英語能力、創造力與創意動機對於大一新生覺察與運用英語隱喻之預測研究

Predictability of English Proficiency, Creativity, and Creativity Motivation in Taiwanese Freshmen's Recognition and Production of Creative Metaphors in English

王宏均(HUNG-CHUN WANG)

指導教授 ： 程玉秀

國立臺灣師範大學/文學院/英語學系/博士(2012年)

摘要

本研究旨在探討臺灣大一新生的英語能力、創造力和創意動機對於他們覺察與運用英語創意隱喻的預測力，同時亦檢視不同英語創意隱喻能力的大一新生在英語創意態度上的差別。研究對象為215名就讀於北部一所公立大學的大一生，所有參與的學生須完成包含英語閱讀測驗、英語寫作測驗、陶倫斯創造思考能力測驗、英語創意動機問卷、英語創意隱喻辨識活動和英語創意隱喻創造活動共六項活動，爾後研究者根據二十八名學生對於一份創意態度問卷的回應，探討回應者對於理解和使用英語創意語言的態度。
　　詳細地說，首先，本論文探討英語能力、創造力和創意動機對於覺察與運用創新英語隱喻的預測力，英語能力包括閱讀和寫作能力；創造力包含流暢力、變通力、創新力和整體創造力；創意動機則以「期望價值論」為理論依據，包含對成功的期望和主觀任務價值兩項指標；英語創新隱喻覺察能力意指正確解讀創新隱喻的能力；而英語創新隱喻運用能力則包括隱喻流暢力、隱喻變通力、隱喻創新力和隱喻精密力四項能力。有關上述所獲得的資料則透過統計計量法分析，藉以瞭解變項間的關聯性及自變項對依變項的預測能力。就此點來說，本論文主要發現概述如下：
1. 英語創新隱喻覺察能力和整體英語能力、創造力和創意動機有顯著相關，然而僅整體英語能力和創意動機能有效地預測英語創新隱喻覺察能力。
2. 英語創新隱喻運用能力與整體英語能力、創造力和創意動機有顯著相關，然而僅整體英語能力和創造力能有效地預測英語創新隱喻運用能力。
3. 在三項預測變項中，整體英語能力對於英語創新隱喻覺察能力和運用能力具有最大的預測能力，而創造力和創意動機分別對於英語創新隱喻覺察能力或隱喻運用能力的預測能力則較低。
　　另一方面，本論文亦透過創意態度問卷以瞭解不同英語創新隱喻能力的學習者在創意動機上的差異，研究者將填答問卷的學生分為高英語創新隱喻能力組和低創新隱喻能力組，並分析兩組在創意態度上的不同。研究結果顯示兩項態度上的差異可能會影響受試者運用創新隱喻的能力，首先，高成就受試者較強調英語能力和創新隱喻運用能力的關聯性，而低成就者普遍認為英語能力和創新隱喻運用能力無關，高成就受試者對於英語能力的重視，在加上他們實際上較高的英語能力，能提升他們創造英語隱喻時對語言的敏銳度和文字使用上的正確性和多樣性。第二，低成就者運用創新英語隱喻的能力容易受限於他們薄弱的英語程度和學習動機，而高成就者較易感受自我對於創造錯誤或笨拙的表達方式的擔憂，然而高成就者對於文字使用上的擔憂在實際語言創造過程卻能有正向的助益，能提升他們對於語言使用的嚴謹度。
　　透過量化及質化研究方法，本論文共有對理論、實務教學和測驗工具發展上的貢獻：第一，本論文提供了實證資料，驗證了以往創造力理論對於創意思考認知過程的論述，更重要的是，它發現個人領域知識對於創意表現具有最大的影響。第二，在實務教學方面，本論文亦發現改善學習者的英語能力對於提升他們覺察與運用創意英語隱喻的能力可能具有最實際的成效，而創造力和運用創意隱喻能力的關聯性亦顯現出融合創造力訓練活動於英語課堂中的重要性。第三，本論文亦發展出包括英語創意動機問卷等數項研究工具，這些測驗工具能幫助研究者或英語教師更了解學生創意動機以及創意英語隱喻能力。總括而言，本論文除證實了英語能力、創造力和創意動機對於大一新生理解和使用英語創意隱喻能力可能的影響外，同時亦期望能鼓勵更多第二語言習得研究者從事相關研究，以釐清第二語言創造力的多樣性。

關鍵字

英語能力 ； 創造力 ； 創意思考能力 ； 創意動機 ； 覺察與運用英語隱喻的能力 ； 隱喻流暢力 ； 隱喻變通力 ； 隱喻創新力 ； 隱喻精密力

並列摘要

This dissertation aimed to investigate the predictability of Taiwanese freshmen’s English proficiency, creativity and creativity motivation in their abilities to interpret and produce creative metaphors in English. It also intended to explore the creativity attitudes held by Taiwanese freshmen of different creative metaphoric competences. The participants were 215 university freshmen studying in a public university in North Taiwan. All the participants were required to complete six activities: English Reading Proficiency Test, English Writing Proficiency Test, Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, Questionnaire on Motivation Toward Verbal Creativity in English, Recognition Task of Creative Metaphors, and Production Task of Creative Metaphors. After that, according to 28 informants’ responses to a creativity attitude survey, this study would also clarify the students’ attitudes toward verbal creativity in English.
To be specific, this dissertation first explored whether English proficiency, creativity, and creativity motivation were valid predictors for EFL learners’ abilities to interpret and produce creative metaphors in English. English proficiency includes reading and writing skills. Creativity specifically refers to fluency, flexibility, originality and general creativity. Creativity motivation, which is theoretically grounded in the Expectancy-Value Theory, discusses expectancy for success and subjective task value as the primary indicators. The ability to interpret creative metaphors in English means the skill to comprehend creative metaphors correctly. The ability to produce creative metaphors in English involves four main skills: metaphoric fluency, metaphoric flexibility, metaphoric originality and metaphoric elaboration. Collected data related to the variables discussed above were analyzed by means of statistical measures in order to probe the correlations among all the variables and the predictive power of the independent variables in the dependent variables.
With regard to the results of statistical analyses, findings are summarized below:
1. The ability to interpret creative metaphors in English was significantly correlated with overall English proficiency, creativity, and creativity motivation. However, only English proficiency and creativity motivation could significantly predict the ability to interpret creative metaphors, while creativity could not.
2. The ability to produce creative metaphors in English was also significantly associated with overall English proficiency, creativity, and creativity motivation. However, only English proficiency and creativity could effectively predict the ability to produce creative metaphors, while creativity motivation could not.
3. Of the three predictor variables, English proficiency turned out to be the strongest predictor for the abilities to interpret and produce creative metaphors in English. By contrast, creativity and creativity motivation indicated much weaker predictability for the ability to interpret or produce creative metaphors in English.
On the other hand, by means of the creativity attitude survey, this dissertation also attempted to explore the differences in the participants’ attitudes toward comprehending and producing creative metaphors in English. Analysis of the surveys indicated that two perceptual differences were perhaps significant enough to influence learners’ ability to produce creative metaphors. First of all, the learners with higher creative metaphoric competences emphasized the relationship of English proficiency to productive creative metaphoric competence, while those with lower creative metaphoric competences in general considered them to be unrelated. Secondly, lower-achievers’ ability to produce creative metaphors may be easily hindered by their weak English proficiency and low interest in learning English. With regard to those with higher creative metaphoric competence, they indicated strong concern over creating erroneous and awkward expressions in English. Nevertheless, higher-achievers’ concern over linguistic appropriateness may turn out to be beneficial instead. Based on these differences, it can be inferred that those higher-achievers’ emphasis on English proficiency and concern over linguistic appropriateness, plus their actual higher English proficiency, can enhance their linguistic sensitivity that can encourage them to produce metaphors that sound accurate and acceptable.
Based on the quantitative and qualitative analyses, this dissertation may have three aspects of contribution: theoretical significance, practical significance and instrumental significance. First of all, this study provided empirical evidence supporting the extant theories of creative thinking addressing the cognitive process of creative thinking. Most importantly, it discovered that domain knowledge may have the strongest influence on creative thinking. Secondly, with regard to its practical significance, this study also discovered that enhancing learners’ English proficiency may directly contribute to their abilities to interpret and produce creative metaphors in English. The close association between creativity and the ability to create metaphors in English further strengthens the importance of incorporating creativity training activities in English classes. Thirdly, this study also developed several instruments that can help SLA researchers and teachers better understand students’ creativity motivation and creative metaphoric competences. To sum up, this dissertation demonstrated the effects of English proficiency, creativity and creativity motivation on university freshmen’s abilities to interpret and produce creative metaphors in English. It is hoped that this study can draw more attention from SLA researchers to the investigation of language creativity in English.

並列關鍵字

English proficiency ； creativity ； creative thinking abilities ； creativity motivation ； abilities to interpret and produce creative metaphors ； metaphoric fluency ； metaphoric flexibility ； metaphoric originality ； metaphoric elaboration

參考文獻

Sternberg, R. J. (1988). A three-facet model of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity (pp. 125-147). NY: Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg, R. J., & Lubart, T. I. (1999). The concept of creativity: Prospects and paradigms. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 3-15). NY: Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg, R. J., & O’Hara, L. A. (1999). Creativity and intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 251-272). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Piquer-Piriz, A. M. (2008). Young learners’ understanding of figurative language. In M. Zantotto, L. Cameron, & M. Cavalcanti (Eds.), Confronting metaphor in use: An applied linguistic perspective (pp. 183-197).

English references