Keywords: English; Teaching; Vocabulary; meaning
Classification number of China Library: G623.3 1 Document ID: A document number:1009-010x (2007) 05-0031-03.
I. Introduction
Beautiful English is almost a tool language that is popular all over the world. Speaking fluent and idiomatic English is the dream of many people. Imagine what a pleasant thing it will be when we really realize the successful dialogue and communication with native English speakers! And our vast number of English teachers are shouldering such a historical mission and taking it as our ultimate teaching goal. However, to achieve this goal, so that our students can use 1 10,000 to 2 million English words to swim in the sea of Wang Yang words, it needs a lot of work. Because our students can only master about 2000 words after learning English in primary and secondary schools, which is far from the 5000 words that can basically reach daily conversation. From this point of view, vocabulary teaching is an important content in English teaching and an extremely arduous task. Here, I only talk about some superficial attempts and ideas in English vocabulary meaning teaching.
Second, abstract literal meaning and concrete textual meaning.
As the name implies, the so-called English vocabulary meaning teaching is to explain the meaning of English vocabulary to students. The so-called "meaning" of vocabulary actually refers to the abstract meaning of a word itself, which is static and unaffected by external factors, that is, literal meaning. For example, the definition of a word in a dictionary is a typical abstract meaning. As we all know, a word has meaning only in a specific context, such as a sentence or an article. On the contrary, it is just an abstract symbol and has no meaning. For example, according to the dictionary, the English word "book" as a noun has the following seven basic literal meanings: ① book, book, notebook and written work; 2 (capital) Bible; 3 volumes, articles; (4) A book (for stamps, tickets, etc.). ) and a bag (for matches, etc.). ); (5) Horse racing betting records; 6 (plural) commercial account books, records, etc. ; ⑦ (drama) lyrics script, but divorced from the context or discourse situation of language use, the above seven abstract meanings are uncertain, so they have no communicative value. Once in a specific context, "book" has communicative value, thus eliminating its uncertainty and ambiguity. For example, in class, the teacher said to the students, "Please open your books and turn to page 45." We can immediately determine that "book" can only express the contextual meaning of "book" in this case. Similarly, on another occasion, such as when several actors are talking about their roles in a book, the contextual meaning they express becomes a "script". It can be seen that understanding the meaning of a word itself, that is, the literal meaning, does not mean understanding its contextual meaning. And we learn English for the need of communication, that is, to apply what we have learned, otherwise, learning will lose its meaning. What we use in teaching is a textbook composed of several texts, not a dictionary, which shows that the specific meaning of vocabulary should be mastered by our students and emphasized by our English teacher in class. Too much emphasis on the specific meaning under the influence of context, that is, the book meaning in the text or sentence pattern, will often make our students equate a word with that specific meaning, and as a result, students will only associate it with that meaning when they see this word, which is a one-sided understanding and mastery of the meaning of English vocabulary. In this case, if some factors, such as context, change, students often cannot understand the vocabulary they have learned. Therefore, we should fully grasp the multiple meanings of a word, and also point out the multiple meanings of a word to students in class.
Third, the difficult choice of polysemous words.
In the limited classroom time, it is impossible to explain almost unlimited vocabulary content, and even if it is explained, students will be confused by the vast vocabulary meaning because they have no focus. This requires our English teachers to try their best to screen out lexical meanings that are closely related to classroom teaching, practical and suitable for students to accept on the premise of being familiar with the teaching materials.
Let's take the "book" mentioned above as an example. For example, there is a sentence in the article: "This is an English book". The contextual meaning of "book" here is "book". As a new word, this meaning must be said. If you are facing primary school students who have just started learning English, it is enough to explain this layer; If you are an intermediate student, the meaning can be extended to ① and ④, because in real life, we often use and mention these two meanings; Senior students can further reveal ①, ②, ③ and ⑦, because they have heard or read such "books" during this period; If you are a professional, you can also focus on explaining ④, ⑤ and ⑤, because these meanings may often appear in their lives and work. It can be seen that in the face of numerous lexical meanings, we can only explain them selectively according to the students' level. Regardless of the students' factors, it is very undesirable to list all the abstract meanings of words and then speak in a muddle.
Fourthly, the application of part-of-speech conversion knowledge.
In teaching practice, we will find that the meanings of some words come from the changes of their parts of speech. We also take "book" as an example: it can be used as a verb and has the following abstract meanings: ① record (order, etc. Register a complaint against (someone) in the account book (of the police); Book (seats), book (tickets), accept reservations or tickets, hire someone as a speaker, performer, etc. In fact, the usage of part-of-speech conversion is very common in Chinese, especially in classical Chinese. The most common is the passive use of nouns, such as: helping people to punish, bringing them to justice, and so on; The causative usage of adjectives, such as: Therefore, if the sky is going to fall to the Sri Lankan people, we must first suffer their minds, work their bones and muscles, starve their bodies and skins, and so on.
In English, part-of-speech conversion is more common and frequent. Part-of-speech conversion has become an important means for English language to generate new words, because this method is the simplest of all word-formation, and people need only expand the meaning of an old word without considering the spelling of the new word. According to statistics, from World War II to 1980s, neologisms generated by part-of-speech conversion accounted for 10.5% of all neologisms in the same period. Since then, with the great development of science and technology and the arrival of the information explosion era, more new words have been acquired through part-of-speech conversion. Teaching practice shows that it is the easiest to enlarge vocabulary by using the function of part-of-speech conversion, and mastering some part-of-speech conversion can deepen students' memory of the meaning of a word.
In all kinds of parts of speech, many parts of speech can change each other, which leads to the change of lexical meaning. This change is very complicated, but it can be said that there are many formulaic things in it. Generally speaking, adjectives and adverbs have seven conversion functions, six nouns and verbs, five prepositions, conjunctions and numerals, four pronouns, three onomatopoeias and 1 article. Among them, noun-to-verb conversion is a very common phenomenon in modern English, and it is also one of the most active word-formation methods in conversion. English has existed since it came into being, and it is becoming a rapidly developing trend in contemporary English. It is widely used and often appears in different styles and different language environments.
It is unwise for the teacher to list the methods of part-of-speech conversion for the students at once. However, it is a pity that I bumped into examples in the textbooks and exercises I contacted and didn't take the opportunity to prompt.
Fifth, the accompanying meaning of words.
Among many lexical meanings, one meaning should be advocated to explain, that is, the accompanying meaning of words. Adjunctive meaning is a Chinese translation term of English "connotation", which comes from the medieval Latin "connotionem" and refers to a word with additional meaning besides its basic meaning. Geoffery Leech, a British linguist, pointed out that accompanying meaning is the communicative value of an expression unit and the information conveyed by the reference of the expression unit. George Leikauf, the founder of generative semantics, fully affirmed the influence of accompanying meaning as the pragmatic meaning of words on sentences in his paper "Fuzzy Determiners and Semantic Standards" in 1973, and pointed out that dictionary interpretation should include the content of accompanying meaning. With the deepening of the comprehensive study of English and Chinese, a group of China scholars have gradually realized that bilingual dictionaries should be designed with a "cultural annotation" or "national cultural significance". Because the accompanying meaning is related to culture and interesting, most students like it. In most cases, they not only enliven the classroom atmosphere, but also increase students' cultural knowledge, and students are very interested in learning. Because of interest, learning is no longer a burden, but a kind of leisure, even enjoyment, so learning efficiency is extremely high, and students are willing to use these meanings often after class. For example, English beginners, especially naughty children, always think that the word "dog" is used to curse people, but in English culture, people keep dogs not only for hunting and housekeeping, but also for companionship. Some people have no children, so they take dogs instead. Many dogs can get quite a lot of "preferential treatment" and even "privilege". In language, people are also used to treating "dogs" as "people". For example, "the boss" is the most important person, "the lucky one" is the lucky one, and "everyone has his day" means "everyone has his day". It can be seen that dogs are not just animals that can only arouse people's disgust.
When explaining the words expressing colors, teachers can compare their different accompanying meanings in Chinese and English by the way, so that students can deepen their understanding. For example, in Chinese, red symbolizes prosperity, celebration, love and happiness, while in English, red represents anger, hostility, challenge and danger. Green stands for spring, rebirth and hope in Chinese, while "green" in English is often associated with such derogatory meanings as inexperience and jealousy. In China culture, blue means solemnity and seriousness, while the English word "blue" is often used to express depression, depression or lewdness and filth. Because the words expressing colors also have the accompanying meaning of expressing spirit and mood, we can describe Mr. Brown in this way: Mr. Brown is a very white person. He looked very pale the other day. He has been feeling blue recently. He was deep in thought when I saw him. I hope he will recover soon. ) Mr. Brown is a faithful and reliable man. He didn't look well that day, and he has been depressed recently. He seemed preoccupied when I met him. I hope he will pull himself together soon. )
The explanation of the accompanying meanings of English words actually lays a foundation for students to further understand and accept the expressions of concern in English and Chinese, such as: love me, love my house and my dog/be strong/be penniless/laugh off my fangs/and so on.
Conclusion of intransitive verbs
Of course, the extension of a lexical meaning depends on the specific situation. For the function of vocabulary, we should emphasize its practicality, while for the teaching method, we should emphasize its interest. The practice of listing lexical meanings regardless of good or bad can only make students confused and discouraged from English; On the contrary, choosing a lexical meaning accurately in teaching will inevitably improve the active atmosphere in English class, greatly improve students' learning efficiency, stimulate students' desire to pursue new knowledge, and thus greatly improve the teaching effect as a whole.
It is worth pointing out that in the teaching of English vocabulary meaning, our English teachers should first play the role of "agents of our own national culture", so that our students can "learn and know", then "apply what they have learned" and finally "learn and innovate", because the purpose of learning and understanding western languages is to further promote China culture and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Therefore, the purpose of our vocabulary teaching is not only to introduce the various meanings of a word to students as comprehensively as possible, but also to let students gradually realize their internal cognitive and thinking changes in the process of interaction between their own national culture and foreign culture, so as to really let students learn how to use these meanings correctly in cross-cultural communication.
References:
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