The undergraduate English-Department student’s ability to comprehend English metaphorical expressions

In human's socialization and interaction, the need of communication is absolute. One of the ways of communication is using language. In human's language communication, meanings are expressed either explicitly or implicitly. Often, to express his thoughts and feelings implicitly, one occupies metaphor. In terms of sense of beauty in language use, metaphor is used in different kinds of literary works such as poetry, poem, drama, short story, novel and idiom (or proverb). In terms of word eloquence, metaphor is used to avoid rudeness, improperness, or taboo such as found in euphemism and other rhetoric. In terms of the effectiveness of meaning conveying, metaphor is used to make description more forceful and impressive. Learning a foreign language, a learner is often urged to be able to recognize the meaning of "meaning", the implicit or hidden point, intended by the speaker or writer in a quite-non-literal manner as mostly found in a figurative or metaphorical fashion. Hence, regarding the importance and vastness of usage of metaphor in daily communications, it is necessary that students learning a language not only enrich their vocabulary with the literal concepts, but also be able to conceptualize the implicit meanings of metaphorical expressions either orally or in writing and, in turns, produce metaphorical expressions. In respect to the above statements, the writer conducts a study, which aims at finding the undergraduate English-Department students' ability to comprehend English metaphorical expressions. This study focuses on the exploration of the students' three abilities: 1. ability to differentiate the English metaphorical expressions from the English literal expressions; 2, ability to understand the intended meanings in the English metaphorical expressions; and 3. ability to identify the proper replacement of the English metaphorical expressions for the stated literal expressions. This study is classified as a quantitative research, since the central focus is finding out numerical qualities of the ability to comprehend English metaphorical expressions by the undergraduate English-Department students. And the type of this quantitative research is descriptive study for the reason that it is primarily concerned about finding out "what is" (Borg and Gall, 1989:331) or "product". Thus, the instrument of this study is a test. The findings of the test are the followings. In proportion to the first ability, the subjects obtain 91, excellent. In line with the second ability, the subjects achieve 81, classified as good. Corresponding to the third ability, the subjects attain 41, very poor. Scoring 71, derived from the average of the subjects' three abilities' scores, the subjects prove that they have good comprehension of English metaphorical expressions. Since the study is to scrutinize the undergraduate English-Department students' ability to comprehend English metaphorical expressions, based on the findings of the study, the writer brings up some suggestions to function as contributive feedbacks for the English teachers in any pertinent subjects such as Vocabulary, Translation, Reading, and Literature