| Vocabularies are stairs to the peak of a sound command of language, providing framework of language skills. However, as a foreign language, English vocabulary is always described as "a lion in the way" or "a hot potato". On one hand, students are always complaining that vocabulary learning is rather boring and inefficient. On the other hand, their teachers are frustrated by the students' negative studying attitudes. In light of findings of cognitive disciplines, language learning is a process of cognition rather than simply piling up the lexical rules, and maybe, that accounts for the fact that a large number of students are not capable of dynamic and flexible language employment in specific situations. A word does not exist in isolation and it has a distinct meaning in contexts. For decades, researches on the attributes of vocabulary, vocabulary instruction, vocabulary acquisition and its connection with language skills are quite fruitful, but it seemed that vocabulary instruction was treated as a relative isolated domain nevertheless.Within the framework of cognitive linguistics theories of conceptualization, metaphor and construction view, the present research attempts to discover the motivation of language from a cognitive aspect, to link vocabulary instruction with human cognition and the world, to integrate vocabulary, syntax and discourse instruction organically and to explore an effective and efficient approach to vocabulary teaching to promote learners' language proficiency.A cognitive approach to language attaches great importance to human cognitive ability and cognitive process in language use. The present research holds that it is rather essential to assist learners to recognize the relation between language and the world and the internal links within language itself and to discover the motivation of language phenomena. As learners know how to acquire vocabulary with the help of understanding the perceptible world and their own experience, every word becomes live, vivid and meaningful. To learn not by rote but by understanding is sure to result in more effective language learning. Based on the achievements of cognitive linguistics of relevant studies, such as conceptualization, metaphor and construction grammar, emphasizing the interaction among the outer world, human cognition and language, we propose teaching vocabulary from a cognitive perspective and formulate four principles of a cognitive approach to it: Learner-centered Principle; Conceptual Meaning Emphasized Principle; Principle of Dynamic Approach to Vocabulary Learning and Principle of Integrating Vocabulary, Syntax and Discourse Teaching Organically. Conceptualization always indicates semantic, syntactic and pragmatic information of a word, and the prophetic force of language in conceptualization should be focused in vocabulary instruction. As one of the most important cognitive mechanisms, metaphor plays a crucial role in the extension and evolvement of word meaning, which claims students' dynamic command of vocabulary for flexible language use. In addition, the existence of construction and construction meaning demonstrates that constructions themselves carry meaning, independently of the words they contain, which is undoubtedly able to enlighten us as to vocabulary teaching and learning.To teach vocabulary in compliance with these four principles is expected to solve the problems of less fruitful vocabulary instruction in traditional way. To illustrate its specific operation and application in vocabulary instruction at different levels and to prove its effect, we carry out an empirical study to get the data. The empirical study is conducted among 94 first-year Electric Engineering major students in two intact classes in Shaoyang College, who are divided into control group and experimental group for comparison: teaching vocabulary in control group in a traditional way and in experimental group from a cognitive perspective.Three research questions are presented before the empirical study: Will students be better motivated to be taught vocabulary from a cognitive perspective? Can this cognitive approach facilitate students' vocabulary breadth and depth? Can this cognitive approach enhance students' language proficiency?After data collection and analysis, we have got the answers to each of the questions above: Judging by their performance in class and responses in the interview, students in experimental group are much more strongly-motivated in vocabulary learning than those in control group; According to the figures of the tests, vocabulary instruction from a cognitive perspective can facilitate both the breadth and depth of vocabulary command; In the test of sentence understanding and translation, students in experimental group show greater progress in their language proficiency.Data analysis and its conclusion illustrate that students in experimental group have performed much better compared with those in control group, which practically manifests that vocabulary instruction from a cognitive perspective is virtually remarkably superior. Of course, further studies are expected to perfect vocabulary instruction. |
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