A Study Of Vocabulary Learning And Teaching For College Students From The Perspective Of Prototype Theory

Vocabulary is the basic part of language, in which it plays an essential role. In2007, the College English Curriculum Requirements issued by the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education formulated the clear requirements for college students. However, at present the vocabulary that students grasp is far from the requirements, and there is common situation in college vocabulary teaching and learning that students spend more time while get less effect. For example, they have less efficiency in vocabulary memorization, their vocabulary structure is loosely organized, and they have great difficulty in recognizing words that are similar in spelling. According to college students’ cognitive features and rules, this paper designs a questionnaire about the vocabulary learning and teaching at college. Later one of the most important reasons is why students have these problems has been found. That is because students and teachers haven’t fully recognized and used the cognitive features and rules of lexical semantic relation. Usually students and teachers pay little attention to inner relations, which is based on the semantic relations, between target words and other words, so they memorize and teach words one by one through the isolated way. Because prototype theory can make unique analysis on English lexical semantic relations and give significant direction to English vocabulary teaching, and in order to change the situation of English vocabulary learning and teaching, this paper makes theoretical discussion on lexical semantic relations from the perspective of prototype theory which is an important theory in cognitive linguistics, and explores the embodiment of prototype effect in semantic relations, such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and polysemy. Through the analysis and application of prototype theory, this thesis aims at helping students to enlarge vocabulary and improve the efficiency of vocabulary memorization.Based on theoretical discussion, the paper still explores the feasibility and efficiency of application of prototype theory to vocabulary teaching and learning by empirical research. In this research, the author chooses fifty sophomores from class five majoring in Medical and Nursing from Chengdu University, and they take part in this research of vocabulary tests and questionnaire. By comparing and analyzing data, the conclusion has been made that vocabulary teaching based on prototype theory has positive influence on students’vocabulary learning, which can make students understand inner relations of words better, and accordingly improve their English vocabulary learning and teaching efficiency.The research results of this thesis indicate that prototype theory has the following implications for college English vocabulary teaching:focus on the teaching of basic level terms, and expand prototypical words to the superordinate level terms and subordinate level terms; attach importance to semantic association within the lexical meanings of polysemy and peripheral meanings radiated from typical meaning; lay emphasis on semantic extension and association with synonymy and antonymy relations, so as to enlarge vocabulary and master them.