Metaphor analysis: a comparative study of Chinese pre-school children’s attitude towards English learning in Shanghai and Mudanjiang

Abstract This study focuses on the experiences and feelings of pre-school children in two different regions about English learning to identify attitudinal differences in these attitudes between remote and urban areas. The research adopted the elicited metaphor analysis (EMA) to investigate the interest and preferences for English learning of 160 Chinese children, ages 4 to 6 (80 males and 80 females), in Shanghai (a major metropolitan city) and Mudanjiang (a small border city in north eastern China). The results showed that children in a remote area had a superior interest and attitude towards English learning than did their peers in an urban area. They gained perception by interacting with their surroundings and making full use of their senses and materials nearby. Moreover, children’s English learning is influenced by Chinese culture and reflects local cultural characteristics. This study suggests that children should be exposed to the English language environment to obtain the core experiences for future English learning, even though the environment may not be suitable. The findings relate directly to teacher training and textbook compilation.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Do children learn the English language in China? Some Chinese parents in remote areas worry that their children's English learning will be affected because they live far from the city. The researchers investigated young children's attitudes towards English language learning in China. The study found that these parents' anxiety was unnecessary. The English language learning attitudes of young children living in remote areas are significantly better than those in developed areas. Young children acquire rich sensory experiences by seeing with their eyes, hearing with their ears, smelling with their noses, and tasting with their tongues. These perceptual experiences support young children's early English learning. Therefore, parents and teachers need to expose young children to an Englishspeaking environment so that they can get the opportunity to contact English. They should create a natural and real English situation for young children to learn English and accumulate core experience for future English learning.

Introduction
"Do children learn English?" This question is a "hot topic" in Chinese society today (Fan, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;J. Li & Yang, 2012;Wu, 2005;Zhou, 2004). Parents influenced by the idea of "Never losing at the starting line" have realized the importance of English learning (Huang, 2015;Xia, 2015;Zhao, 2016;Zhou et al., 2014). By learning one more foreign language, children may develop better creative thinking (Chen & Zhou, 2015;Ka et al., 2017;Lee & Kim, 2011;Leikin, 2012;C. Li & Zhou, 2015;Shen & Yuan, 2015) and have cognitive advantages (Chen & Zhou, 2015;Ka et al., 2017;Lee & Kim, 2011;Leikin, 2012;C. Li & Zhou, 2015;Shen & Yuan, 2015), thus increasing their opportunities for further education and job hunting in the future (Harbert & Sally, 2009;Hu, 2018;Li, 2018;Xia, 2015). The idea "the sooner children learn English, the better" urges parents to expose their children to English learning as soon as possible, and this has brought forward children's age of language learning (Johnstone, 2009;Kocaman & Kocaman, 2012;Moon & Raman, 2011;Mwalongo, 2016). However, English courses are not allowed to teach in kindergartens in China, nor belong in the kindergarten curriculum system (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2011China, , 2018. As a result, parents have to send their children to English institutions where their English learning is unpredictable due to the uneven quality of institutional teachers and the lack of a systematic and scientific evaluation system (Hu, 2006;Huang, 2015;Jin et al., 2015;Xia, 2015;Zhao, 2016;Zhou et al., 2014). In the past, few researchers paid attention to the problems of children's English learning, while in recent years, some studies have gradually found that Chinese children like learning English and have a positive attitude towards it. Chinese children learn English based on their existing experience (Hu, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;Jin et al., 2015;Zhao, 2016). They obtain connective semantic meaning through their senses to form the core experience of English learning. At the same time, some studies have found that children's English learning is affected by their native culture, which is manifested in the fact that the two languages share a common set of semantic meanings (Hu, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;Jin et al., 2015;Wang, 2009;Zhao, 2016). These studies reveal the cognitive mechanism and influencing factors of children's English learning and reflect children's experience and preference of English learning in developed areas. Can these findings also reflect the universality of English learning rules in remote and underdeveloped areas? Those require further study. Drawing data from the perspectives of children, the authors of this study analyzed the attitudes of pre-school children in different regions towards English learning and has tried to answer the following questions: (1) What are children's attitudes in Shanghai and Mudanjiang towards English learning? Do they like learning English? Are they interested in learning English?
(2) Do children in different regions have the same attitude towards learning English? What are the differences, if any?
(3) What characteristics of pre-school children's attitudes towards English learning in different regions through metaphor analysis?
These questions intend to gather information concerning the experiences and attitudes of preschool children concerning learning English in different regions of the country and, thereby, to provide a reference for regional teacher training and local textbook compilation.

Second language acquisition
Second language acquisition refers to the processes by which people develop proficiency in a language that is foreign to them. These processes are often investigated to expect that information about them may be helpful in language teaching (Richards et al., 2000). Chinese children learned English as a foreign language. According to the Chinese language and English language acquisition order, the researchers divided children into two groups: simultaneous bilinguals and successive bilinguals (Baker & Wright, 2017;Tabors, 1997;Yu, 2002). Generally speaking, most children acquire the Chinese language after birth, including Mandarin, its dialects, and minority languages, and then contact and acquire English. Successively acquiring the first and second languages and using them with equal native proficiency are successive bilinguals. Significantly few children acquire both Chinese and English after birth simultaneously (Hu, 2018;Li, 2018). The subjects of this study are successive bilinguals, namely, those who are exposed to and acquire English after having acquired a specific mother tongue. Successive bilinguals are more aware of the processing of sounds, sentences, and words than monolingual children, which is why it is easier for bilinguals to acquire English pronunciation and intonation.
Pre-school children learn English at a relatively advanced cognitive level developing their mother tongue (Baker, 2014;Hu, 2018;Nguyen & Hamid, 2016;Yu, 2002). At 3 to 6 years of age, learning English as a second language is in the advanced development stage of cognition and shows distinct cognitive advantages (Chen & Zhou, 2015;Kuhl, 2007Kuhl, , 2010. At the same time, early childhood strategies in children's dealing with their mother tongue transfer to the English language, resulting in a positive transfer. Sometimes, they also use a mixed strategy to deal with their mother tongue and English, forming a mixed language processing mode (C. Li & Zhou, 2015;Yu, 2002). Also, the social environment and the casual setting influenced bilingual learners (Baker, 2014;Baker & Wright, 2017). For early childhood, the children usually acquire English through natural means. In informal and natural environments, they imitate the accent of foreigners, use their perceptual strategies for auditory decoding, use appropriate English to talk to people, and realize the social rules of what language to use in different social situations (Jasińska & Petitto, 2018;Li, 2018;C. Li & Zhou, 2015). Pre-school successive bilinguals can choose the appropriate language according to the target, topic, language level, and social situation (Tabors, 1997;Yu, 2002). Given the linguistic differences of pre-school early successive bilinguals, second language acquisition has closely followed the mother tongue acquisition.
To some extent, the cognitive experience of acquiring the mother tongue lays a foundation for developing second language competence (Hu, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;Jin et al., 2015;Sun, 2016;Zhao, 2016). In second language acquisition, the mother tongue will affect English learning, especially society, culture, customs, and other contents (Baker, 2014;Gass & Selinker, 1982;Hao & Chi, 2013;Richards et al., 2000;Wen, 2010Wen, , 2013. In addition, the acquisition of a foreign language is inevitably affected by the mother tongue.

Language learning attitude
The expression language learning attitude refers to learners' persistence in pursuing the goal of language fluency and reflects the degree of their positive or negative emotions concerning learning the target language (Edwards, 1941;Gardner et al., 1976;Hu et al., 2018). In other words, language learning attitude is a state of preparation of students' behavioral deviation or internal response to second language learning and its learning context, which is a state of preparation for learners' positive or negative tendencies of reflection towards second language learning (Li and Zou 2015;Qu 2014). These attitudes reflect learners' tendencies, expectations, and demands for second language learning and are influenced by interest, belief, and motivation. Rosenberg and Hovland (1960) divided the learning attitude into three dimensions: cognitive level, affective experience, and behavioral tendency. Qu (2014) and Tang (2017) believed that students' bilingual learning attitudes were composed of cognition, affection, and behavior. Based on the threedimensional theory of attitude, the current study enhances the definition of children's language learning attitude. Specifically, pre-school children ages 4 to 6 are psychologically prepared to learn languages, to have emotional experiences such as expectations and preferences, and to show positive or negative behavioral tendencies.
The international research on attitude towards language learning mainly employs questionnaires, interviews, observations, self-made scales, and other direct investigatory methods. The researchers have obtained children's answers and self-evaluations through interviews and scales of the subjects (Albarracin & Shavitt, 2018;Baker, 1992). For example, Gardner (1985) divided children's language learning motivation and attitude into two categories: an integrated attitude and an instrumental attitude, asserting that learners have an instrumental language view and a comprehensive language view on bilingual learning. In addition, learners have different language learning objectives, methods, and strategies (Baker, 2014). The Attitude/Motivation Test Battery, compiled by Gardner (1985), has high reliability and validity and is commonly used in international research. From the perspective of social culture, Gao et al. (2003) divided language learning motivation and attitude into an intrinsic interest type, an achievement type, a situation type, a going-abroad type, a social responsibility type, a personal development type, and an information media type, all of which are related to whether the learners choose high salary jobs with English in future career choices, accept the culture of English-speaking countries, and have the ability of intercultural communication with persons from different countries.
However, these studies are based on behavioral observation, such as questionnaires and scale surveys, from it difficult to detect the learners' deep mental attitudes and values (Kramsch, 2003). Moreover, such quantitative methods are not suitable for pre-school children because such children do not have language skills that are high enough developed to describe past experiences and feelings directly. Therefore, the researchers adopted an indirect investigation method-the metaphor analysis method (Jin & Cortazzi, 2011;Hu, 2018;Jin et al., 2015;Sun 2016;Zhao, 2016).

Elicited metaphor analysis application
Elicited metaphor analysis (Abbreviation EMA), an advanced research method based on theories from cognitive linguistics, regards metaphor as a cognitive tool that bridges utterance and thought (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;Lakoff & Tuner, 1989;Lu & Liu, 2013;Wang, 2002Wang, , 2009Wang & Xu, 2006). EMA introduces thinking inside the brain, embodies personal values with the help of discourse text analysis, and represents the philosophy of "taken from the body near and materials far." Researchers globally have found that the metaphor analysis method could extract children's attitudes towards language learning. EMA is to go into the deep thinking of children during early childhood and extract previous experiences and the subconscious attitudes towards the learning of English. EMA can also enrich the research achievements of pre-school children's internal beliefs and attitudes and preclude the limitation of traditional quantitative research methods (Hu, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;Jin et al., 2015;Sun, 2016;Zhao, 2016). For example, Jin et al. (2014) successfully applied metaphor analysis to study Chinese pupils' language learning attitude and motivation. They believed that the metaphorical analysis method suited to the research on language learning attitudes in children in early childhood. They interviewed concerning pupils' attitudes towards learning English in Chinese primary schools. Their research found that children liked to learn English and had a positive learning attitude towards the process. The study used several revelatory methods, such as cards, story pictures, games, cartoons, pictures, and role-playing, which could effectively trigger children's association with materials in early childhood. Jin et al. (2014) divided the early bilingual learning attitudes into four categories: positive, negative, neutral, and ambiguous, reflecting the positive and negative feelings of learners towards English language learning and highlighting the importance of culture, emotion, and cognition in early learning. Hu (2018) explored the attitudes and tendencies of pre-school children towards learning English, finding that metaphor could help children build a bridge between language and thinking and reveal their inner orientation and value judgment about learning English. Pre-school children were willing to learn English and liked to be Chinese-English bilingualism in the early stage of English learning. Zhao (2016) analyzed the attitudes of pre-school children in Shanghai towards learning English using metaphor analysis and found that children tended to use positive metaphors to express their attitudes towards learning English, which, described from the perspective of their experience, were happiness and liking at the emotional level and learning activities at the behavioral level. Sun (2016) analyzed the Uyghur language and learning attitudes of ethnic minority children towards learning Mandarin. She found that ethnic minority children held a positive attitude towards learning Mandarin but reported no significant differences in the children's attitudes across different ages. The children believed that learning the minority language was as important as learning Chinese (Min, 2017). Therefore, it was concluded that metaphor analysis could be a vital research methodology for studying pre-school children's attitudes towards learning a second language.

Economic, cultural and social impact
Metaphorical analysis of attitudes in children learning a language is affected by family, society, and institutions. Children's psychological preparation and their penchant for learning a language reflect their affective experiences, such as their preferences, interests, and intentions, and show their active positive or negative behavioral tendencies regarding learning. Attitude covers children's differences in language learning interests, hobbies, learning needs, learning behavior, and expectations (Baker, 2014;Baker & Wright, 2017;Foster-Cohen, 2002). Society, family, and education mainly influenced. Baker (2014) pointed out that family socioeconomic status (SES) is positively correlated with the performance of the English learning attitude. High SES parents could provide children opportunities to learn bilingual and considerable resources for such learning, creating a context conducive to the formation of positive attitudes among children (Butler, 2014(Butler, , 2015. Baker also proposed that children living in cities and suburbs might have different bilingual abilities, learning anxiety, and other experiential dimensions that could, in turn, affect attitudes towards learning bilingually. Children's attitudes towards bilingual learning are also influenced by the status, importance, and extent of a country's multiculturalism. Sometimes, children's attitude towards their mother tongue also affects their attitude towards bilingualism, so that individuals may have different attitudes towards bilingual learning (Foster-Cohen, 2002;Hu, 2018).In conclusion, from the perspective of local variables, this study considered the attitudes of children in China from both developed areas and remote areas towards early bilingual learning, whether they had the same interests and preferences for learning English, and whether there were individual differences between them based upon the region in which they lived. Piaget (1980) believed that people continually reconstruct the cognitive structure of humans during interaction with the environment throughout a series of qualitative stages that define the individual's life. He claimed four stages of human development: the sensorimotor stage (ages 0-2), pre-operational stage (ages 2-7), concrete operational stage (ages 7-11), and formal operational stage (ages 11 years to adult).

Piaget's cognitive theory
The participants in this study were children aged 4-6 years whose cognitive development was in the pre-operational stage. Their thinking developed to the stage of directed thought and autistic thinking, and their egocentric thought was intermediate. At this time, children have images associated with words in their minds, such as food and animals. They also have concepts such as life, thoughts, emotions, and other images associated with them (Piaget, 1980.) They have a qualitative sense of life and feeling according to the ideas of plants, animals, and planets. In other words, children use their bodies to interact with the world around them and acquire the perception of movement patterns, internalized into representations or images (Hu, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;Piaget, 1980;Wang, 2002Wang, , 2009. These representations or images have symbolic functions. In children's brains, representations or images are connected with experience to form semantic concepts. Children can use complex language or symbols to represent the things they have experienced and express their inner feelings and tendencies. At the same time, the transition state of children's egocentrism is different from that of socialization. Children's minds jump directly from the premise to the conclusion in a pure intuition without any intermediate deduction steps (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999; OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), 2014; Wang, 2002Wang, , 2009. As for the "why" explanation in the causal relationship, children have nonreasoning natures that rely on self-experience, feeling, movement, and other cognition and are rarely limited by custom, convention, and other norms (Piaget, 1980.)

Region selected
With the principle of convenience sampling, this study selected two cities, Shanghai, a typically developed area, and Mudanjiang, a remote area. Table 1 presents the demographics of Shanghai and Mudanjiang. Table 2 shows the location and levels of the six kindergartens conveniently selected in Shanghai and Mudanjiang.

Selected kindergartens
The selected kindergartens are of different areas, levels, and education quality, including four public and two private kindergartens. Six kindergartens did not offer bilingual courses. Five kindergartens established bilingual environments in local areas, and one kindergarten did not establish any bilingual context. The natural conditions of the kindergartens sampled in the two regions met the research requirements and had no significant difference.

City and Location
Social Culture Language Environment Education Shanghai: In east China, Shanghai is an international metropolis and the center of the Chinese economy, finance, and education.
Shanghai is a city of immigrants, where cultures coexist at home and abroad. As a result, a multi-cultural pattern has taken form in Shanghai.
There are multiple languages in common, which Mandarin is the primary language of communication in daily life, and English is the working language of some departments and companies. In addition, a small number of Shanghai dialects, English, dialects, or other languages are spoken.
Shanghai leads the country in education. For many years, Shanghai students ranked first in math, reading, and science in the PISA test. Parents attach importance to English learning and desire early bilingual learning.
Mudanjiang is located in the southeast of Heilongjiang province, an important border city adjacent to Russia.
Mudanjiang is a border city. Therefore, Russian customs integrated into the regional culture.
The language environment is relatively simple. Northeast Mandarin is the primary language, supplemented by minority languages or dialects. As a result, locals have few opportunities to apply English and less communication.
Mudanjiang has distinct educational features in science and nature, at the forefront of education in Heilongjiang province. It has nearly 100 foreign language schools because parents attach importance to early English learning. Therefore, pre-school English learning needs to be noticeable.

Participants
The random sample of 160 children aged 4-6 years were from the six selected kindergartens in Shanghai and Mudanjiang. The intelligence quotient of 80 sampling children from each region had no significant differences based upon the kindergartens' IQ test for enrollment. In Table 3, the selection criteria are as shown.
The researchers conducted subject to the ethical review of the sponsoring university. After the participants' kindergarten principals, teachers, and the children's guardians became aware of the study and signed informed consent, the study followed the principle of confidentiality. Ten interviewers replaced the children's names with numbers, and they all promised not to disclose the interview content and research information. In addition, the interviewers allowed the children to   remain silent or refused to answer questions. After each interviewer, children were given gifts as a reward for participation.

Methods
The study adopted a multi-method model, including EMA and questionnaires, in which the researchers simultaneously conducted quantitative and qualitative analysis on the interviews with the children. The quantitative analysis can discover the general characteristics of children's attitudes towards English learning, while the qualitative analysis can explore the children's subconscious attitude and experience in learning English, revealing the inherent cognitive nature through metaphorical similarity of English learning in the early stage (Hu, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;Jin et al., 2015). The multi-method model overcame the limitations of a single research method and improved the reliability and validity of the research so that the findings can be more practical with valuable references (Creswell & Clark, 2017;Hu, 2018).

Elicited metaphor analysis (EMA)
This study used pictures, objects, and other materials to elicit pre-school children to say metaphorical structures like "learning English is like ____, because _____." to express their attitude towards learning English. Because 4-6 years aged children's "subconscious" judgments of causality focused on the content of the language rather than its form (Piaget, 1980), they could understand the content of "because _____" in metaphorical structure, which refers to what it is like to learn English.

Children's questionnaire
The study was localized and compiled into "a questionnaire on children's attitude and experience towards learning English in urban and rural China" (Jin et al., 2014(Jin et al., , 2015, based on the British Council approved project Children's English Learning Motivation and Attitude Scale and Likert's five-point attitude scale. A Comparison between Chinese and English versions-three pilot tests and modifications to them-was reviewed by Chinese and British project experts, and researchers found the reliability and validity to have met the research requirements. The questionnaire consisted of four sections: family background, views towards the English language, English learning, and English learning behavior. It consisted of 40 questions distributed in three parts: basic personal information about early childhood, children's language learning experience, and attitude towards learning English. In addition, the survey focused on the socioeconomic status (SES) of early childhood families, English language learning environment, English learning methods of early childhood, and attitudes towards learning, which would provide quantitative data for the study of early childhood attitudes towards learning English.
One hundred sixty questionnaires were distributed and recovered; the response rate was 100%. One hundred fifty-seven questionnaires were valid, giving an effective rate of 98.12%. The questionnaire was analyzed and revealed a Cronbach's alpha, indicating that the questionnaire was of high quality and reliability.

Metaphor data, the validity and inspection reality
In the research, the EMA text structure "learning English is like, because ." is extracted from the corpus. The integrity and validity of EMA text directly affect the subsequent text coding and analysis. Therefore, judging whether EMA text is valid or not will be the first step of corpus analysis, and it lays a foundation for subsequent research. In the study, the researchers have entered the transcribed text into NVIVO11.0, the EMA text extracted and encoded according to the following standards.
The study collects 468 metaphorical items of early children's English learning attitude in Shanghai and Mudanjiang and proved 448 to be effective metaphorical items, with an effective rate of 95.72% > 85%. The text structure validity is high. There are 208 metaphors in Shanghai, with 191 effective metaphors, and the effective rate is 91.83%; there are 260 metaphors in the Mudanjiang area, with 257 effective metaphors, and the effective rate is 98.85%; the effective rate of metaphor in both regions is more than 95%, and the validity is high.
The researchers input the interview content and questionnaire results of 160 children into SPSS22.0 software. After attitude stability analysis, the Spearman Correlation Coefficient r ¼ :09, p ¼ :022<:05, and the correlation is significant in the stability test of metaphor analysis for preschool English learning attitudes and questionnaire attitudes. The study of pre-school children's attitudes towards learning English through metaphor analysis had excellent stability and met the project's requirements.

Analytic plan
A mixed-method model design is a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the exact text simultaneously.

Qualitative analysis
The researchers transcribed the children's corpus into Nvivo 11.0 software to identify and encode valid sentences. Two related researchers performed the coding and classification of the text independently. In the case of non-interference, the research compared the coding consistency, and the result was inter-rater reliability = 98% and Cohen's Kappa = 0.96 for classification reliability. Table 5 shows the EMA analysis framework, including three elements: target domain, source domain, and entailment (Hu, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;Jin et al., 2015;Sun, 2016;Zhao, 2016). The structure of questions, "Learning English is like ____, because ____.", provides the metaphor and entailments for EMA. For example, "Learning English is like apples because apples are sweet." Apple is a metaphor, and "because apples are sweet" is an entailment. Before analyzing metaphorical text, the researchers first judge the validity of the metaphors according to the criteria in Table 4.
The researchers encoded "entailment" in the metaphorical attitude structure with the text and corpus analysis. Table 6 presents the specific standards and corpus of four categories of metaphorical attitudes classified by Jin et al. (2014), i.e., positive, neutral, negative, and unexplained. Table 7 shows specific types, standards, and the corpus of the metaphors of attitude structure. The study coded and classified metaphors according to Linnaeus' taxonomy for naming organisms.

Quantitative analysis
This study divided the quantitative analysis into descriptive statistics and non-parametric chisquare analysis.

Descriptive statistical analysis:
The researchers counted the numbers of different categories of the metaphors (animals, plants, etc.) and attitudes (positive, negative, neutral, etc.) based on text encoding, and described the percentage distribution of each category.
Non-parametric chi-square analysis: Researchers scored children's attitudes towards English learning with textual analysis of the valid metaphorical structures one by one. The scores were as follows: 4 = positive attitude, 3 = neutral attitude, 2 = negative attitude, and 1 = unexplained attitude. Each child had multi-entry to effective metaphorical structures. The mean value of multiitem metaphorical attitudes was taken as the score of his or her English learning attitudes. Because English learning attitude is a categorical variable, the percentage of each category presents discontinuous values, which belong to non-normal distribution. Consequently, these statistics cannot meet the conditions of an independent sample t-test. Therefore, Nonparametric chi-square statistics analysis was conducted on children's English learning attitudes in Shanghai and Mudanjiang to identify the possible significant differences.

English learning attitudes of pre-school children in two regions
In this part, the study firstly analyzed the demographic characteristics of the sample children and explained descriptive results. Secondly, the study analyzed metaphorical texts of the attitudes of Learning English is like a cup because we can drink water from the cup.

Shape
The external features of objects show a specific spatial or planar structure.
Learning English is like a heart because we like it.

Others
Other things that do not meet the above classification criteria.
Learning English is like a star because it twinkles in the sky. pre-school children in Shanghai and Mudanjiang towards English learning without any differences in children's locations. Finally, the research thoroughly analyzed the children's preference for English learning in shanghai and Mudanjiang. Table 8 presents the demographic analysis of 160 pre-school children in shanghai and Mudanjiang. In addition, a questionnaire for families surveyed children's demographic conditions and demonstrated no significant difference in family SES in the two regions.
The research collected 468 metaphors of English learning attitude, including 448 valuable metaphors, and the effective rate was 95.73%. According to Jin Lixian's four-attitude classification criteria in Table 6, the study classified 448 metaphors into positive, neutral, negative, and unexplained attitudes.Then, the researchers counted the number of categories and calculated the percentage of the total amount of each category. The statistical results are as follows: Table 9 shows the numbers and distribution of four categories of learning English attitudes. The 51.78% of positive attitudes reflect those pre-school children in the two regions like learning English. The children in the sampling were interested in learning English. The 19.87% of negative attitudes indicate that nearly one-fifth of the children have a negative attitude towards English learning. The children do not like or hate learning English.

Comparative analysis of English learning attitudes of preschool children in Mudanjiang and Shanghai
Previous studies show that Chinese pre-school children liked learning English, and the preliminary findings of this study support this conclusion. The researchers adopted the qualitative analysis of metaphorical texts in the two regions to thoroughly explore the differences in English learning attitudes among pre-school children in Shanghai and Mudanjiang. Meanwhile, a non-parametric chi-square statistical method was used to analyze the significance of differences in English learning attitudes of pre-school children in the two regions. Table 10 illustrates the comparative distribution of the four classifications of an attitude of the children in Shanghai and Mudanjiang. All the four attitude types were distributed without gaps. The number of metaphors with positive attitudes was the largest, showing that children in both regions had a positive attitude towards learning English overall. There was a significant difference in positive(x 2 = 6.48, p < .05) and neutral attitudes(x 2 = 6.41, p < .05) of children in Shanghai and Mudanjiang, while there was no major difference in negative and unrelated attitudes for preschool children towards learning English in the two regions.
A comparative analysis of English learning attitudes of early childhood in Shanghai and Mudanjiang is also presented in Table 11. The results of the analysis of the differences of attitudes in the two regions are as follows. The results show that the two areas are significantly different in the attitudes of pre-school children towards English learning (x 2 = 35.32, p < 0.001). Pre-school children in Mudanjiang had greater enthusiasm for learning English than those in Shanghai.

Metaphors of English learning attitudes of pre-school children in Shanghai and Mudanjiang
The levels of kindergartens are strictly controlled, and there is no difference between the two regions. The study continued analyzing different types of metaphors based on the research above. Firstly, the metaphors were coded and classified according to Linnaeus's taxonomy and standards. Besides, the number of metaphors in each category was counted. Finally, a non-parametric chisquare statistical method was used to analyze the differences between the two regions. Table 12 shows the differences in the corpus of metaphors for children in the two places. The number and percentage of children's corpus in the two places differ significantly. At the same time, the metaphor's textual description also behaved significantly differently. For example, children's metaphors in Shanghai tend to be tall, big, fashionable, and complex metaphors, such as aircraft, trees, foreigners, etc., children's metaphors in Mudanjiang are small, rough, and a little girl. These metaphors reveal the potential effects of children's cognitive mechanisms on English learning. Table 12 also illustrates the differences in types and distribution of the metaphors in the two regions. Firstly, there were eight categories in Shanghai and seven categories in Mudanjiang, excluding character. Secondly, the highest percentage of food metaphors explains the Chinese cultural tradition of "Hunger breeds discontentment." Thirdly, the metaphors of food and animal in Mudanjiang were significantly higher than those in Shanghai (x 2 food = 19.068, p < 0.001; x 2 animal = 4.12, p < .05), while the metaphors of activity and character were significantly lower than those in Shanghai (x 2 activity = 18.57, p < 0.001; x 2 character = 11.09, p < .01). The differences between plants, products, shapes, and others were not statistically significant. Finally, the percentage distribution trend of the metaphors was different. The polarization phenomenon of maximum percentage and the minimum percentage in Mudanjiang was more distinct than that in Shanghai.

Discussion and conclusions
This study adopted EMA to analyze early children's English learning attitudes and revealed the cognitive mechanism and the essential characteristics of kindergarten children's English learning. The attitude metaphors and abundant metaphorical texts given by early children will help researchers explore the thinking and attitude of early childhood in depth. This research method is more enlightening than the standard interview and questionnaire model.

Preschool children's attitude towards English learning
The study finds the sampled children have covered the distribution of the four metaphorical attitudes towards English learning. The percentage of positive attitude over 40% indicates that pre-school children are interested in learning English and willing to learn English. Table 9 gives Chinese pre-school educators the hope for early bilingual education. The researchers appeal to society and families to respect pre-school children's rights to learn English, to support early bilingual learning, and to meet pre-school children's English learning needs.  Firstly, EMA was used to analyze four types of children's English learning attitudes: positive, negative, neutral, and ambiguous. The distribution of these four types reflects that children in the two regions have specific ideas and perceptions about early English learning. They have their own preferences and feelings for language learning subconsciously and can express them fluently, and clearly, which shows that pre-school children's attitudes towards early English learning have taken shape. These children know whether they are interested in learning English or not can give sufficient reasons to explain themselves exactly.
Secondly, the study revealed the children's enthusiasm for English learning in both locations based on the high proportion of positive attitude metaphors. The study showed they had positive feelings for English and were willing to devote themselves to learning. These results support the research of Jin et al. (2014), Hu et al. (2018), andZhao (2016).
Finally, the study found that pre-school children were willing to learn English. It refutes the widespread rumour that "pre-school children can't learn English" and questions the prohibition of English classes in kindergartens. The positive attitude of pre-school children towards English learning is beyond the expectations of the government and society. Chinese society sees a upsurge of English learning (Fan, 2018;Hu et al., 2018;J. Li & Yang, 2012;Wu, 2005;Zhou, 2004). Parents in both regions realize that English learning is a positive drive in their children's future achievement and career choice (Hu, 2018). Influenced by the idea of "never losing at the starting line," parents let their children learn English at an early age (Huang, 2015;Xia, 2015;Zhao, 2016;Zhou et al., 2014). At the same time, international studies have found that early childhood bilingual learning is conducive to children's cognitive development (Li, 2018;Tabors, 1997); bilingual children have apparent advantages over monolingual children in creative thinking (Chen & Zhou, 2015;Ka et al., 2017;Lee & Kim, 2011;Leikin, 2012;C. Li & Zhou, 2015;Shen & Yuan, 2015); early bilingual children have more obvious advantages in phonetic sensitivity and semantic understanding than do monolingual children (Baker 1988;Harley, 1986). These international studies provide strong evidence for early bilingual learning.
Therefore, this study calls on adult society, including the government, communities, and families, to respect children's right to make choices and decisions in English learning. The study suggests that English classes be incorporated into the curriculum system and be offered in kindergartens and other public service institutions and that relevant laws and policies be formulated to support early English learning to meet the needs of pre-school children in English learning.

The nature of preschool children's English learning
The study reveals the cognitive nature of early English learning. Under the interaction between sensory organs and surrounding things, children will experience the center of the relevant language, form core experience, and prepare for future English learning. These results suggest that early bilingual education in China should clarify early English teaching objectives as soon as possible, accumulate early English learning experience, and gradually improve the quality of English education.
First of all, early English learning comes from everyday life. There are generally eight types of metaphor for children's English learning attitudes that emerge through metaphorical text analysis: food, animals, plants, characters, goods, activities, shapes, and other categories. These metaphors are the things that pre-school children often see, touch, or eat in daily life-things that are close to the body in early childhood. These items have a close relationship with young children and leave a deep impression on them.
Secondly, the eight types of metaphors are related to children's experiences. In the study, 448 metaphors are the things happening around pre-school children's daily life, which are connected to children's living environment and experience. The more metaphors there are, the higher the children's familiarity with objects is, and vice versa. The metaphors come from the inside to the outside, from near to far. Metaphors begin with daily life experience, which has "taken from the body near and materials far away." (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) The results presented here are consistent with Jin et al.'s (2014) studies on the metaphor analysis of young learners' English learning attitudes.
Finally, children's experience connects to English semantics and forms the core experience of early English learning. Analyzing the pre-school children's utterance "Learning English is like, because ." The study found that pre-school children use their bodies to interact with the world around them, to gain experiences that are transmitted along with neural networks to brain centers, to correlate semantic systems, to form core experiences, and to complete language learning (Kuhl, 2010;Lakoff & Johnson, 1999;OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), 2014;Wang, 2009). For example, "Learning English is like apples because apples are sweet and delicious," An apple brings children to taste perception and memory and helps children acquire the experience of "an apple," At the same time, children exactly pointed out that "learning English is like apple because I can spell the English word," Pre-school children can distinguish the difference between the native language and English phonetics and can connect cognitive experience with semantics to form English learning experience, which accumulates in the brain. This kind of sensory pathway obtains information, transmits this information through nerve impulses, and stores core experiences in the nerve center, a process that is supported by related research in cognitive science and neuroscience (Kuhl, 2010;Lakoff & Johnson, 1999;Zhou & Chen, 2017).
Therefore, the thought held by many people that "children do not need to learn English, and even if they do, they can hardly remember English" reflects a bias. The environment is a crucial factor for early English learning. Baker and Wright (2017) pointed out that "early bilingual learning exposes children to bilingual environment, connects them with language, and helps them accumulate learning experience." Children's bilingual learning focuses on participation and involvement rather than acquisition and memorization of English language knowledge. So, "what to learn" and "how to learn" are the keys to pre-school children's English learning. The study suggests that Chinese early English education should be based on clear teaching objectives. Regardless of the suitability of the conditions, an English environment should be created in families, communities, and kindergartens for children to increase children's access to English, to accumulate their early English learning experience, and to lay a foundation for their future English learning. At the same time, teacher training, workshops, and other forms can continuously improve the teaching level of early English teachers. English teaching should be consistent with the characteristics of children's age, cognitive rules, and existing experience to carry out game-based teaching, focusing on fostering children's interests in learning and gradually promoting the quality of English education (Hu, 2018;Li, 2018;Xia, 2015;Zhao, 2016;Zhou et al., 2014).

Regional differences in early English learning attitudes
The study confirms regional differences in early English learning attitudes in China. Children in remote areas are more motivated to learn English than those in developed areas, reflecting that children in remote areas can also learn English. The study suggests that society, education departments, and families should pay attention to bilingual education of pre-school children in remote areas and support them in learning English.
Firstly, the statistical results show the attitude of English learning of children in the Mudanjiang area is significantly more positive than that of children in the Shanghai area (x 2 = 6.48, p < .05). Children in the Mudanjiang area show more positive and active feelings towards English learning than those in the Shanghai area. The differences were affected by the environment and individual factors (Baker, 2014). Mudanjiang is located near China's northeastern border and is an old industrial city. It has fewer job opportunities in the system, and parents see further education as the only way to broader Chinese society for their children. Therefore, they attach importance to early English learning. Their children, driven by instrumental motivation, unconsciously know the importance of learning English as a foreign language. They may take the initiative to learn bilingualism or be willing to learn bilingualism because they like their English teachers (Niklas et al., 2018). At the same time, children in the Mudanjiang area are rarely exposed to English under a monolingual and mono-cultural background. Therefore, as children learn English early, they have a strong sense of freshness, intense curiosity, and healthy positive attitudes towards English learning.
Shanghai is an international metropolis with a high degree of internationalization. It has a multilingual and multi-cultural social environment. Early children usually have more chances to contact English and have a higher degree of familiarity with English. Besides, Shanghai is an economic and cultural center with plenty of work opportunities. Parents often hope their children study abroad in a different culture when considering their future. (Huang, 2015;Xia, 2015;Zhao, 2016). If early children were allowed to learn English according to their own will, they would more likely learn it out of curiosity or desire to go to English-speaking countries, while their parents have usually learned English for communication, cultural learning purposes, and commerce. Pre-school children put more effort into improving their language ability and comprehensive quality. Therefore, the significant difference of early English learning attitudes between Shanghai and Mudanjiang areas verifies the ecological systems theory of Bronfenbrenner (1994) and proves that children's development is the result of the interaction among individuals, society, and the environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1994;Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994).
As a result, some parents living in remote areas fear that pre-school children do not like bilingual learning. This fear is unfounded. Distance does not affect early English learning. Baker (2014) pointed out that "as long as children living in remote areas are interested in bilingual learning and willing to learn bilingualism, they can be exposed to the bilingual environment to get bilingual perception and accumulate core experience." Hu (2018) found that children living in remote areas have positive feelings towards bilingual learning. They actively learn bilingually. They constantly accumulate bilingual experience by watching bilingual cartoons and reading picture books. Therefore, parents need not worry that their children cannot learn to be bilingual because they live in remote areas. The study suggests that society, education departments, and families should pay attention to bilingual education of pre-school children in remote areas, and should attach importance to the needs of bilingual learning of pre-school children and should support them to learn bilingualism (Hu, 2018;Li, 2018;Xia, 2015;Zhao, 2016;Zhou et al., 2014). The researchers consider that the children live in remote areas with inconvenient transportation and a lack of educational resources. This study calls on education authorities to issue relevant laws and regulations, encourage teachers in developed regions to support education in remote areas. The teachers in developed regions carry out early bilingual teaching and directly serve pre-school children in remote areas. The government should constantly improve network resources in remote areas. Teachers should organize pre-school children in remote areas to watch English cartoons and listen to English stories online every day. As a result, those preschool children are exposed to the English environment to gain English perception and accumulate experience.

Influence of Chinese culture
The study also found that the Chinese language influenced early English learning. Children thought about problems based on Chinese culture and formed thinking patterns. This result reminds early English educators to attach importance to the first language's cultural transfer effect and cultivate bilingual talents with intercultural competence and international vision.
Firstly, the high proportion of food metaphors illustrates the influence of the saying "hunger breeds discontentment" in Chinese culture. Secondly, corpus analysis of children's metaphor structure reflects that the mother tongue culture influences English learning. For example, "Learning English is like red because red is joy; Learning English is like a panda because pandas are not easy to see." Red symbolizes joy in Chinese culture, while it represents evil in English culture. Panda is a unique mascot in China, representing precious and rare. In English culture, pandas represent a kind of animal. Considering these cultural differences, parents are concerned that children may dislike Chinese culture if they learn English. These fears are completely unfounded. As Rogoff (2003) said, early children live in the cultural environment of their mother tongue. Since birth, Chinese culture has left traces in their brains to construct their unique learning experience. Carlson and Meltzoff (2008) pointed out that the interaction between the learning experiences and the external environment could help children develop potential and desired learning goals. This study found that early English learning was influenced by the transfer of native culture, a finding similar to some international studies. For example, Nguyen and Hamid (2016) found that Vietnamese minority students learned in a multi-lingual environment, and their attitudes towards identity recognition and language learning were influenced by national culture. Thus, they had a preference for national culture. Harbord (1992) and Cummins (2001) discovered that the mother tongue had a transfer effect on bilingual learning and that the positive transfer was beneficial to English learning, yielding twice the result with half the effort. Negative transfer, however, was the main source of English learning errors and was not conducive to English learning. Therefore, parents need not worry that preschool children will not dislike Chinese culture if they start to learn English.
The study also found that the transfer effect of Chinese culture on early bilingual learning let the thinking development of preschool children form a stereotype. In intercultural learning and communication, children habitually use their Chinese culture to think, which could lead to some cognitive bias. Therefore, the study reminds early bilingual educators to pay attention to the transfer effect, overcome the limitations of the mother tongue culture, and let children have more exposure to English culture. Through the teaching activities of introducing Western life, customs, habits, and watching English cartoons such as Frozen and Snow White, children should constantly expand their international vision, increase their cultural sensitivity, and lay the foundations for their being bilingually talented in the future.

Limitations
Several limitations mark this study. First, all the selected participants living in a Chinese-English bilingual environment must have had experiences in learning English, but pre-school children who had not studied English in China fell outside the scope of the study, especially children who lived in ethnic regions and dialect areas. Do these excluded children have a positive attitude towards learning English? Do they like learning English too? These speculations need to be further explored to verify the attitudes, experiences, and preferences of minority children and children who live in dialect areas regarding the learning of English in a multi-lingual environment (Baker, 2014). Second, this study found the differences of pre-school children in different regions towards English learning and analyzed the "potential" influencing factors from ecology and sociology, such as environment, family, and context. Educational interventions should further demonstrate the effectiveness of those causal effects of influencing factors. Third, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) divided the notion of metaphor into three categories: conceptual metaphor, orientation metaphor, and pipeline metaphor. This study presented materials to elicit responses from pre-school children in the form of "Learning English is like, because ." The study adopted the method of conceptual metaphor analysis. The other two methods of metaphor analysis, namely orientation metaphor, and pipeline metaphor, have not been used yet. In future studies, researchers will use orientation and pipeline metaphors to analyze the English learning attitudes of pre-school children in different regions, perhaps resulting in new findings.