Applying Frame Semantics To College English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary is widely acknowledged as a fundamental and essential element of language. During decades of English teaching in China, teachers and students have recognized the significance of vocabulary in English language teaching (ELT), and much effort has been made from both parties. However, despite the great effort, vocabulary has still proven to be a headache for both teachers and students, especially the college-level students. This is largely due to the inefficiency of the traditional approach to English vocabulary teaching in China. Many scholars and researchers have realized the problem and have made many achievements in putting forward new alternative approaches. Among them are the Semantic Approach, the Contextual Approach, the Corpus-based Approach and the Cognitive Approach, with the last one attracting the most attention. This thesis aims to offer a new perspective for college English vocabulary teaching by appealing to an important theoretical framework under the Cognitive Approach-the Frame Semantics theory. The main research methodology is as follows:through the introduction of the cognitive conceptual structure frame into vocabulary teaching, we put forward a three-stage model for college English vocabulary teaching based on the Frame Semantics theory, which includes the prior-framing stage, the framing stage and the post-framing stage, then illustrate it with a sample instructional design, and finally work out some implications of Frame Semantics for College English vocabulary teaching. The instance analyses in this thesis are based on data collected from the Berkeley FrameNet.In the first section of this thesis, a literature review is conducted to get an overview on the most influential approaches to and current trends of vocabulary teaching home and abroad. Some concepts related to vocabulary that may occur in later analysis are clarified, including the definition of vocabulary, frequency of vocabulary and vocabulary knowledge. Then an introduction is given to the historical status of vocabulary teaching, the most influential approaches to foreign language vocabulary teaching in western history, some current trends in foreign language vocabulary teaching and English vocabulary teaching researches in China. Finally, this section ends with a survey of studies related to Frame Semantics and its various applications, especially for vocabulary teaching.In the next section, with reference to the works by Fillmore and some other linguists, the basic concepts, including frame, prototype and profiling, and the central idea of Frame Semantics are comprehensively discussed to lay a theoretical foundation for the present study. Meanwhile, some instance analyses are conducted to emphasize the significant role Frame Semantics can play in meaning understanding.After that, our focus is directed to the discussion of the application of Frame Semantics to college English vocabulary teaching. We first state the significance and possibility of applying Frame Semantics to college English vocabulary teaching. Then, based on the theoretical foundation from the Frame Semantics theory, we propose a three-stage model for college English vocabulary teaching and illustrate it with a sample instructional design. Finally, some implications are worked out for college English vocabulary teaching in China.Hopefully, the exploration of this thesis can provide a new perspective for and an alternative approach to college-level English vocabulary teaching, thus shedding some light on the improvement of the college English vocabulary teaching situation in China.