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The Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School With The Guidance Of Basic Theories Of Cognitive Linguistics

Posted on:2012-06-15Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:M J ZhaoFull Text:PDF
GTID:2217330371452878Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Being the international language in the world, English is playing an important part in global economics. Therefore, how to learn and use English well is a big problem. Accordingly, English teaching becomes a crucial task. It is well known that vocabulary to English learning is what foundation to the mansion. Wilkins once incisively indicated that we could not express well without grammar, but without vocabulary, we can express nothing. Vocabulary is the basic form and unit of the natural language, the cornerstone of communication. And language will lose its material base without specific words. Meanwhile, vocabulary is the leading undertaker of message conveyance in language system. Among all the elements in language, vocabulary has the closest connection with the society, sensitively reflecting the development of the society. Moreover, it is an open, complex, fast-changing system. Vocabulary teaching is an important part of language teaching and is playing a key role in the improvement of learners'communication skill. It involves many aspects such as grammar, pragmatics, and culture and so on. However, vocabulary teaching and learning is usually a very tough thing for both teachers and students. Consequently, the thesis attempts to explore the practical and effective method of English vocabulary teaching with the guidance of basic theories of cognitive linguistics such as prototype theory, metaphor, metonymy and iconicity, etc.Prototype theory evolves from the objective category view. What the outside world provides for us is regular and systematic. These basic objects with marked features constitute the basic-level category. Above it is the high-level category, which is more general and abstract; below it is the low-level category, which is more specific and less generalized. We understand and analyze the world we are living in through the hierarchical structure which is constituted by the high-level category, basic-level category and low-level category. We can apply the prototype theory into the explanation of the prevailing phenomenon of polysemy in languages. For example, the original meaning of "head" is "the head of people or the animal", and gradually other meanings such as "the object which looks like the shape of a head", "the top point of one thing", "the leader of a team", "the source of a stream", "the wits of the wind", "the most important position" extend from the original one. So the phenomenon of polysemy arises. Because the related meanings are similar and the memory works in the simplest and easiest way, so it is better for us to make use of the cognitive model to remember the basic meaning first and then deduce others from it. It is this hierarchical theory that lays the theoretical foundation of vocabulary teaching in English. Because the related meanings are similar and the memory rule is too simple to get all meanings, so it is better for us to make use of the cognitive model to remember the basic meaning first and then deduce others from it, and it is this that provides the theoretical foundation to the application of the hierarchical theory into vocabulary teaching in English.Metaphor influences people's thinking and life, it is not only a kind of rhetorical method, but also a sort of thinking model. The everyday words are of metaphorical character, and we often use concepts and vocabulary in one certain field to express things in other fields. Furthermore, we perceive new feelings or abstract objects with the help of old experience. So, when it comes to the meaning of the words, we should explore the deep thinking model which results in various linguistic forms rather than just getting the surface meaning of it. For example, Smile is sunshine. The features of sunshine are systematically revealed in the word "smile". People are usually familiar with the former because it is a real object, but are unfamiliar with the latter because it doesn't have the independent meaning and structure, which probably has been discovered because of our inadequate cognitive ability. Thereby, the latter is recognized by the use of metaphor, namely, knowing the latter with the help of the meaning and the structure of the former. When human beings first begin to learn about the world, they will meet with many new things, and gradually they learn to use the name of the well-known things to express the related objects by way of metonymy in order to reduce the production of new vocabulary. Meanwhile, being a key model of cognitive methods, metonymy plays an important role in meaning development. The mapping between the signifier and the signified happens in the same domain and they two are of substitute relationship, which is, identifying the object with prominent features. Metonymy is the use of sensitive and intelligible part to refer to the whole or other parts, which certainly brings about the enlargement of semantic meaning of vocabulary, when people are familiar with the general meaning of the whole, they will focus on one prominent part or aspect to gain good recognition, thus, the reduction of semantic meaning of vocabulary happens.Iconicity refers to the natural relation between the signifier and the signified of linguistics symbol. This relation is not arbitrary but reasonable. That is, it is the similarities between the sign and the referent in respect of pronunciation, form or structure, which emphasizes that linguistic form can reflect the experience and cognitive model of human being towards the world. There is a close relationship between vocabulary and the real world. Linguistics iconicity in terms of vocabulary is expressed by means of phonetics. For instance, onomatopoeia is a kind of direct iconicity because there is a one-to-one correspondence between the onomatopoeia and its meaning. They imitate directly such as moo, miao, murmur, the sound made by a cat. In addition, some letter groups usually make people associate them with certain meanings, for instance, "gr-" is often used to indicate oppressiveness or heaviness such as groan, growl, grumble, grunt, grouse. Furthermore, people perceive things in a certain sequence, which is reflected in sequence expressions. For instance, ups and downs front and back, at home and abroad, from dawn to dusk, etc. From this, it can be seen that it will be effective if we can make full use of the above theories and disciplines. In order to prove the hypothesis and effect of the study better, we choose two classes in grade one of NO.1 senior high school, Yangxin, Shandong province as experimental subjects to make comparative experiment. At the beginning, their English level is roughly the same. And in this experiment, Class A is the normal class while Class B is the experimental control class. We suppose that using basic cognitive linguistics theory can really improve the vocabulary teaching and inspire their interest in English learning as well as improve teachers' teaching ability. Then a questionnaire is developed on English study, including learning interest, expectation and so on. And we conduct the pre-test before the experiment and the post-test after about one semester experimental teaching. The objective data fully proves the hypothesis we proposed before the experiment that basic theories of cognitive linguistics can promote English vocabulary teaching, encourage students to learn with interests, improve teachers'teaching quality and enhance students' practical ability in language application. Therefore, now it is certain that the assumption is valid.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter introduces the significance of the topic, the advent of cognitive linguistics, the research on cognitive linguistics at home and abroad, especially the achievements and deficiencies of the study at home on the application of basic theories of cognitive linguistics into English vocabulary teaching. This chapter also introduces the research contents and methods. The second chapter discusses in detail the basic theories of cognitive linguistics adopted in the research as well as ESL (English as a second language) vocabulary teaching, and analyses main problems existing in present English vocabulary teaching in senior high school. The third chapter describes the experiment of the application of cognitive linguistics theories into vocabulary teaching, including the hypothesis, experimental subjects, experimental tools and steps, experimental result and the enlightenment. The fourth chapter puts forward some suggested approaches to vocabulary teaching such as lexicology-based vocabulary teaching, prototype-based vocabulary teaching, task-based vocabulary teaching, intercultural communication-based vocabulary teaching. The fifth chapter is the summary of the whole thesis, including achievements, deficiencies and prospects for future research.
Keywords/Search Tags:cognitive linguistics, prototype theory, metaphor, metonymy, iconicity, vocabulary teaching
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