Application Of Image Schema Theory In English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

This thesis will be based on the requirements of the English Curriculum Standard of Senior High School(2017),taking image schema theory in cognitive linguistics and the theory of metaphor as the theoretical basis.The theory of metaphor can help extend meanings of vocabulary.The thesis aims to improve the efficiency of students' vocabulary learning,and motivate students' enthusiasm to learn English.The image schema theory is abstract,which is the experience obtained by human being in the objective world.It has the characteristic of experience.The combination of the image schema theory and the metaphor theory can make students understand and grasp the connection between words.With the guidance of the image schema theory,students can master more words and improve the enthusiasm of students' vocabulary learning.In order to let the image schema theory instruct vocabulary teaching better,the author discusses the application of the theory in chapter four.First,under the guidance of container schema which is in the image schema theory,the author takes IN and FILL as examples.Second,under the guidance of source-path-destination schema which is in the image schema theory,the author takes OUT OF and THROW as examples.Under the guidance of the teaching,the author makes the hypotheses as follows:First,the image schema theory can improve the efficiency of students' vocabulary learning.Second,the application of the image schema theory can motivate students' interest in learning English vocabulary.According to the need of study,the author uses the combination of the qualitative and quantitative methods.Firstly,the vocabulary teaching experiment will be done in class seven and class eight grade two.These two classes include one hundred and forty students in No.1 Senior High School in Xi County,Henan Province.The experiment is done from September to December in 2017.A questionnaire survey and a vocabulary ability test are conducted on the two classes before the experiment.Secondly,the author finds that students in class seven and class eight have the same ability to learn vocabulary.Thirdly,the author applies the image schema theory to class seven(the experimental class),while the traditional method is taught in class eight(the control class).Thetraditional method means that teachers teach English vocabulary by reading,explaining and questioning.After the experiment,the author conducts a vocabulary ability test for the both class.Besides,another questionnaire survey and an interview are given to the experimental class.According to the analysis of the data,scores of the students in the experimental class are higher than those of the students in the control class.The image schema theory is welcomed by most of the students in the experimental class.At the same time,they hope that the theory can be applied to English teaching in the future.This teaching experiment shows that the image schema theory can improve the efficiency of students' learning English vocabulary,and motivate students' enthusiasm to learn English vocabulary to a certain extent.I hope that this study can provide certain reference value for future English vocabulary teaching.