A Study On The Polysemy Acquisition Of English Majors Based On Prototype Category Theory

Polysemy is a common phenomenon of human language that a word has two or more meanings.However,the current polysemy teaching is influenced by the traditional teaching method,which ignores the relation among the different meanings of polysemy,resulting in the poor memory effect of polysemy.From the perspective of cognitive linguistics,this thesis aims to explore the influence of polysemy teaching based on the prototype category theory on polysemy acquisition in English majors.This thesis attempts to answer the following three research questions:1: What strategies do the English majors usually use in learning polysemy?2: Can the polysemy teaching based on the prototype category theory facilitate students' acquisition of polysemy's meanings?3: Can the polysemy teaching based on the prototype category theory improve students' ability to guess the meanings of polysemy?100 freshmen majoring in English are selected as the research subjects,and randomly divided into experimental group and control group.Before the experiment,all the subjects receive a pretest and an interview,and the data show that there is no significant difference between the two groups in the acquisition of polysemy's meanings and the ability to guess the meanings of polysemy.In the experimental group,the prototype category theory is applied to polysemy teaching,while in the control group,the traditional teaching method is applied.In the first week and the fourth week after the experiment,all participants are tested two times about the acquisition of polysemy's meanings,and a guessing test is tested once.Based on the results of data analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:Firstly,most English majors usually learn polysemy by traditional mechanical memorization,and they don't understand the relation among the meanings of polysemy.Secondly,the polysemy teaching based on the prototype category theory can facilitate the acquisition of polysemy's meanings.Thirdly,the polysemy teaching based on the prototype category theory can improve the ability to guess the meanings of polysemy.These findings carry some pedagogical significance to polysemy teaching.First,more attention should be given on the core meaning of polysemy and the cognitive mechanism,such as metaphor and metonymy.In addition,teachers cannot ignore the relation between the core meaning and non-core meanings of polysemy.