原型范畴理论在英语专业词汇教学应用的个案研究.pdf

Synopsis In the mid-1950’s, suspecting the rationality of classical categories, the great philosopher, Wittgenstein raised the principle of family resemblance in categorization. The famous American psychologist Eleanor Rosch discovered prototype effects of categories around a decade later. According to the research and findings of many cognitive linguists ， from the viewpoint of the semantic categorization ， Taylor(Taylor, 1989:56) has summarized the characteristics of the prototype theory as follows: (1)Entities are categorized according to their attributes. These attributes are not the binary construction of the classical theory. (2)Attributes are not abstract entities but the properties of real- world entities which speakers can master. (3)Not every attribute is clearly specified or indispensable when distinguishing a category. (4)The membership of a category is different in a speaker’ mind. (Shi Yuzhi, 1995:62) This paper will discuss the role of prototype categories theory in English vocabulary teaching in a certain foreign language department of a private collegeHumanity and Information College of Chang Chun University of Technology. Based on the literature review ， the author describes the development of prototype categories theory. After six years of English vocabulary teaching practice and research ，this paper holds the view that the basic level category terms should be taught prior to other terms ，classification according to catego