Lexical errors in open-class metaphor

It is now possible to analyse lexical error rates for metaphor, with the aim of investigating the relationships between lexical errors which involve metaphorically used lexical items, and those which do not. The same criteria as those used in Section 4.4.4 above were used to annotate errors, and Table 4.19 below gives examples of some of the errors identified.

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Language and level Examples of errors Correct form

French PET

Table 4.19 Examples of lexical errors in open-class metaphor

Table 4.20 below shows the average percentages of overall lexical errors per level involving metaphor. Those essays which did not contain any lexical errors were excluded from the analysis.

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Table 4.20 Table showing % lexical errors involving metaphor

Figure 4.26 Graph showing % lexical errors involving metaphor

The overall increases observed in the graph are not surprising; as metaphor density increases with level, it is not surprising that the percentage of errors which involve metaphor would also increase. However, the significant finding from this graph comes when comparing it to the overall lexical error rates (see Figure 4.24 above). Put simply, as overall error rates decrease, the percentage of those errors which involve metaphor

Percentages of lexical errors involving metaphor

Japanese French

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increases, corroborating Littlemore et al.’s (2014) findings that students do experience difficulty using metaphor correctly. However, it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which it is metaphor that is causing these difficulties. This question will be addressed in more detail in Chapter Five.

Important differences can also be observed when comparing the percentages from the two different language backgrounds. At PET level, the percentages of error involving metaphor are higher for the French learners. Although this could be explained by the higher metaphoric densities of the French essays at this level, the increase in metaphoric error percentage between KET and PET, from 0% to 8.33%, is greater than the difference in open-class metaphoric density (1.18% to 5.08%, including personification, 1.19% to 4.32% when personification is excluded), which implies that the variation cannot be explained by the difference in metaphoric density alone. A similar situation can be observed at level FCE, where the French learners’ metaphoric error rates decrease while the Japanese metaphoric error rates increase dramatically. While open-class metaphoric density also increased between levels PET and FCE in the Japanese data, the increase was not so marked. This indicates that at level FCE, as previously suggested, Japanese learners show a greater willingness to experiment with metaphor, but these findings also suggest that they experience more difficulty doing so than the French learners. This is highlighted by the fact that overall Japanese error rates at FCE level are lower than overall French error rates, which makes the high metaphorical error rate even more emphasised. For the French learners, the decrease in metaphoric error rates level FCE is coupled with an increase in overall error rate. It could perhaps be said that the French learners were more willing to experiment with metaphor at PET level, and by level FCE metaphor poses them less trouble.

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Furthermore, French learners seem to experience less difficulty with metaphor than the Japanese learners overall.

By level CAE, metaphoric error rates for the Japanese learners have dropped to a similar level as those of the French learners; it is still slightly higher, however, while their overall error rates are slightly lower. At level CPE, overall Japanese error rates were slightly higher than the French, as are their metaphoric error rates. Overall, these findings suggest that while some of the variation may be explained by the difference in metaphoric density (the higher the metaphoric density, the more likely it would be for there to be higher metaphoric error rates), the comparisons with the overall error rates show that the language background does have an effect on error rates involving metaphor. Japanese learners do seem to struggle more, even at those levels where their overall error rates are lower.

It was established in Section 4.4.4.1 above that there was no correlation between general error rates and overall LFP scores. Another Spearman’s rho test was performed, this time focusing only on metaphoric error rates and average metaphor LFP scores, calculated from the corrected metaphor data. This time, instead of expressing metaphoric errors as a percentage of total errors as shown above, they were expressed as a percentage of total open-class metaphors in the essay. Essays with no open-class metaphors were discounted from the analysis. A significant correlation was observed between metaphor error rates and metaphor LFP scores, rs = .276, n = 177, p < .001. Likewise, when expressing metaphor errors as a percentage of total words in the essay, the relationship was significant, rs = .282, n = 177, p < .001. This is very interesting when viewed in the light of the findings reported in Section 4.4.4.2 above. While there is no significant correlation between general error rates and overall average LFP scores, the metaphoric error rates do significantly correlate with

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metaphoric LFP scores. What is more, the effect seems to vary according to language background, with the correlation slightly stronger in the Japanese data both when metaphoric errors are expressed as a percentage of the total word count in the essay, and when expressed as a percentage of the total number of open-class MRWs. Figure 4.27 below shows this effect with metaphoric errors expressed as a percentage of the total number of open-class MRWs. The blue line relates to the Japanese learners’ writing, and shows a slightly stronger correlation between metaphor LFP score and lexical errors involving metaphor than the correlation observed in the French learners’ writing.

Figure 4.27: Graph showing a stronger correlation between average LFP score and metaphoric lexical error rate in Japanese learners' writing

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Learners are therefore more likely to make lexical errors in their metaphor production if the metaphor comes from a higher frequency band, but this relationship does not extend to overall error production. It seems, therefore, that while metaphor LFP scores develop in much the same way as overall LFP scores, the error patterns involved are different.