| The Phrasal Verb(PV)is a construction composed of a verb and particle(s).In modern English learning and communication,phrasal verbs have a high frequency and a wide range,which is a must for college entrance examination.Based on the radial category theory,this paper is centered on the spatial particle over,using the spatial meaning as the central meaning which radiates its marginal mental meaning by conceptual metaphor,thus forming a semantic network of V+OVER PVs.This makes up for the traditional teaching method neglecting the semantic connection and the lack of students’ cognitive processing and active participation.The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of radial category-guided English teaching on senior high school students’ learning of V+OVER PVs.The study is done specifically from two aspects of the spatial and mental meanings of over and the research questions are as follows:(1)What is the effect of radial category theory-guided English teaching on senior high school students’ learning of the spatial meaning V+OVER PVs?(2)What is the effect of radial category theory-guided English teaching on senior high school students’ learning of the mental meaning V+OVER PVs?This study adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.The research subjects are selected from the second grade of a high school in Nanjing.In the quantitative study,Class 1 is the control class,whereas Class 2 is an experimental class,and both classes have 40 students.The control class uses the traditional phrasal verbs teaching method,while the experimental class uses the radial category-inspired teaching method,and both classes are pretested.Post-test is divided into immediate test and post-test.Immediate test consists of two types of vocabulary test papers of V+OVER PVs.All data are processed by SPSS,including independent sample T-test.The qualitative research is conducted in the form of interviews.Six student representatives from the experimental group are selected for interviews according to the high,middle and low levels and their interview is recorded and finally converted into English for research.After quantitative and qualitative analysis of the collected data,the author draws the following conclusions:(1)In the study of spatial meaning V+OVER PVs,statistical data show that there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group(p<0.05)and the teaching based on the theory of radial category has an effect on spatial meaning V+OVER PVs.Students can’t fully grasp all the meanings of spatial polysemy network and the mastery of core meanings are better than other meanings,and the cognitive system from the mother tongue spatial concept has interference effect on the acquisition of English spatial semantics.(2)In the study of mental meaning V+OVER PVs,the average score of the experimental group is obviously higher than that of the control group(p<0.05).There is a significant difference between the two classes.Mental meaning is the predominant part of PVs,and the interview results confirm the above conclusions.The students in the experimental group are able to have a deep-processing of semantics with target PVs,which promotes understanding and memory.In addition,it improves students’ metaphorical awareness and develops abstract thinking.Therefore,the radial category provides a systematic cognitive structure to promote the positive transfer of language learning.The teaching implications of this research are:(1)When teaching PVs,teachers can try to show the spatial meaning of particles through simplified diagrams,and then combine the mapping mechanism of conceptual metaphors to sequentially derive their mental meanings and form the semantic category of PVs.(2)Not every phrasal verb can be understood from a metaphorical perspective,but radial category-based teaching can be an effective supplement to instruct PVs teaching.(3)At the same time that teachers improve their own metaphorical abilities,they should also cultivate students’ metaphorical awareness in the teaching.Moreover,they should attach importance to students’ subjective status in the teaching process.Finally,this study also has certain limitations,such as:limited sample size,limited learning and testing time,which need to be improved in subsequent studies. |
