基于原型理论的英语专业词汇教学研究

different. But we don’thave a name for everything, otherwise there would be an infinite number of names. Incommunication, we simplify the reality, put different things into the same category, thatis categories of things. Human brain has the ability to classify various objects to theessence. This is the process of concept forming in cognitive view. Each concept isconnected with a corresponding category. Such mental process is known ascategorization. Lakoff (1985) proposes “An essential aspect of cognition is the ability tocategorize: to judge that a particular thing is or is not an instance of a particularcategory.” Taylor (2001) maintains that categorization is the basic ability to all highercognitive activity.
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2.2 Prototype Theory
Wittgenstein’s Family Resemblance stimulates the scholars to look at thecategorization from a new prospective. Prototype theory becomes an alternative toclassical theory gradually, especially after the empirical study of color and theresearches on folk categories in 1970s. (Wittgenstein, 1953; Berlin &Kay, 1969; Rosch,1971; Labov, 1987; Taylor, 1989 ). Rosch and her coworkers first summarized andcontributed –the theory of prototypes and basic-level categories or Prototype Theory(Rosch,1973,1975, Rosch and Mervis, 1975, Rosch et al. , 1976 ). The Aristotelian’s classical theory dominated human thinking over two thousandyears. While it does not mean the preponderance will never meet challenge. In themid-1950s, the great philosopher Wittgenstein put forward the Family Resemblance insuspecting the rationality of classical categories.Later on the focal color investigation done by Berlin and Kay (1969) stimulatesmany researchers interest in category. Especially the famed American psychologistEleanor Rosch presented the prototype effects of categorization. She does research toshapes and categories. The ten categories of furniture, fruit, weapon, vegetable, bird,vechicle, tool, clothing, sport and toy are most influential. Her study indicates that in thecategory of furniture, chairs ranking first while telephone ranking sixtieth.
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Chapter Three Prototype Theory and Its Embodiment in Vocabulary..... 16
3.1 Prototypicality and Basic Level Categories ...... 16
3.1.1 Prototypicality ..... 16
3.1.2 Basic Level Categories .... 16
3.2 Salience and Basic Terms in Language ....... 19
3.2.1 Salience.... 19
3.2.2 Basic-level Terms and Vocabulary Learning ....... 20
3.3 The Non-universal Feature of Basic-level Categories......... 21
3.4 Semantic Extension in Polysemy .... 23
Chapter Four Teaching Experiments Based on the Prototype Theory........ 32
4.1 Methodology...... 32
4.2 Experimental Procedures..... 33
4.3 Data Analysis and Discussion ......... 42
Chapter Five Conclusion ....... 51
5.1 Major Findings ........ 51
5.2 Pedagogical Implications..... 52
5.3 Research Limitation....... 53

Chapter Four Teaching Experiments Based on the PrototypeTheory

4.1 Methodology
As the prototype theory and its feasibility have been clearly discussed. And it isclearly illustrated that the learners acquire the general basic-level lexical items first.Furthermore, it is so true that the English words are bound with the vocabulary items.Yet the EFL students cannot be expected to learn all of them. Due to these aspects, theteachers are supposed to divert their attention to teach the basic-level terms first. Sincethe basic-level words are more often denote or belong to the prototypes and they alsooccur more frequently in communication. As is known to all, English consists of largeamount of polysemous words besides monosemantic words. Therefore the f