认知语言学在英语学习中的运用

Application of Cognitive Linguistics in English

Learning

By 潘晓雅

Class: English怀o82

Student Number: 08402507

School of Foreign Languages

Changzhou University

June 2011

Abstract:This paper discusses the application of cognitive linguistics in different aspects of English learning, for example, the prepositions in grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading. The concept of cognitive linguistics is introduced first. Then the article lays out fundamental analyses in these aspects. The application is mainly introduced for the second language learning. With the help of cognitive linguistics, English learners could break through the bottlenecks of English study and make a great improvement.

Keywords: cognitive linguistics, prepositions, vocabulary, listening, reading

1.Introduction

For English learners, it is really difficult for them to understand the complicated grammars, to memorize lots of vocabularies, to improve their listening and reading ability especially when they have reached a certain level. They can hardly break through the bottlenecks if they keep on using the traditional or direct methods to study English. This is the common phenomenon we can usually observe among Chinese students. They need more useful and advanced tools to help them to break through the bottlenecks they have confronted with for a long time and keep improving to higher level. Cognitive linguistics is one of these powerful tools.

Cognition is part of mental process, which is the way we perceive and acquire knowledge. Cognitive linguistics combines the cognitive psychology and linguistics. It views language as one kind of cognitive action. In conclusion, cognitive linguistics is an approach that is …based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it?(Ungerer and Schmid, 2001:36), to analyze the nature of the language and regard the language as an instrument for organizing, processing and conveying information. The advanced theory of cognitive linguistics has provided important insights which demonstrate that many things that taken as arbitrary is more systematic than formerly thought. The development of these advance theory offers great opportunities for second language learners.

2.Basics of Cognitive Linguistics

The theory of the cognitive linguistics includes three points. First, thinking is not out of real shape of entity. That means the structure of concepts of thinking comes from the experience of human body and the structure becomes meaningful because of the body experiences. Second, thoughts are imaginations. Those abstract concepts are resulted from metaphor, metonymy and mental imagery, which are all based on experiences. Third, thinking has the characteristics of gestalt.

One of the most fundamental human experiences is viewing spatial scenes, which is the relations between objects. People usually need to communicate each other about objects around them. The implication is that every language should have a system for communicating spatial configurations between the objects. Gestalt psychologists had identified some unconscious mechanisms, which are the cognitive mechanisms that resulted from our direct experience. Thus, the cognitive mechanisms constrain and provide particular structure to human experience. Instead of perceiving objects and their relations, the perceptual system of human organizes our conceptualization of the spatial scenes that we encounter. Following these theories, cognitive linguists argue that language is a reflection of human cognitive structure. It means that language ability is one part of the cognitive ability. The language is not only related to but also based on the conceptual knowledge, body experience and the functions of words. For example, propositional representations are constantly operating in our perception, body movement and physical manipulation of objects (Johnson, 1987).

Therefore, in the English learning, the theory and the research achievements of cognitive language could be used for reference. In this way, the learners can have an insight into the language learning process so as to gain a large improvement in general.

3.Application of cognitive linguistics in English learning

3.1Pedagogical grammar: English prepositions

Prepositions are long assumed to be one of the most difficult areas of acquisition for second language learners. The approach to the semantics of English prepositions was developed in Evans and Tyler (2004a, b, In prep.). The concepts encoded by prepositions are image-schematic in nature and thus have an embodied basis. English preposition encodes an abstract mental idealization of a spatial relation derived from more specific spatial scenes. The spatial relations are relevant for human function and interaction with the physical environment. Thus, prepositional meanings are extended from the spatial to abstract domains in ways that are regular and constrained. In tradition, the semantics of English prepositions are largely arbitrary and difficult to characterize (Chomsky 1995). In consequence, memorization was usually suggested as the best strategy in pedagogy. On the other hand, cognitive linguistics provides an alternative way. It suggests that the differences in expressing spatial relations in different languages are not in arbitrary ways and the distinct meanings associated with a particular preposition are related in systematic, principled ways. So there is a better way to understand the semantics of second language.

One important cognitive principle is that the spatial scenes can be explained in many ways. Any spatial scene can be viewed or conceptualized from a number of vantage points. Each shift in vantage point corresponds to a shift in interpretation of the scene (Langacker, 1987). A particular view or interpretation of a spatial scene can be conventionalized by a particular language. For example, when the large cloth is located in relation to a table so that the cloth covers the top of the table, the scene could be explained by focusing on the contact between the cloth and the table. So in English, a sentence can be written: The table cloth is on the table. If the observer interprets the scene in the way that the cloth is hiding the table from his view, the scene might be coded as: The cloth is over the table. If the observer focuses more on the table, then the English coding should be: The table in under the cloth. Thus, the same scene could be described in many ways in accordance to the ways being viewed and interpreted, or to which aspects of the scene to privilege. This is also the main reason for cross-linguistic mismatches and misunderstandings. In other words, if we understand better the spatial relations or the scene which being picked out to describe, we can understand better the meaning of English prepositions. This is the same for other English grammars.

Tyler and Evans (2001b, 2004) also argued that cognitive linguistics helps to form a semantic network and hence reduce the need for rote learning. Besides, graphic representation can be used by language teacher as a useful presentational tool which is less confusing and vague. The second language learners could visualize and interpret the scene with their own experiences.

To conclude, cognitive linguistics approach provides a more accurate, systematic means and a more clear and learnable presentation to study the English grammar which seems arbitrary and difficult.

3.2Vocabulary

V ocabulary is essential in the second language learning or EFL. As David Wilkins said

…Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed (Wilkins, 1974)?, the importance of vocabulary could be inferred. However, in reality, learners are always complaining that they forget the words soon after they have memorized. In the meanwhile, language teachers give greater priority to the grammatical structures rather than vocabulary because they think the learners should memorize the vocabulary themselves. Vocabulary should become a learning objective in its own right because it is the largest and most important task facing the language learner. Unlike the first language learners, who can match the words on to concepts and construct a network of associations, the second language learner is likely to match the word directly onto his mother tongue equivalent. Many errors are due to these direct matches.

According to Zhao (2003), at least three principles based on cognitive language can be applied to the study of vocabulary. The first is categorization, which means the classification of things in a cognitive process. …Categories and categorizations exist everywhere, and are ways we perceive the world; otherwise we cannot know it in appropriate way? (Glass & Holyoak, 1986). In the basic category, the vocabulary has a distinctive characteristic that could distinguish them from other vocabularies. For example, cat is one kind of animals. Running cat, sleeping cat, cat in TV all belong to the category of cat. We spend less time to recognize the basic vocabularies as they are high frequency used. Thus, in the learning of English vocabulary more attention should be paid to the acquisition of basic vocabularies. By knowing the basic vocabularies, we can readily and quickly acquire the whole category.

The second is prototype theory. For one category, it should have common attributes. Then one of the objects in the category could be chose to be the prototype. Other objects should have similar attributes as the prototype has. The prototype must have the largest number of attributes of that category and can be easily distinguished from other category. The prototype theory could be used in the understanding of polysemy of English words. A word could have several meanings, but one core meaning could be selected as the prototype of the others. Or the other meanings are the extension or radiation of the meaning of prototype. Apart from the core meanings, core words could also be selected similarly. Other words could be defined by the core words. In this way, language learners can save a lot of time in memorizing each meaning and each word listed in the dictionary. They are using their cognitive imagination to connect all the similar vocabularies.

The third is metaphor. As Johnson and Lakoff (1980) note, the conceptual system that our thought and behavior rely on is metaphoric in nature. Actually, we make use of metaphors everyday and everywhere. Metaphor is not only a figure of speech, but also a way we perceive the objects. It is a powerful cognitive tool for our conceptualization of abstract vocabularies. Therefore, the English learners could benefit a lot if metaphor is frequently and wisely used in vocabulary study.

3.3Listening

Listening is not a simple process of decoding, but a comprehensive process of analyzing, combining, concluding and re-building. Cognitive psychologists deem it has two forms in the information processing. One in the top-down processing, the other is bottom-up processing. The top-down processing starts from the high level graphical representation and background knowledge and ends in abstract results. The bottom-up processing starts from the input information which activates the lower lever but concrete graphical representation and ends in the

formation of high level but abstract graphical representation. However, there are limitations for both forms. The listeners would unconsciously search their background knowledge for help. This is because the spoken discourse would only provide learners the direction to extract the background knowledge and establish the intention (Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977; Howard, 1987). In other words, listening comprehension is the result of interaction between background knowledge and spoken discourse. Thus, the background knowledge plays a key role in listening. If the listener could not refer to his own background knowledge, he would be easily distracted and form a wrong memorization. For example, if a Chinese English learner hears the word Halloween, he could probably just miss the word and have no memorization about the word if he knows nothing about the festival.

Therefore, in English learning, we should pay more attention to the cultural background to the foreign countries so as to have a better interpretation and memorization in listening. In addition, we need to know how to search and use the knowledge in our brain to help us to comprehend the discourse information.

3.4Reading

Reading comprehension in deed is a complicated psychological process. It is the process that the reader subjectively processes the input information. Cognitive linguists believe that the meaning of the context is in our experiences and the understanding of the world rather than in the language itself. According to the principles of cognitive linguistics, an ideal mode of reading should include three aspects, the ability of conceptualization, the mode of information processing and the schematic knowledge. Usually, a reading text contains events, actions, or concepts, especially when a text is more extended. In practice, there are two methods of cognitive linguistics could be applied to improve English reading.

The first is schema theory. It assumes that the reading text do not contain any meaning itself. Instead, it is the reader that constructs the text meaning from their existing knowledge, the structure of which is called …schema? (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Carrell, 1984). The reader can receive information from a text by reading and at the same time he would search for some concepts existed in his brain to accommodate the newly acquired information so as to understand it. In other words, it needs reader?s ability to connect the input information and the existing knowledge for successful comprehension. Thus, if the reader is previously told to gain some basic knowledge and concepts relating to the topic that he is going to read, he will have a much better reading comprehension. This is very useful for the second language learners.

The second is categorization theory. This is more or less the same as what has discussed in vocabulary study. What?s more, the principle of categorization is extended both horizontally and vertically. In horizontal, the internal structure of categories displays prototypical members surrounded by other members of decreasing similarity. In vertical, categories occur at different levels of abstraction of generality (Rosh, 1978:30). The events, actions and concepts contained in the text are different types of category or semantic category, which are constructed by the reader and require retrieval of concepts in the reader?s mind. In addition, the concepts activated by the category can recall the experiences of prior categorization judgments of the reader. Therefore, previous experiences are really important in the reading comprehension, especially for the second language learners.

4.Conclusion

The theory of cognitive linguistics can be applied in the English learning in respect of grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading and even some more aspects. The second language learners could benefit a lot from the combination of the cognitive linguistics and the English learning. But the precondition is that the learner should understand the principles of cognitive linguistics and learn to how to apply the advanced principles in the language learning so as to improve the English ability.

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