A Study On Application Of Prototype Theory To English Synonyms Teaching In Senior High School

Synonyms are a huge lexical system in English vocabulary,which are categorized into absolute synonyms and relative synonyms.Generally,we are talking about relative synonyms.Briefly,relative synonyms refer to two or more words with the same or similar meanings.Such words play an important role in our learning and life,and many linguists study synonyms from different perspectives.This dissertation attempts to study the teaching of English synonyms at senior high school,based on the prototype category theory.According to the cognitive linguistics,a set of synonyms can be seen as a combination sharing family resemblance.They constitute a semantic category,with the existence of synonymous archetypes,whose boundaries are vague and open.Therefore,we can apply the prototype category theory to the teaching of synonyms.This dissertation draws lessons from well-known scholars at home and abroad on the questionnaire of senior high school English vocabulary acquisition to understand the current methods and puzzles of senior high school students’ acquisition of English synonyms.Besides,according to the college entrance examination and authoritative examination papers,it is combined with the students’ learning situation to make the synonyms tests.The author carries on the teaching experiment in Harbin Senior High School,conducts questionnaires in both experimental and control classes and tests them before and after experiment.After collecting a large amount of experimental data,the author uses SPSS 22.0 to analyze the questionnaire and the test results to explore the suitable teaching methods for students’ acquisition of synonyms.The results show that compared with the traditional teaching methods,the teaching of senior high school English synonyms under the guidance of prototype category theory can significantly improve students’ synonyms acquisition,and also improve the students’ use of synonyms.The application of prototype category theory puts forward higher requirements for teachers’ theoretical literacy,which requires them to continuously improve their teaching performance.Finally,the author analyzes the shortcomings in the experiment and provides some ideas for the future researches.