Exploratory Innovation Of English Vocabulary Teaching From The Perspective Of Sense Relations

English vocabulary is a component of language and vocabulary study is, therefore, of critical importance to the typical language learners. There are many cases in which EFL learners cannot use words precisely and correctly due to their shallowness of vocabulary knowledge. The present study based on the theory of connectionism and the vocabulary knowledge framework proposed by Nation (1990) and Richards (1976) investigates the relationship between semantic networks and mastery of vocabulary knowledge and the ways in which teachers and other pedagogues can help learners bridge their gaps in lexical knowledge. The vocabulary strategy we studied in this paper aims to help EFL learners to attain deeper, richer and more flexible word knowledge.According to connectionism theory, words do not exist in isolation; but always form structural sets of elements together with other conceptually related words that have a reciprocal influence on each other, and word meanings are defined through the sense relations. From this we get the suggestion that vocabulary teaching should make overt association between semantically related words. That is, sense relations should be instructed in vocabulary teaching. Sense relations refer to the meaning relations that hold within the vocabulary of a language between words themselves. Sense relations can be divided into lexical sense relations including synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and polysemy etc.; morphological sense relations including derivation, conversion, compounding etc.; and grammatical sense syntagmatic relations which mainly refer to collocations and some other syntagmatic relations. As sense relations of a word form the most important semantic relationships, constructing sense relations of words will provide a precise elaboration in word learning. By constructing sense relations of words, semantic sets are established which give great precision in guiding students towards meaning and help them to reinforce the learning of another word.After analyzing these sense relations, we give a synthetically pedagogical procedure of constructing sense relations following Brown and Payne's model of vocabulary teaching: encountering new words, getting the word form, constructing sense relations, consolidating and using the words. An experiment is designed to explore the effect of constructing sense relations in vocabulary teaching. Testing results validate our hypothesis and prove that constructing sense relations of words is highly effective in deepening learners' understanding of vocabulary and improving vocabulary-learning effect.This thesis consists of seven parts. The first part is the description of the current situation of vocabulary learning and teaching in Chinese colleges and universities, and a discussion of the significance and the research orientation of the present study as well as the goal and outline of this thesis. Chapter 1 is a review of relevant studies at home and abroad. Firstly, some key terms such as word, lexeme and vocabulary knowledge are defined, and then recent studies on vocabulary acquisition are discussed. Chapter 2 is an analysis of the vocabulary knowledge stored in connectionist network and explains multiple lexical relations and lexical associations in vocabulary learning. Vocabulary learning involves deepening and enriching these networks and their interconnections. The more well known a piece of word knowledge is, the stronger the interconnection that makes up that part of the word's knowledge. Chapter 3 provides the theoretical framework for the present study by introducing the relevant theories and point-of-views on relevant topics: the selection of target words in vocabulary teaching and different methods of vocabulary learning and teaching. In chapter four, we carry out an experiment, in which depth of vocabulary knowledge measure is applied and students' deep level vocabulary knowledge is tested, to examine the new strategy of vocabulary teaching. Chapter five is the implications and limitations of this study as well as suggestions for further research..From the findings in this study, we can conclude that teachers should give the students all knowledge needed for comprehension and production (including the lexical relations) and provide more opportunities for both incidental and explicit instruction of vocabulary. Teachers should design more types of exercises for students to learn new words through context and put them into use. Explicit instruction must be planned for developing students' productive skills.