A Study Of English Polysemy Teaching From The Perspective Of Cognitive Context In Senior High School

Vocabulary is central in L2 acquisition and a wide and sound vocabulary is the base of cultivating language skills including listening,speaking,reading and writing.However,during the process of English learning practice,EFL learners always regard the polysemy learning as a big problem.Learners could not well memorize the various meanings of polysemous words or they could not figure out or apply the meanings of polysemous words to the concrete context,which hinders learners' meaning acquisition and understanding.Context puts these separated words back in the fresh discourses.However,context is regarded as a static concept from the perspective of the traditional context.Whether in the practical teaching or the procedure of learning,cognitive elements are barely connected with knowledge.Actually,context is dynamic and variable in communication.Only context cognitive by individuals links learners with context genuinely.Cognitive context is a psychological construction and made up of cognitive linguistic context,cognitive situational context and cognitive cultural context.Cognitive context contains the knowledge of linguistic context,knowledge of situational context,knowledge of cultural context and other encyclopedic knowledge.The knowledge script and psychological schema are the basic units of cognitive context and the relevance theory is closely associated with cognitive context.Besides,cognitive context focuses on the cognitive inference of the meanings of polysemous words in concrete context.In terms of polysemy,cognitive context emphasizes on the cognitive inference of the meanings of polysemous words in linguistic,situational and cultural context in order to understand and apply the polysemous words to concrete context.Therefore,the construction of cognitive context has provided a new perspective for understanding and memorization of polysemy.This research aims to apply cognitive context to explore whether the construction of cognitive-context based teaching model would facilitate the teaching and learning of the polysemous words.Three research questions have come up:(1)Whether the construction of cognitive-context based teaching model could improve learners' ability of immediate recall of polysemy?(2)Whether the construction of cognitive-context based teaching model could improve learners' ability of delayed recall of polysemy?(3)Whether the construction of cognitive-context based teaching model could improve learners' ability of drawing inference of meanings of polysemy?The research subjects were students of Grade 1 from a senior high school in Liaoning Province,and the students were divided into the control class and the experimental class.The pre-test,post-test were carried out in the experiment,and the data of test and questionnaire were also collected and analyzed.The experimental results have shown that because cognitive-context based teaching model emphasizes on the cognitive inference of the meanings of polysemous words in linguistic,situational and cultural context,students could well understand and memorize the meanings of polysemous words.Therefore,the construction of cognitive-context based teaching model could improve learners' immediate recall of polysemy but only in a small scales;the construction of cognitive-context based teaching model significantly improve the learners' delayed recall of polysemy;the construction of cognitive-context based teaching model significantly motivate the learners to draw inference autonomously and independently.Therefore,it is necessary for teachers to help students construct the teaching model of cognitive context to facilitate the learning and teaching of polysemy.