Research On Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition Based On Lexical Network Of Cognitive Psychology

Wilkins (1972:111) holds that without grammar, little can be conveyed, but without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed. Vocabulary learning must act an important role in L2 acquisition. However, the status is far from satisfactory. Students are always complaining that vocabulary learning is rather boring and inefficient, while teachers are frustrated by the exhausted vocabulary teaching methodologies. Furthermore, few of college students who passed CET-4 with certain vocabulary storage, reached high English proficiency level. Although college students exert much effort to fertilize their vocabulary, few can use them productively and flexibly in practice. In order to solve these problems, this research has been carried out tentatively to propose a cognitive network model for vocabulary acquisition as well as to explore the effective way to guide students to learn words by themselves so as to shed some light on vocabulary learning and teaching.This thesis starts from the overview of second language vocabulary acquisition research both at home and abroad. Although accomplished the outstanding achievements in both theoretical and empirical fields, previous studies mention little about the deeper connections in L2, which thus enlightened the author to continue to explore. Then a research has been carried out to explore the model of vocabulary acquisition from the angle of cognitive psychology. For that, three types of cognitive vocabulary learning models are interpreted. They are hierarchical network model, spreading activation model and cohort model. Based on the advantages of the three models, the author integrated these advantages of three models into second language acquisition from the network of cognitive learning model to study vocabulary. For the characteristics of these three models, the cognitive vocabulary learning model can be divided into macro-cognitive vocabulary learning model and micro-cognitive vocabulary learning model to help college students to learn vocabulary effectively.Based on the cognitive linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, a demonstration has been cited to illustrate the heuristics of the theories and carry out the model into practice. The macro-cognitive vocabulary learning model is mainly based on the hierarchical network model, which deals the whole context. Micro-cognitive vocabulary learning model is mainly based on spreading activation model and cohort model, which suggest that the mental lexicon is organized as a network of interconnected elements. When each part of the network is activated, the activation spreads along the associative pathways to related areas in memory. Cognitive psychology emphasizes that L2 learners should be active meaning-makers. Thus some principles must be employed, during that procedure, especially learner-centered principle. By that way, colleges students can reach high English proficiency level and be fostered self-study habit which enables students'learn autonomously.Despite deficiencies of network of second language acquisition cognitive vocabulary learning model, it is beneficial for students to understand, remember and infer new words, which provided a new perspective for teachers to instruct for its solid theoretical foundation and feasible practice.