure

3.3.3 | Data analysis

FIGURE 2 Conceptual spheres chart of

FIGURE 4 Conceptual spheres chart

A total of 9 hr 38 m 31 s of audio‐recorded data was collected from the instructional sessions.

FIGURE 6 Conceptual spheres chart of

4.1 | Findings from the pretest

TABLE 2 Data collection and pedagogical activities timeline

Timeline Teaching activities Data set

Preinstructional phase Presurvey Results of the presurvey

Abbreviation: SCOBA, schema for orienting basis of action.

4.2 | CFL learners' developmental process of metaphorical

TABLE 3 Overview of participants' developmental stage

At the Object (SCOBA)‐regulated; Object (SCOBA)‐regulated; Object (SCOBA)‐regulated;

4.2.1 | Alice's case

The researcher (R): 这里有四个词, 你看它们属于哪个类别, 哪个 category, 是什么意思?

A: 我不记得这个字, 这个“瘦”。噢!这个就是这个, 哈哈哈哈。瘦皮猴, 就是这个样子, 很瘦.

A: Umm, 我觉得一定看到了很多虎将. [Umm, I think I must have met many hu jiang].

4.2.2 | David's case

R: 那你觉得这个像什么呢? [What does it look like?]

In Excerpt 4, David revealed that he understood MOOD as somewhat similar to PERSONALITY

D: Umm, keep trying to do different ways, but…(murmuring) appearance? similarity? I don't

4.2.3 | Lisa's case

R: So why do you think it is hou [monkey‐child]?

5.1 | The gradual formation of mental actions

5.2 | Promoting L2 metaphorical competence/awareness across

5.3 | Individual differences in response to the same STI design

5.4 | Pedagogical implications

beginner L2 learners into agentive communicative practices that simultaneously promote

Despite the indispensable role of metaphor in foreign/second language communication, the

(sample lists of animal expressions)

1. Hou [Monkey] Expressions:

gou ji tiao qiang 狗急跳墙 [dog‐desperate‐leap over‐wall—a person (usually a defeated

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