A Study Of Applying Cognitive Linguistic Theories To English Vocabulary Pedagogy

When we enter the 21st century, the acquisition of vocabulary has played a more important role in foreign language teaching and learning. However, the status quo is far from satisfactory. Teachers are faced with the challenge of how to help students acquire words in an efficient way. So this thesis attempts to solve this problem—how to teach vocabulary efficiently. In order to develop a new approach to vocabulary teaching that is in keeping with rules of human's cognitive development, this paper probes into a new vocabulary teaching model by way of the implication to research findings of cognitive linguistics both at home and abroad.To solve this problem, the thesis first reviews the history of English vocabulary teaching, mainly including Grammar Translation Method, Direct Method, Audio-lingual Method and Communicative Language Teaching, and then discusses the advantages and disadvantages of current main vocabulary teaching methods. Second, the paper interprets three cognitive linguistic theories. They are prototype category theory, conceptual metaphor theory and iconicity. Based on the cognitive linguistic theories, we have cited sufficient English examples to illustrate the heuristics of the theories. Third, the paper lists six teaching principles while teaching English vocabulary: (1) systematic principle, (2) communicative principle, (3) cognitive principle, (4) cultural principle, (5) motivation principle, (6) experience principle.Based on the theories and English vocabulary teaching practice, the author tries to propose a brand new model of "four-facet cognitive vocabulary teaching" (FFCVT). Specially, that is sound, form, meaning, use. In respect of sound, iconicity is used to associate words that are resembled in sound; In respect of form, the word meaning is derived from the affixes and morphemes through word formation and as for homophones and homographs, words are remembered according to their sound and form; with regard to meaning, prototype category theory is applied to study polysemy whose meanings are extended from its core meaning; concerning the use, conceptual metaphor theory is to analyze the special meaning of words and collocation of words in different context. Using this teaching model, students can easily understand words, remember words and infer meaning from the context. In order to prove the feasibility and effectiveness of FFCVT model, the author conducted an experiment and administered a questionnaire. The experiment includes a class and a contrastive class. After one-month training, there is a great improvement on the vocabulary understanding and remembering in the experimental class. More than seventy percent of the students in experimental class begin to accept and are glad to use this new method.Cognitive Vocabulary teaching has solid theoretical foundation and feasible practice, and it is beneficial for students to understand, remember and infer new words. This new teaching model has filled vitality into vocabulary teaching methods and provided a new perspective.