A Study Of Teaching English Word Meaning

Vocabulary is one of the indispensable components of language system. It is considered as the most difficult component of language knowledge for a learner to grasp. Gorman (1979) points out that there is evidence showing that as students become more proficient in a second language, problems caused specifically by syntactical variation become less significant( Quigley, 1985:499). Students can learn a word pronunciation and its grammatical rules in a restricted period of time. It is because either of them is relatively stable, but it is not the same case with word meaning, which has become a difficult point for students to acquire. This is confirmed by our poll of the English majors in Hunan City College. With the question " What is the most difficult to learn, pronunciation, grammatical rules or word meaning ?" , 74.07% of the students answered that word meaning is the most difficult part for themto acquire. Therefore, it is crucial to find an effective way to teach English word meaning, which is the purpose of the present thesis.Second language vocabulary instruction has experienced the following stages: Grammar Translation Method, Reform Movement, Direct Method, Reading Method, Audio-lingual Method, Communicative Language Teaching and Natural Approach. Many scholars and teachers both at home and abroad have already made an extensive probe into vocabulary teaching. James Coady(1997) believes that vocabulary acquisition results from extensive reading. Jan Hulstijn thinks that the key of vocabulary teaching should be the instructions of vocabulary acquisition strategies. Their theories provide a theoretical guide to the present vocabulary teaching. But they have their own disadvantages.Over-emphasizing the function of vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading without necessary instructions would result in students acquiring new word without sufficient understanding of its meaning. That is, the students cannot properly grasp word meaning. On the contrary,over-emphasizing the instructions of vocabulary acquisition strategies will deprive the students of their opportunities to learn language in context, and make it impossible to acquire a word in a natural way,Based on the research results and the present vocabulary teaching methods, this thesis tries to establish a vocabulary teaching method which can not only help students get vocabulary acquisition strategies through extensive reading, but also help them learn vocabulary, especially word meaning. Our investigation result shows that the most difficult thing for the students in vocabulary acquisition is the mastery of word meaning. It is determined by the complexity of word meaning.Word meaning is complicated by its diversity, multidimensionality, variability and nationality. In Semantics the Study of Meaning, Geoffrey Leech divides word meaning into seven kinds: conceptual meaning, connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning and thematic meaning. The diversity of word meaning makes it more difficult for the students to acquire. Of course, different kinds of word meaning don't parallel with each other. They belong to different levels or exist in the form of multidimensionality. Among them, conceptual meaning is the basic meaning, and associative meaning is not the intrinsic meaning of a word itself. It is extended meaning, which is based on the conceptual meaning. The characteristic multidimensionality of word meaning requires that students should gain the meanings from different aspect. The meaning of a word is not immutable and frozen. It changes with the development of the society. The change of word meaning and the production of a new meaning are the main phenomena of the variability of word meaning. Polysemy is the result of the change of word meaning.The complexity of word meaning determines its importance in vocabulary teaching. With the help of cognitive linguistics, lexicology and semantics, the thesis tries to make a tentative study of teaching English word meaning, and...