The Study On Polysemy Teaching In High Schools From The Prototypical Perspective

Polysemy is a common linguistic phenomenon in almost every language in the world and English is no exception. The teaching and learning of English polysemous words has always been a problem for foreign language teachers and learners.Traditional linguists considered polysemous words as independent, unrelated and unsystematic, neglecting the deep relations among the senses of words, which makes the acquisition of polysemous words a passive and mechanical process.In contrast with the classical category theory, the prototype theory considered categories are structured by similarities rather than by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions; category members are not equal, which are anchored around prototypes with the connection of family resemblance. The semantic categories also belong to the prototypical categories and accord with all the characteristics. In this way, a polysemous word can be regarded as a special case of prototype-based category. The semantic items in the categories are not equal, in which there are central senses, less central senses and peripheral senses. The central senses, also known as the core senses or prototype meanings are considered to be the most typical members in the semantic categories, which have the most common features in the category, and serve as reference points for the other senses. In the evolutionary process of the senses of words, the semantic categories would expand themselves round the prototype meanings by means of prototype splits as well as the derivation of non-prototypical members, thus forming the different senses in the polysemous categories. In the process, concatenation and radiation are the two major extension patterns, and metaphor and metonymy are the cognitive mechanisms. This cognitive approach overcomes some shortcomings of the traditional approach, which is considered to be a more complete and convincing perspective for studying polysemy.Therefore, the author would try to carry on the study of the teaching practice based on the prototype theory. The research was conducted at Shanghai Meiyuan Junior High School. The subjects involved were 62 students from two classes in Grade Nine. In this paper, the study tends to figure out the following questions: What are the current students’ learning strategies of English polysemous words? Is this approach more effective for the students in guessing the meanings of polysemous words? Is this approach more effective for the students’ long-term memorization of polysemous words? Compared with the traditional teaching method, is the teachingapproach guided by the prototype theory more helpful for students in leaning polysemous words?During the experiment, there are three word tests, which are respectively used as one pre-test and two post-tests, and would be finished by both classes before and after some related teaching activities. Besides, there’s a questionnaire to get a general information of the students’ learning situation and an interview to check out students’ feedback and thoughts.According to the theoretical and experimental results, it can be concluded that the prototype theory is instructive for students to have a deep understanding of polysemous words. It can improve the students’ cognitive awareness in guessing and memorizing different senses, as well as arousing their interest and motivation for vocabulary learning. And there are also some pedagogical implications are derived.While teaching polysemous words, emphasis should be put on the central senses of polysemous words, as well as the relations between different senses. In addition, we should not repel the traditional approach, instead, integrating it with the cognitive approach and making use of the context.