A Study On The Application Of Figure-Ground Theory To Senior High School English Emphatic Structure Teaching

British linguist D. A. Wilkins (1972) once said,"people can not express much withoutgrammar." For senior high English teaching, grammar teaching is a very important part of itsEnglish curriculum and the students’ mastery of English grammar is also an important way totest the effectiveness of students’ English learning. English emphatic structure, mainlyincluding English it-cleft sentence and English inversions, is a very important and difficultgrammar point in senior high English grammar. For a long time, the teaching of Englishemphatic structure has adopted the traditional teaching approach. Teachers explain thestructure, meaning and key and difficult points, and then a lot of exercises are drilled bystudents to enhance this English grammar. However, many students can not master thisgrammar after doing a lot of exercises. Thus, how to make students fully and effectively learnand acquire English emphatic structure is a very important issue to be resolved.In recently years, cognitive linguistics is sweeping the linguistic field with anoverwhelming trend, and it as well provides a new perspective for English emphatic structureteaching. Langacker (1987) claims that Figure-Ground structure is the basic characteristics ofcognitive function. The application of Figure-Ground Theory to linguistics provides theunsolved issue above with a very good idea. The author constructs a Figure-Ground Theoryteaching model, to instruct English emphatic structure teaching and learning. In order to testthe effectiveness of Figure-Ground Theory and its application in senior high English emphaticstructure teaching, both quantitative and qualitative research methods are adopted.60seniorhigh students of Grade two were selected and equally divided them into two classes, namely,the control class (CC) and the experimental class (EC), with CC using traditional teachingapproach and EC using Figure-Ground Theory model respectively. A contrasting experimentwas made between the two classes. In the whole experiment process, the author performed apre-test, teaching procedures, a post-test and a questionnaire. The data of test papers wereanalyzed by a statistical software SPSS13.0, and the results show that Figure-Ground Theoryteaching model can be applied to senior high English emphatic structure teaching. Itsapplication can help students better comprehend, use and grasp English emphatic structure.Meanwhile, its application can make students English grammar learning more interesting,which is helpful to motivate students’ learning motivation and interest.Through this research, the author tests and verifies the effectiveness of applying Figure-Ground Theory to senior high English emphatic structure teaching. Its application notonly provides a new teaching model for teachers but also provides students with a new way oflearning and acquiring English emphatic structure. Besides, it cultivates the students’independent thinking ability, improves their performance and builds a more relaxing andpleasant classroom atmosphere for them as well.