Etymological methods of memorizing vocabulary in English teaching
I. Introduction
English learners' vocabulary reserves directly determine their listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation skills. Therefore, vocabulary learning plays an important role in the whole process of English learning, especially in the stage of college English learning that emphasizes vocabulary accumulation. However, the methods and effects of teaching vocabulary by many college English teachers are not satisfactory. Some teachers are even like English dictionary repeaters. When explaining vocabulary, they include all synchronic aspects of a word from pronunciation, spelling, part of speech to common meaning, common collocation, antonym, related compound words and derivatives, beautiful example sentences and so on. Faced with this tedious teaching method, some students just record what they say mechanically, while others simply give up listening and gradually lose interest in learning vocabulary. Generally speaking, most English teachers mainly teach vocabulary from the time level. However, the vocabulary knowledge taught is generally available in the dictionary, and students only need to look it up frequently. Therefore, students are not interested in this easy-to-obtain and monotonous information, lack motivation and clues when memorizing vocabulary, and rely only on rote memorization. How can we motivate students to learn English vocabulary and let them remember and use words effectively? Based on the diachronic level of English vocabulary, this paper discusses the relationship between English etymology and college English vocabulary teaching in order to enrich vocabulary teaching methods and improve teaching effect.
Second, etymology and a brief history of English vocabulary formation
Etymology, as its name implies, refers to the source of words. Robert Ilson, editor-in-chief of Contemporary Longman English Dictionary, pointed out that "etymology refers to the information about the formation process of words, phrases or meanings." He believes that etymological information can explain the true meaning of a word; Inducing cognates can make them easier to remember and stimulate learners' interest. He divided the generalized etymological information into four types: original words and cognates, including loanwords and transliteration loanwords; Analyze the morphology of lexical units from the structure; Morphological analysis of lexical units from the process of word formation: analysis of the formation and evolution of lexical units from the cognitive process (such as metaphor and allusion).
The formation process of English vocabulary is quite complicated. English belongs to the Germanic family of Indo-European languages. Its history can be roughly divided into three stages: Old English, Middle English and Modern English. At each development stage, English borrows a lot of loanwords to fill its semantic vacancy or increase the expressive force of vocabulary. 450 ~ 1 100 is the period of old English. In 597, because the Pope sent a mission to England to preach, English absorbed many words from Latin, the lingua franca of the church at that time, such as "candle", "chapter", "cross" and "disciple". In the 9th century, the Vikings invaded Britain, bringing a large number of Scandinavian words and forming some common English words, such as cake, egg, kind, odd, get, want, they and same. 1 100 to 1500 is Middle English. 1066, the normans conquered England. From 1 1 to13rd century, French, the language of the ruling class at that time, gradually merged with English, and at the same time greatly enriched English vocabulary, such as "age", "business" and "informing". /kloc-The period from the 0/6th century to the present is the period of modern English. /kloc-During the European Renaissance in the 6th century, English was influenced by Italian. /kloc-After the 0/9th century, the British Empire colonized and expanded, and English absorbed many colonial words, such as "sofa" in Arabic and "kowtow" in Chinese. Today, with frequent exchanges around the world, English, the world's universal language, is still absorbing the vocabulary of various countries, and its total vocabulary has reached one million. Faced with a large number of English words with diverse sources, it is unrealistic to expect to master them all, so we can only choose commonly used words to learn. Even so, it is not easy for college students, especially non-English majors. Therefore, in the process of learning vocabulary, if there are ways to strengthen the understanding of the words learned and deepen the impression, it will be of great help to vocabulary memory and increase the frequency of vocabulary use, so as to truly master them. Memorizing English words from the perspective of etymology is helpful to achieve this goal. In the process of English teaching, etymology teaching can also enhance students' interest in learning vocabulary and improve teaching effect.
Third, the theoretical basis and application of college English etymology teaching
1. Theoretical basis of etymology teaching
Most scholars who study English vocabulary teaching believe that inputting meaningful information through explicit notification is an effective learning method for foreign language learners, especially adult learners. As mentioned above, the current college English vocabulary teaching focuses on the trivial knowledge points of words from the time level, which leads to the lack of clues and guidance when students remember words, and it is difficult to understand them accurately, so rote memorization is widely used. Vocabulary memory has become the main burden of students' English learning. The meaning learning theory of cognitive psychology puts forward that mechanical learning only regards the learned content as isolated knowledge, and can only obtain short-term memory of the knowledge, which learners will soon forget. And assimilating the meanings of old and new knowledge can enhance the retention of what you have learned, that is, to remember knowledge for a long time. If etymological analysis is combined with vocabulary teaching, vocabulary teaching will become quite meaningful. With the help of etymological analysis, students can find the source of vocabulary, deepen their understanding of vocabulary, and find the combination point that they are interested in or associated with their own inherent knowledge on the basis of understanding, which is helpful to remember vocabulary for a long time.
2. The application of etymology teaching
Etymology teaching in college English can be applied to many aspects, such as helping students to standardize the pronunciation and spelling of words, analyzing the structural forms of words, distinguishing cognates, synonyms and similar words, understanding the evolution of English words and exploring foreign cultures hidden behind words.
(1) Standardize pronunciation and spelling
The pronunciation and spelling of English words have certain rules to follow, but not all words conform to the pronunciation and spelling rules. The words with nonstandard pronunciation are mainly foreign words, which have their historical reasons. Usually, when teaching the pronunciation and spelling of words, teachers always start with reading aloud, and then remind students that the pronunciation and spelling of a word are special, but they don't explain why it is special. Students can only remember words with special pronunciations, and through repeated reading and writing, they can print the correct pronunciations and spellings in their minds. This is time-consuming, laborious and easy to forget. If we analyze the evolution of a special word when explaining its pronunciation and spelling, it will give the word some meaning and clues, and students will remember it firmly through understanding.
(2) Word formation analysis.
The rapid growth of English vocabulary is mainly due to its strong word-formation ability. By analyzing the structure and word formation rules of words, students can find clues to remember vocabulary, classify words with similar rules, and draw inferences from others to expand their vocabulary as quickly and effectively as possible. English words can be formed in many ways. The easiest way is to combine two words into a new word, such as "bookshop", and there is spelling, which takes part of two words to form a new word, such as "breakfast+"lunch "=" brunch ". The most important word formation in English is the root+affix (prefix and suffix) method. The root is the core of a word and represents its basic meaning. Many words are made up of different affixes.
(3) Distinguish cognates, synonyms and similar words.
One of the main contents of college English etymology teaching is to distinguish homologous words, synonyms and similar words. Homologous words here mean that if a group of words have the same motivation for word formation, that is, the motivation for this group of words to be brought to the same family word or directly to derivative words in the evolution process, then this group of words is called homologous words. The standard to distinguish cognate words is similar in sound and meaning, because cognate words evolved from the same etymology and have similar sound and meaning, but their etymological meaning can be extended to other meanings.
Synonym means that as long as several words cross in one meaning, they can be called synonyms, and the standard of distinction is that the sounds are different and the meanings are the same. Different sounds are due to their different etymologies. By analyzing their etymology, students can easily find different emphases and application fields between the same meanings, so as to grasp the clues of memorizing synonyms. For example, the words "corporation" and "enterprise" both have the meaning of "company", but "corporation" comes from the Latin word "corporate-" and has the meaning of "corpus", so this word emphasizes the entity enterprise in the legal level and refers to the company that can bear legal responsibilities and debts. The word "enterprise" comes from the French word "entreprendre" introduced into English in Norman times, which means "undertaking". This term mainly refers to commercial companies that invest in trade risks. In addition, analyzing the etymology of synonyms can make students use these words more appropriately. English vocabulary has absorbed many loanwords with the same meaning in the process of evolution, but these words are used in different situations, such as the following synonyms: "start", "commerce" and "initiate". They all mean "start", but "start" is an authentic English word, which is popular and mainly used in spoken English. "Business" comes from French and is a written language. "initiate" is borrowed from Latin and is often used in formal academic papers.
Similar words can be simply defined as a group of words with similar spelling. Through etymological teaching, students can analyze the morphological structure of similar words, distinguish their spelling differences and remember their meanings. For example, the words "perspective", "prospect" and "prosperity" are a group of similar words with similar components, but their meanings are quite different. By analyzing the etymology of these three words, we can see that "perspective" comes from Latin and consists of the prefix "per-(through)" plus "specere(look)". Literally, it means "seeing through" and in modern English it means "insight and perspective". "prospect" and "perspective" are the same root, but they are composed of "pro-forward" and "specify(look)", which literally means "looking forward" and now means "looking forward". The third word "prosper" comes from the Indo-European root "spe-(thrive)", which is related to "luck" and now means "prosperity".
In the process of learning English vocabulary, students can find the relationship between seemingly unrelated words through etymological analysis, accurately distinguish and use those words with the same meaning or similar form, and make vocabulary learning more meaningful and efficient.
(4) Understand the formation history of English vocabulary and explore the exotic culture contained in it.
There are a large number of English words, and their evolution history is also different. The formation process of some words is quite interesting, while others contain unique western culture. By telling the history of the formation of distinctive vocabulary, we can stimulate students' interest in learning vocabulary, deepen their impression of these vocabulary and improve their motivation to explore the mysteries of English culture. For example, the word "gossip" means "gossip", but why does the word English mean this? It turns out that "gossip" comes from the old English word "godsib". Among them, "God" means "God", "sib" means "Jenkins" and "godsib" means "Godfather or godmother". Because several godmothers always like to gossip when they get together, the letter "D" in "godsib" is gradually omitted, forming the word "gossib". This word has also lost its original religious meaning, generally referring to people who like to chat with others and are like mothers and fathers. In Shakespeare's time, "Gossip" finally evolved into today's "gossip". The formation process of the word "gossip" is vivid and interesting, and students will be particularly impressed by this word after understanding it. Recently, the American TV series Gossip Girl is very popular with young people. If students know the history of the word "gossip", they can probably know that the play is about a group of girls who like gossip and spread gossip without looking at the content.
A large part of English vocabulary comes from western fairy tales, famous literary works and historical events, and contains rich western cultural connotations. For example, the words "echo" and "narcissus" both come from Greek mythology. Ai is the most beautiful fairy in mythology. Hera, the wife of Zeus, the king of gods, suspected that her husband was in love with Echo, so she punished Echo for never saying her own words and repeating what others told her. Later, Echo fell in love with Narcissus, a proud handsome man, but could not express his love for him, so he had to follow him all the time. Out of disgust, Narcissus said to the echo, "Don't dream, I will be fascinated by you!" " Echo can only repeat this sentence, hiding in the cave in shame, dying of depression, leaving only her own voice to repeat other people's words in the cave. Therefore, the word "echo" has been given the meaning of "echo, repetition and echo". Narcissus also fell in love with his beautiful reflection in the water. He died of illness and became a daffodil. Narcissus is the word "narcissus" in English.
Fourthly, some explanations on the application of etymology teaching.
Although college English etymology teaching can help students find clues to learn vocabulary and promote their understanding and memory of vocabulary, there are still many problems in its implementation, and it is even more difficult to achieve the best teaching effect.
1. The application premise of etymology teaching
First of all, teachers must make it clear that learning etymology does not require students to explore the profound and boring origins of English vocabulary like professional linguists, but to make vocabulary learning meaningful and remember vocabulary more firmly. Therefore, teachers should explain the etymology in a moderate depth, simply introduce or point out the gist of some knowledge that students are difficult to understand, and must not make a long speech on an abstruse etymology, which will increase the burden of students' understanding and learning vocabulary. Secondly, etymology teaching must rely on authoritative professional etymology dictionaries, related books and network resources to realize such as Oxford English etymology dictionary. At present, the reference materials in this field are not rich, which has brought certain restrictions to the etymological teaching of teachers. Third, English vocabulary contains a large number of foreign words from Greek, Latin, French, German and other languages. If we want to tell the etymology of these loanwords well, we must understand the relevant laws of their source languages, which is not easy for most English teachers. Therefore, English teachers should pay more attention to the accumulation of relevant knowledge in the process of etymology teaching, and use it while learning. Finally, before explaining the etymological knowledge, we need to make some preparations. Teachers can tell the history of English vocabulary development step by step in the first few classes of the new semester or at an appropriate time in each class, which is very helpful for students to understand the etymology of specific vocabulary.
2. The scope of application of etymology teaching
Although the evolution of English vocabulary is complicated and the total number is huge, not every word's etymology is informative, interesting and can be said. Then reduce the number to the vocabulary that non-English majors in universities should master, and the vocabulary that can be taught is even less. Some people have done quantitative research, and only 29% of the words of 1287 are suitable for etymological knowledge. Therefore, teachers should teach etymology selectively and choose etymological knowledge that can arouse students' interest and provide clues for students to remember words, so as to play an active role in etymology teaching.
3. The application object of etymology teaching
The English level of college students, especially non-English majors, is uneven, so teachers should treat them differently when teaching etymology. In view of the strong autonomy in English learning, a good class can explain some English vocabulary history and etymology knowledge in simple English, and try to let students "know what they have learned and why". The more relevant knowledge such students know, the more they can mobilize their initiative to learn vocabulary. For classes with poor English foundation and insufficient learning motivation, Chinese should be used as the main language to explain etymology knowledge, and at the same time, interesting etymology should be selected to enhance students' interest in English vocabulary.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) conclusion
Language is the product of history, and its historicity is mainly deposited in the basic unit of language-vocabulary. Vocabulary is the basis of learning a language. The quality of vocabulary teaching directly affects students' interest and effect in learning a language. Etymological teaching with diachronic characteristics provides a new way for teachers to teach vocabulary. Through reasonable etymological teaching, students can improve their sensitivity to word spelling, deepen their understanding and memory of lexical meanings, and enhance their interest and confidence in learning vocabulary; Teachers can also enrich their professional knowledge and improve the teaching effect. ?
References:
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[4] Lu. A new probe into the role of etymological knowledge in English vocabulary teaching [J]. Journal of Nanping Normal University, 2007, (3).
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