A Study Of Englisb Vocabulary Teaching Based On Prototype Theory

In prototype theory, prototype is the cognitive reference point that human beings use to categorize the world. It is the best and most typical member in the category while the other members of the category are centered on it. With the development of cognitive linguistics, more researches are turned to the application of prototype theory, especially the application on English vocabulary teaching.First of all, the basic level terms are the most important in teaching and learning English mainly because they have a large number in all vocabulary. Secondly, the polysemy can be regarded as a kind of category that has prototypical meaning and other marginal meanings that are extended from the prototypical one. Both teachers and students should focus more on the prototypical meaning and consciously pick up the marginal meanings through the relationship between the prototypical meaning and the marginal ones. Thirdly, words have core meanings and marginal meanings mainly because of the mechanism of metaphor and metonymy. Thus teachers should consciously foster students’ metaphorical and metonymical awareness when teaching the vocabulary.This paper aims at exploring the implications that prototype theory indicates in English vocabulary teaching, finding one way that is fit for human beings’ cognitive rule to learn vocabulary. Teachers need to focusing on the aspects of vocabulary teaching discussed above, stimulating students’ interests of learning vocabulary, so the teaching effect can be improved.