A Study On The Application Of Protorype Category Theory To Polysemy Teaching In Clllege English

The study of polysemy is an important topic for linguistic study. Polysemy means aword which has two or more than two meanings. The linguists give different answers tohow these meanings associated with each other in different period. Under the impact ofstructuralism, the traditional linguistics over emphasize the importance of structure oflanguage. The traditional linguistics considers every meaning of the polysemy as isolatedmeaning, and ignores the internal and external associations of these meanings. Based onthe prototype category theory, this paper attempts to testify the overwhelming importanceof the prototypical meaning in extending other meanings. This paper also introduces theimportance of the devices of metaphor and metonymy in extending the meanings ofpolysemy. This paper applies the prototype category theory in polysemous words teaching,aiming to find out the importance of prototype category theory in teaching polysemouswords. The results of the research also prove the importance of prototype category theoryin improving students’ scores and interest in polysemous words learning.This paper takes the empirical method as its research method. Two intact classes areselected from Information Management department of LiaoNing Finance and TradeCollege. One is selected as experimental class, and the other one is selected as control class.In the experimental class, the prototype category theory is applied in teaching polysemouswords; while in the control class, the traditional teaching method is used to teachpolysemous words. After15weeks’ teaching experiment, the students of the two classesand the two groups of the same class are made a comparison to see the differences. All thestatistics are analyzed with the help of the software SPSS11.5.After the empirical research, the conclusion can be summarized as follows:1) Theapplication of prototype category theory on polysemous words teaching could improvestudents’ score in polysemy learning.2) The application of prototype category theory couldincrease the students’ interest in learning polysemous words.3) Prototypical meaning ismore helpful in guessing the other meanings of polysemous words.There are five chapters in this paper. The first chapter is introduction. This chapterintroduces the research purpose, the significance of the research, the research questions andthe layout of this paper. The second chapter is literature review. This chapter introduceswhat the linguists abroad and at home have studied about prototype category theory andpolysemy and also introduces the devices of metaphor and metonymy. The third chapter isthe methodology. This chapter introduces the research method, teaching method, thesubject, teaching materials and the teaching process. The fourth chapter is results and discussion. This chapter analyzes and discusses the data derived from chapter three. Thefifth chapter is conclusion. This chapter introduces the major findings of the research, thelimitation and some suggestions for further study.