The Teaching Of English Polysemous Words In Junior High Schools:An Empirical Study Based On Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Vocabulary plays an important part in English learning because of its essential position in language construction.English words teaching is also an essential and important part in the English teaching in junior high schools.It’s hard for junior students to communicate with others without mastering the necessary words.The polysemous words needed to be mastered by junior students occupy nearly 40 percent,which must cause more difficulties for them to improve their English.In the normal English words teaching,especially in junior high schools,the teachers always command their students to memorize a new word’s main sense by not emphasizing its different senses which are thought to be separately.If it is necessary,the teachers still just list the new word’s different senses simply for the students and ask them to memorize the senses by rote.Consequently,most students can’t master the words effectively.In the study of cognitive linguistics,metaphor is an important way to construct and extend the different senses of one word on the basis of its central sense.That is to say,the polysemous word’s marginal meanings are metaphorically developed by its central meaning in English language.The conceptual metaphor theory conducts a practical way for English polysemous words teaching in junior high schools.This study according to the junior students’ level and ability,aims to find a new English polysemous words teaching method based on the conceptual metaphor theory.This study discusses the following three questions:(1)What are the primary problems for junior students in learning English words,especially the polysemous words?(2)What difference can the teaching method based on the conceptual metaphor theory make for the students’ ability of identifying the different senses of polysemous words?(3)What difference can the teaching method based on the conceptual metaphor theory make for the students’ ability of using the different senses of polysemous words?This study takes 123 junior students,who are divided into experimental group and control group,as the research subjects to finish the empirical study by using contrastive polysemous words teaching methods.This empirical study lasted for more than three months.In this study,the possibility and availability by using the new English polysemous words teaching method in junior high schools based on the conceptual metaphor theory was verified.According to the statistic analysis of the data from the empirical study,it obtains the following conclusions:There are many difficulties for junior students to memorize,identify,and use the different senses of English polysemous words.The new teaching method by explaining the metaphorical relationships among different senses of one word based on the conceptual metaphor theory plays a part in improving the ability of identifying polysemous words’senses correctly and the ability of using polysemous words correctly for junior students.