A Study On The Application Of Cultural Context Theory In College English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary is the most essential element of language, so vocabulary teaching isconsidered as a very important part of Second Language Teaching. In order to get anaccurate understanding of English words and their meanings, English learners need toresort to the linguistic and non-linguistic contexts. The non-linguistic context is acomplex system including all the material and spiritual factors, of which culturalcontextual elements are of key significance.Because of different geographical surroundings, customs, religions and valuesystems, some words have rich cultural connotations besides their original conceptualmeanings. As a result, English learners are required to grasp pronunciation, meanings,spelling and collocations as well as cultural connotations of English words when theyacquire vocabulary.This study aims at promoting the application of cultural context in collegeEnglish vocabulary teaching, thereby to improve college students’ competence ofvocabulary understanding and using. At the theoretical level, this thesis analyzed thecultural connotation differences between some English and Chinese words and thefactors that cause these differences. At the practical level, firstly a survey study wasconducted among the second-year Non-English Majors and college English teachers inXi’an Peihua College, which consisted of two questionnaires and a pre-test on culturalconnotations of some words; Then an experiment which lasted for17weeks and apost-test were carried out to testify the positive effect of cultural contextual vocabularyteaching on students’ vocabulary understanding and using. In the end, the author madea conclusion and proposed some available suggestions for college English vocabularyteaching.