Title: The Effects of Foreign Language Learners’ Creativity and English Proficiency on Their Multi-modal Metaphorical Interpretation Ability

Abstract: By taking 124 second-year non-English majors as participants, this study attempts to explore through a test and a questionaire the effects of creativity and English proficiency on their ability to interpret multimodal metaphors in English advertisements. The results are as follows: 1) Creativity and English proficiency are positively related to multi-modal metaphorical interpretation ability; 2) Learners’ creativity and English proficiency interact with each other on multi-modal metaphorical interpretation ability. Among the groups with good English proficiency, the multi-modal metaphorical interpretation ability of the high creativity learners is better than that of the low creativity learners. The results show that the learners’ creativity and English proficiency can significantly predict their multi-modal metaphorical interpretation ability, and the dominant effect of creativity is based on English proficiency.

Keywords: creativity, English proficiency, multi-modal metaphorical interpretation ability

Author: Chen Cai, Lecturer, Essential School, Zhejiang Shuren University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.