A Discussion On The Use Of Prototype Theory In College En Glish Verb Teaching And Learning

Vocabulary is like the nutrition which gives fresh vitality to the development of language. Therefore, vocabulary learning is the core of language learning. But, since English is a foreign language for the Chinese students, vocabulary teaching is a tough and exploring problem for the teachers who teach English. As for vocabulary learning, students’ purpose of learning vocabulary is mainly to pass the examination, thus, they always lack the knowledge and characteristics of vocabulary; as for vocabulary teaching, teachers are tended to use the traditional methods, but ignore the theoretical guidance. At the end, the results of both teaching and learning are not so satisfied.Up till now, people have made a lot of researches on vocabulary teaching and accumulated rich experience and gained many useful methods which can greatly improve teaching. Vocabulary teaching based on prototype theory can make a breakthrough in the combination of theory and practice. Inspired by the former researches and based on the application and the teaching experiences, the present author in this thesis mainly discusses verb teaching through four aspects respectively:from the cultural prototype perspective; from the perspective of cognitive prototype; from semantic prototype including the hyponymy and synonymy. Meanwhile, the present author tries to explore the features of structure of English verb, association of verb meaning and usage of verb for the purpose of cultivating students’interest in vocabulary learning, which can enhance the vocabulary learning efficiency as well as the skills of using English.There are six chapters in the present thesis. After introducing the background, significance, the previous researches and the related theories of the present study, the present author turns to deal with English verb teaching based on the prototype theories, which is the theme of the present study. Through the cases verbs such as climb, rise, roll, tell and do, the present author deeply analyzes English verbs from the aspects of cultural feature, meaning derivation, associated meaning and semantic field and the relationship between cognitive mechanisms. The major purpose of doing this is to further reveal the essential and characteristics of people’s thinking towards objective things so as to seek the best ways for the Chinese students’cognition and understanding when they learn English verbs.According to prototype theory, similarities and the members’ positions are not equal, they can be divided into center members and non-center members, and among which the center members refer to the members that have much common in attributes. The present study has found that English verbs are a huge combination, although they have difference in category, yet they have the relation between "genes" in form and "implication" in sense, all of them have the same elements in category. This phenomenon enlightens English verb teaching as follows:(1) the vocabulary learning should have cultural learning awareness, for the meanings of words are derived from culture, thus, the core meaning of a word should be focused and other related words connected together can be explained reasonably.(2) teaching English verbs through cognitive mechanism can help students effectively learn words and arouse them to think through metonymy concept, metaphor concept and image schema, which can create a kind of "cognitive power" in vocabulary learning.(3) Learning vocabulary through semantic field of synonymy not only makes students master more words, but helps them benefit in vocabulary application.Vocabulary learning is not the simple mechanical activity but the complex cognitive process. Therefore, memorizing words in a simple and mechanical way is not an effective method but is tended to a way of "dull learning". In the process of English learning, it is necessary to advocate that we should teach learners English vocabulary under the guidance of theory, which is not only the application of theory, but also highlights a new teaching concept and presents an innovative breakthrough in teaching practice.