Study On The Theory Of Prototypes In College Students' English Reading

There is no doubt that English reading comprehension plays a more and more important role and is closely related to our daily lives. In order to improve their English reading ability, government takes such various measures as CET 4, CET 6, TOEFL, GRE and IELTS abroad and the proportion of reading comprehension in the examination can not be ignored, almost accounting for 30-40% of the total points. However, in the current situation of Chinese, ability of Chinese students'reading comprehension still do not achieve the desired results, with the slow speed of reading, bad accuracy and no good grasping of the main idea of material. They often can not achieve desired target with a great deal of effort. In view of this, how to improve students'reading comprehension is a major problem for education researchers and teachers to face.This paper will make a research on adult college students, analyze the complex mentality in the process of English reading comprehension and further prove the feasibility of"Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double"Structures and the importance of"the Theory of Prototypes", based on the theoretical analysis and empirical research,"Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double"Structures proposed by the Yin Demo in the 3rd Asia TEFL International Conference in November 5, 2005.This paper includes six chapters.The first chapter is the introduction, which points out the motivation and significance of the research, and describes the research problems and the methods used. The second chapter reviews the literature, which makes a comparison of mental process between English and Chinese college students in the process of reading comprehension, and analyzes that the transfer is an inevitable phenomenon in the process of college students'reading comprehension. This chapter further analyzes the constrained factors and reading models in the process of college students'reading comprehension. Chapter three in details describes the theoretical basis and the basic views of"Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double"Structures and enlightenment for the process of college students'English reading comprehension."Bilingual Structure"refers to knowledge structure and cognition structure of native language (here refers to Chinese) and knowledge structure and cognition structure of English. When college students come across obstacles or higher difficulties in the process of English reading comprehension, knowledge structure and cognition structure of native language must be involved. The chapter four describes in detail the theoretical basis, basic views and differences of the"Classical Theory of Categories"and"the theory of Prototypes". This chapter points out the limitations and its shortcomings of"Classical Theory of Categories"in real life, on the other hand,"the theory of Prototypes"replaces it, and introduces its feasibility in solving practical problems. Then this chapter further explains and analyzes mental mechanism of learning of"the theory of Prototypes"in the process of college students'English learning. Chapter five makes an empirical research on related problems, including research purpose, research procedures, data collection and analysis, accurately reports on the research findings and results and hopes to have a positive meaning for reading comprehension and teaching students. Chapter six is conclusion, which summarizes the main arguments of this paper.