Frame Semantics Approach To Polysemy And Its Teaching

Being a common linguistic phenomenon in almost every language, polysemyplays a significantly important role in people’s language learning. Many scholars havedone some researches from the perspective of traditional linguistics such as semanticcomponent analysis, structuralistic, and cognitive, etc. However, componential theoryand structural approach turn out to be deficient and limited in terms of polysemy study.With the introduction of Cognitive Linguistics, much attention has been paid to thestudy of polysemy based on Prototype Theory, Category Theory, Image Schema,Metaphor or Metonymy Analysis. Although these studies have, in some extent,explained the internal meaning relation of some polysemous word, literature availableindicates that these studies are mainly conducted from a synchronic perspectives, andfew of them can cover polysemy completely and systematically, and few of themapplies their findings to polysemy teaching.As a special and instructive branch of Cognitive Linguistics, Frame Semanticsrenders us “a particular way of looking at word meanings”. Several concepts of thetheory including frame, frame elements, frame systems besides some related conceptssuch as slot, filler and perspective are adopted as the theoretical framework of thisthesis to explain polysemy from a diachronic and synchronic perspective.This study holds that the phenomenon of polysemy is the result of frame shift of aprimary frame, mainly through frame-extending, frame-narrowing andframe-substituting. And we proposed to understand polysemy from different slots andfillers, and from different perspectives.On basis of these two ways of studying polysemy, integrated with Brown andPayne’s model(1994) for vocabulary teaching, a tentative teaching model of Englishpolysemy with three phases is proposed:(1)the frame-setting phase, in which we meeta polysemous word in different contexts(normally a meaning with a context) and usethe context as cognitive information to help learners to activate corresponding frames for the further-understanding in the later phase;(2)the frame-describing phase, inwhich word meanings are concluded and learned through frame construction anddescription; and (3)the frame-consolidating phase, in which word meanings areenhanced by arranging students to do the corresponding practices to consolidate themastery of the word meanings. Developing from this teaching model, threeimplications are thus highlighted: instructing students frame knowledge, analyzingpolysemy in a context, and practicing polysemous words by forming differentcontexts.Finally, the major findings, limitations of the study and the suggestions for furtherstudy are concluded.