A Research On Polysemous Words Learning In College English From The Perspective Of The Prototype Theory

In human language, polysemy is a common phenomenon, and it occupies a largeproportion in the total vocabulary. In the process of English learning, teachers andstudents all have been paying much attention to vocabulary learning and they think it isthe basis for mastering the basic language skills steady and improving actual applicationabilities efficiently. But in reality, students’ vocabulary learning effect is not satisfactory,and the results they get are not in proportion with the efforts they make. In fact, neitherteachers in their teaching process nor students in their learning process are fully aware ofand understand the cognitive connections among the meanings of polysemous words.Most of the teachers and students teach and learn polysemous words by using traditionalmethods which are mechanical memorizing the meanings: reading after teachers,translating, analyzing the structure, expounding the use of polysemous words, orguessing the specific meanings according to the context. Many practices and relatedresearches have proved that these methods are time-consuming and inefficient.The prototype theory in cognitive linguistics provides a brand-new and morescientific theoretical base for polysemous words learning. Based on the prototype theory,the prototype is the most representative and typical member. All the members within acategory connect with each other depending on the family resemblance. Like a prototypecategory, there are core meanings and peripheral meanings in a semantic category whichis formed by polysemous words’ meanings. The core meaning is the most basicprototypical meaning and is acquired first by people. The semantic category is formed onthe basis of family resemblance by the core meaning’s incessant expansion outward. Thesemantic extension is achieved by two important cognitive devices, metaphor andmetonymy. The meanings of polysemous words are associated by the following threemodes, radiation, concatenation and half-radiation. Metaphor exhibits the radiation mode,and metonymy exhibits the concatenation mode. Students should grasp the cognitiveconnections among polysemous words’ meanings, and form an interconnected categoryto the meanings in their minds under teachers’ help, rather than remember themseparately.The author of this thesis is meant to guide polysemous words’ learning fornon-English major college students based on the prototype theory. Firstly,200sophomores from five colleges in North China Electric Power University (Baoding) are required to take one questionnaire and two vocabulary tests. Then the author made Alphavalue test, frequency analysis, and descriptive analysis to the data by SPSS17.0andExcel so as to know their mastering condition of polysemous words, their learningstrategies, whether they know the connection among the meanings, and whether they canguess other extended meanings when provided a polysemous word’s core meaning andan extended meaning. Finally, the author put forward some concrete teaching methodsbased on the findings according to the prototype theory. This thesis aims to guide collegestudents’ polysemous words learning based on the prototype theory by cultivating theircognitive ability.