On The Cultivation Of English Awareness From The Perspective Of Cognitive Schema

The concept of linguistic awareness is"understandable yet indescribable"in SLA. Though learners realize that it is of great importance to master language and improve one's competence in listening, speaking, reading and writing, they lack basic understanding of this connotation and even fail to judge whether this concept refers to langue or parole. Linguistic awareness is a concept put forward in teaching and learning Chinese. Generally speaking, it refers to a person's subconscious sense and feeling towards language while he/she learns and uses it. Linguistic awareness, as one of the major ways for human beings to master a language, has a direct connection with a person's effect of language learning. In recent years, linguistic awareness has aroused a lot of scholars'interest both at home and abroad. But because of the differences in viewpoints and study methods, there is still not a comprehensive, generally accepted theory about linguistic awareness. In the light of Piaget's cognitive schema, this paper puts forward the concrete means of cultivating English sense through analyzing the three aspects of language schema: phonetic and semantic structure, context and inclination. Listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation can help the learners think in English.The whole thesis falls into five parts.The first chapter is an overview of linguistic awareness: it describes the definition, characteristics and function of linguistic awareness. Chapter two presents the history of linguistic awareness study. There are still some mysteries in linguistic awareness study waiting for us to do deeper research.The third chapter describes in details the theory of cognitive schema. The fourth chapter analyzes the relation between the theory of cognitive schema and linguistic awareness: it describes how the theory of cognitive schema supports the development of the linguistic awareness.Chapter five touches upon the cultivation of English awareness from the perspective of cognitive schema. This is the main part of the thesis. We discuss the generation and development of linguistic awareness in detail and draw on Piaget's cognitive schema theory. Among various cognitive structures, there must be a linguistic awareness structure. Like other structures, it has three properties: integration, transformation and auto-adaptation. And the development of linguistic awareness also has the constructive feature, which reflects the interaction between subject and environment. As regards to the concrete generative and developmental mechanism of linguistic awareness, Piaget's analysis about children's cognitive development mechanism provides a relatively satisfactory explanation. Subject has an intrinsic inclination to keep linguistic awareness structure in a stable state, that is, in the state of equilibrium. Subject's linguistic awareness structure develops from one equilibrium state to another equilibrium state so as to adapt to new language environment.Specifically speaking, there are three ways to achieve equilibrium: neglect, assimilation and accommodation. What should be pointed out is that all these processes occur unconsciously. We do it instinctively without realizing it. This thesis is expected to make a little contribution to the study of the generation and development of linguistic awareness, and arouse more and more people's interest in linguistic awareness so as to reveal its true nature and make full use of it in language learning.