Researching Chinese Doctoral Students’ Experiences in English Academic Writing: A Metaphor Analysis

In writing and publishing English academic papers, EFL doctoral students face many challenges, especially in meeting rigorous standards and overcoming language barriers. There are increasing relevant studies on academic writing pedagogy in the EFL context, but research from the emic perspective of students’ cognition in this process remains insufficient. With metaphor as a powerful tool to reflect psychological representation, metaphor analysis is frequently used in educational contexts to reflect students’ and teachers’ inner thoughts. Therefore, this study, using metaphor analysis, aims to explore EFL doctoral students’ metaphor representations of their English academic writing (EAW) experiences. There are two research questions: what kind of metaphors students use to characterize their EAW experience, and what cognitive, emotive, and behavioral features can be found. Eighty-eight Chinese doctoral students from one of China’s top universities participated in a questionnaire survey, where metaphors were collected through the elicited question: “English academic writing is like……because……”. Five source domains were found to characterize the target domain: CONSTRUCTION, MOVEMENT, NOURISHMENT, ACTIVITY, and WORK. Some common features were found despite individuals’ different expressions. The present study offers a new perspective for understanding students’ cognitions and feelings in EAW potentially contributing to EAP pedagogy.