A Motivational Study Of English Polysemy And Its Revelation To Vocabulary Teaching

For most students, the study of English words is a key issue in their English learning. In the English vocabulary, polysemy is a pervasive phenomenon. For instance, polysemous words account for up to 60 percent of the vocabulary that is required by the syllabus for TEM 4. Therefore it can be argued that successful vocabulary learning depends to a great extent on how effectively students can understand and memorize polysemous words. The widely-adopted teaching methods, Wordlist and learning in context, do function quite positively in vocabulary (polysemy) teaching and learning but they cannot meet the demand of efficient teaching and learning much well and how long the learned words(meanings) can be memorized is questioned . This thesis attempts to discuss the feasibility and the actual operation of applying some teaching methods based on cognitive linguistics to teaching practice and so as to enhance the teaching of polysemy. The thesis firstly focuses on the discussion of arbitrariness and motivation of polysemy. Structuralists, with Saussure as a representative, believe that language signs are arbitrary and the studies of them are limited to the language system alone. A common approach to analyzing polysemous words is sememe analysis and the various meanings of a polysemous words are thought to derive from different combinations of meaning components. The relation of the senses of a polysemous word is admitted but how the senses relate to each other can not be explained well. The emergence and development of cognitive linguistics provides another perspective for polysemy teaching. Some linguists point out that for a polysemous word the original form-meaning relation is arbitrary while the meaning extension of it is motivated. Cognitive linguistics, with experimentalism as its philosophical basis, holds that language, as a way people perceive the world is a part of cognitive system. Cognitive competence interacts with language competence and is influenced by language. So the study of language phenomenon inevitably involves cognitive domain. With prototype theory as its theoretical foundation, the meaning extension of a polysemous word is realized mainly via three cognitive instruments, namely, metaphor, metonymy and image schema. Based on this theory, the paper is intended to explain the polysemy and the relation of the senses of a polysemous word. Besides, by analyzing the test results from 37 sophomores of the English language major, this thesis finds that students' knowledge and awareness of the three cognitive instruments of polysemes is relative to their polyseme level. The paper aims at making some proposals for the teaching of polysemous words and suggesting new perspectives on the issue. It is hoped that the interest of students can be aroused while the burden can be reduced.