The Study On Polysemy Teaching Of College English Based On Prototype Category Theory

In English vocabulary, polysemy is a pervasive and essential phenomenon. Simply speaking, if one word carries at least two meanings, it can be called a polysemous word. According to Blutner, polysemy refers to the phenomenon that one lexical unit may be associated with a whole range of meanings which are related to each other in a systematic way. Many linguists have done researches on polysemy from different angles, this thesis tries to study polysemy from a new perspective and give some insights into the teaching and learning of polysemy.Under the influence of traditional studies, different meanings of a polysemous word are considered as isolated and unrelated by some scholars, which caused great troubles both for English teachers and students. English Teachers consistently encourage students to infer meanings from context, while some researches have already proved that it cannot improve students’ long-term retention effectively. The method adopted by most students is learning by glossary, different meanings are not acquired in a systematic way, so the results are not good as what people expect.Previous studies of polysemy have not grasped the essence of it and can’t give a satisfactory and convincing explanation on polysemy. Structural semantics sets too much emphasis on the internal structure of language while the external one which involves the relationship between languages, the external world and cognitive process are neglected. And Saussure’s arbitrariness theory fails to explain the different but closely related meanings of a polysemous word. The emergence and development of prototypical category provides a new perspective on polysemy. According to prototypical category, a polysemy usually has a core meaning, or prototypical meaning, which is the most central and primary. All the peripheral meanings are related with the prototypical meaning on the basis of family resemblances. Thus, the related meanings constitute a category with the core meaning as the prototype. The meaning extension of a polysemous word is realized through metaphor, metonymy and image schema. So it can be concluded that the meaning extension of polysemy is motivated. Metaphor, metonymy and image schema are the factors to motivate semantic enrichment.This study by well-known Chinese scholars about college students polysemous word vocabulary acquisition test and attitude towards the polysemous word vocabulary acquisition at first, a better understanding of the current college students in the English polysemous word problems in vocabulary acquisition and confusion, according to the result of test results and the questionnaire survey and analysis. According to the analysis of the problems existing in the college English polysemous word vocabulary teaching, combined with the prototype category theory to solve this phenomenon.The writer believes that using the prototype category theory can not only change the dull classroom atmosphere, full mobilize the enthusiasm of students, but also to strengthen the cognitive process of vocabulary students about their vocabulary learning cognitive ability. And reduce the difficult of the cognition of Chinese college students learn polysemous, make them remember words is not difficult to realize, to enhance English learning.