Cognitive Psychological Analysis Of Lexicon Acquisition

As a branch of psychology, cognitive psychology is concerned with human mentalprocesses in relation to how we think, learn, process, memorize, feel and behave, especiallywith respect to the internal events occurring between sensory stimulation and the overtexpression of behavior. The acquisition of lexicon is the very important element tounderstanding and being understood, and it is now recognized as the central and fundamentalrole to the language acquisition. While in the whole acquisition process, cognitive psychologyinfluences individuals to a great extent, understanding and controlling cognitive process maybe one of the most essential skills. Without taking this respect into account, the lexiconacquisition will be less efficient.The thesis starts with the introduction of general review of lexicon acquisition andcognitive psychology, and then some cognitive aspects that influence lexicon acquisition havebeen introduced: the individual's language aptitude, learning style and cognitive schema allhave close relationship with foreign language acquisition, especially lexicon acquisition. Thisthesis provides some acquisition methods, such as core-word method, association strategy,lexicon rehearsal and also gives a general introduction of short-term memory, long-termmemory and sensory memory. The author proceeds with the principle of cognitive economy,and indicates that the key word allows for the economy of stored representations. Besides,vocabulary is organized in the mental lexicon in multidimensional, meaning-related networks,words must be stored in such a way that they can be searched for in a systematic fashion bytheir properties of message elements.The last part of the thesis introduces some psychological aspects which relates tocognition and lexicon acquisition. Learners'motivation, attitude on language learninginfluence cognition, and the influence of age is much more obvious. It has very closerelationship with cognition development.