| By the experimental method, the study explores the current situation of independent college non-English majors who adopt strategies of acquisition of old words with new meanings. The thesis is writen with the focus on the following two questions:(1) What strategies do the students in question currently use to acquire old words with new meanings?(2) Is contextualizational strategy more effective in the acquisition of old words with new meanings?Data collection is performed in the study from 84 sophomores of non-English majors from an independent college by questionnaire and vocabulary tests(62 subjects’ questionnaires and 62 vocabulary tests are valid) which are to investigate subjects’ acquisition strategies and the effect of contextualizational strategy on acquisition results respectively. After processing and analyzing data by SPSS, the results indicate:(1) Independent college non-English majors lack scientific and effective strategies to acquire old words with new meanings. They acquire meanings mainly by referring to dictionaries, guessing and saying or writing repeatedly rather than by taking advantage of collocations or contexts;(2) Adoption of contextualizational strategy significantly improves the acquisition effects by34.39%. All of the four groups, including male, female, good and bad learners, get noticeable improvement in the acquisition. The reduction of memory retention under contextualizational strategy is much smaller in percentage than that in the normal way.Finally, the conclusion is drawn from findings of the experiments that independent college non-English majors’ strategies of acquisition of old words with new meanings have yet to be improved, and proposes the standpoint that the education of acquisition strategy should be channeled into college English teaching and learning with aim to help students form effective acquisition strategies and to be of some directive significance in the practical teaching. |
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