A Cognitive Study Of The Semantic And Pragmatic Barriers In Depth Of SL Vocabulary Acquisition

Since the1990s, researches on SL vocabulary acquisition at home and abroadhave come into a new phase. Dismissing the traditional dichotomy approach(known/unknown), vocabulary researchers begin to adopt a multidimensional method,shifting their attention to the depth of vocabulary knowledge, that is, the knowledgeof different aspects of words or the level learners know about a word. Up to now, alarge number of researches have been conducted in this field. Many theoreticalframeworks and models of vocabulary depth knowledge have been established, on thebasis of which various empirical studies have also been conducted. Those empiricalstudies reveal that there still exist many problems in the depth of SL vocabularyacquisition, especially in semantic and pragmatic acquisition, such as the imbalancebetween lexical depth development and lexical breadth development, theunsatisfactory development of semantic network and the later development ofpragmatic and productive ability. But so far, very few studies have been able to makea reasonable explanation for these problems.Focusing on ordinary language, later Wittgenstein advocates that language studyshould be returned to the original language use and proposes that language are acollection of language games with family resemblance, played in the "form of life"context, the meaning of language is in its use, which has rich semantic and pragmaticimplication. This thesis, drawing on the linguistic philosophy of later Wittgenstein,tries to explore the internal and external reasons behind the barriers of SL vocabularysemantic and pragmatic acquisition from the perspective of category and context, onthe basis of which some tentative suggestions will be put forward. The major findings of this thesis are as follows:In the semantic aspect, Wittgenstein claims that word meanings derive from theiruse in language games. The multiplicity of language games and their dependence onforms of life reveal the diverse, context-dependent and dynamic nature of wordmeaning, which overthrows the traditional referential theory of word meaning.Meanwhile,"family resemblance" of "language games" reveals the fuzzy nature ofcategory boundaries and the inequality of category members, deconstructs theClassical Category of Aristotle and facilitates the establishment of Prototype Theory,which contributes a lot to our research on semantic category and the construction ofsemantic networks: based on the prototype theory, the meanings within wordconstitutes a radiating network circling around the prototypical sense and differentwords also constitute a hierarchical structure according to their status. Drawing onthis semantic network, language users can effectively extract and deduce meaningaccording to context, especially while encountering the polysemy and synonymyphenomena. However, influenced by traditional referential theory of meaning, mostSL learners simply seek a corresponding L1translation equivalent while encounteringa word, but neglect the relations within a word or between words. Different senses ofwords are equally and separately stored in their mind, constituting a one-to-one linerstructure, which greatly discourages meaning extraction and use.In the pragmatic aspect, Wittgenstein brings his language study back to ordinarylanguage use. He claims that language games are played in a broader context:"formsof life". All the concepts and linguistic rules and even the speakers themselves areembedded in the various forms of life, which indicates that language is not just alinguistic fact, but interweaving with our social and cultural life. The meaning and useof words are embedded in and influenced by our social and cultural life. Therefore,vocabulary acquisition cannot be simply regarded as linguistic meaning memory andstorage. More attention should also be paid to the contextual and cultural informationunderlying word meaning and use. However, in our vocabulary teaching and learning,most SL learners blindly enrich their vocabulary size, seek one-to-one equivalents intheir L1, but neglect the contextual cues included into words such as SL cultures, conventions and rules, which greatly inhibits their pragmatic ability and causes a lotof pragmatic failures.The above findings provide favorable implications for SL vocabulary acquisition:SL teachers and learners should pay more attention to the depth vocabularyacquisition rather than just blindly enlarge vocabulary size. As teachers, they shouldemphasize the semantic relations of words, teach students to identify the prototypicalsense and peripheral meaning within a word and the hierarchal relations betweenwords and guide them to establish a network from the horizontal and verticalorientations. Meanwhile, more contextual and cultural knowledge should also beintroduced in order to increase their pragmatic ability.