语境策略在词汇学习中的有效性.doc

Abstract
Vocabulary learning strategy is very important in second language learning. Therefore, one of tasks on English class is vocabulary learning strategy training. Context and word meaning are indivisible, context has great effect on word meaning and the understanding of word meaning depends greatly on contextual clues. Therefore, in order to improve students’ vocabulary ability and language ability, teachers are suggested to teach vocabularies by contextual clues and develop students’ good habit of learning vocabularies in linguistic contexts.
Key Words: vocabulary learning; contextualization; decontextualization; strategies

中文摘要
单词学习方法是第二语言习得的重要部分。因此，在英语课堂中一项重要的任务就是词汇学习方法的训练。语言语境和词汇意义是紧密联系的，语言语境影响着词汇意义，词汇意义的确定很大程度上要依赖于语言语境。因此，在教学中运用语言语境来教授词汇，并培养学生在语言语境中学习词汇的习惯，有助于提高学生的词汇能力和语言能力。
关键词：词汇学习；语境；无语境；方法

Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Vocabulary，the building material of any language is of utmost importance to people’s communication and language learning．Wilkins (1972, pp.111), the famous linguists state the importance of vocabulary as follows: vocabulary learning always seemed the key to any language. Without grammar we can convey a little，but without vocabulary we can convey nothing. Vocabulary conveys the most information in the process of communication．As a result, words are viewed as essential building blocks upon which knowledge of language can be built．Similarly, Paul Cavies and Eric Pearse (2002, pp.26) claimed that native speakers can better understand ungrammatical utterances with accurate vocabulary than those with accurate grammar and inaccurate vocabulary．Therefore, no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered，without words to express a wider range of meanings，communications in L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way.
In fact that the amount of vocabulary one acquired represents one’s English level. However, some English teachers have found that their students is losing their heart to learn vocabulary, always complain that there are lots of unknown vocabulary in the reading comprehension which make them hard to choose the correct answer in the text. The teachers from An Jia schools in Changzhou City found that the students often complain they can’t remember so many words and they don’t know how to put words they have learned into practical use ever if they remember them．Many students are good at vocabulary retention and have remembered a large number of words, but they still have problems when they actually try to use the words in a sentence．They cannot use the words correctly and make lots of mistakes in oral or written communication and some of them can not even write correct English sentences． Furthermore，when it comes to the reading practice，they may find it extremely difficult to interpret the associative meaning of words，thus failing to understand or appreciate the texts they are reading. Therefore, the teachers inquired into 160 students and found that the unscientific learning method of vocabulary is the most important cause to the failure of remembering vocabulary.
From the investigation, 9% of the students are familiar with the rules of spelling and reading which will help them remember the vocabularies while only 5% use the method of gaining the vocabulary from the context. The most of them in 84% are learn the new words from the vocabulary form one by one. In conclusion but just 5% of them can obtain vocabulary familiarly and use them correctly.
What’s a pity to face the result of the investigation. Meanwhile, the teacher from this school began to find out the disadvantage of the teaching method of vocabulary in the daily class and tried to analyze the reason of that.
The learning process of the students is to preview the new words on vocabulary list by reading after the tape and try to remember the spelling of the vocabulary, and then the teacher analyzes the important point of the text and explains in detail about the usage of the words with some illustrations and examples in the class, the students memorize the words mechanically by reading and writing the words repetitively．This process is usually accompanied by literal translation of the words.
These procedures show that teachers only taught students English words and their Chinese equivalents in texts or reading materialsand students were only required to rigidly memorize what their teachers told to them．Great efforts have been put in vocabulary learning and teaching, but the results are not satisfactory for the time and energy．The two main problems of students confronted are how to learn more vocabulary, how to memorize so many English words and how to use them correctly.
One of the reasons that cause this problem is that teachers teach words out of context，simply learning the definitions of a word without examples of where and when the word occurs will not help learners to fully understand its meaning．Learning in all isolated list of words without reference to the context is merely a memorization exercise makes it difficult for students to remember the words or use them in spoken and written language. That is to say, students should learn words in a certain context．As Wang Ying(2008, pp.57)，a famous linguist，said that “Only in a certain context can words be given life and easy to remember and used appropriately.” Then students can well understand the meanings of the words and turn their receptive vocabulary items into productive ones． The students should not only know the words but also know how to use them in proper context．That is why the present thesis devotes to the study of contextual vocabulary teaching in English.
1.2 Aim and Objectives
This research aims to find the effective way to learn the new vocabulary, to remember them and use them correctly in spoken and written language. In general, the research has the following objectives: (1) to find out the most effective way to learn the new vocabulary through the comparison with the difference between decontextualized Learning and contextualized Learning and the experiment made by Xiaohong Duan, from Capital Normal University (2) to find out how to use the contextualized Learning method to improve the ability of learning vocabulary.
1.3 Organization of the Dissertation
The whole dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter one, is an introduction of the recent situation in vocabulary learning and the reasons of that. Chapter two, is a comparison between the decontextualized and the contextualized learning method which examine the best way to the vocabulary learning. Chapter three, is to study the research of Xiaohong Duan, through which can study the effectiveness of the contextualized learning. Chapter four, is to introduce the types of context clues which can help use the context strategies in vocabulary learning. Chapter five, is to make a conclusion of the whole research.

Chapter Two Decontextualized and Contextualized Learning
2.1 Decontextualized Learning
Decontextualization means that the new vocabularies are showed out in the single form and the translation or analyses in the first language about the new word are included. They are always present together in other words, giving an equivalent word or expression in the learners’ native language. (Yu Hui, 2007, pp.56)
“Word cards” are an example of that. “Word cards” are pieces of paper with the English on one side and a translation or picture on the other. Firstly, the learner breaks the whole pack of word cards into manageable groups of about 8-12 words per set (words starting with the same letter, or that are similar in meaning or sound to other words in the group, should be avoided as this can interfere with learning). Secondly, the learners number each set. Then the learner learns words that are known are put in one pile; the words that are not recalled are put on the other. When he/she has gone through the full first set of words one time, the learner picks up the words that were not recalled and tries again, As before, the words that are recalled go on the “recalled” pile and those that are no go back to the “unrecalled pile”. The learner works like this until the whole of set 1 is known. Then, set 1 is put to one side and the same procedure is done with set2. Set2 is then put to one side. (王佳佳，2004, pp.85)
Another example is that learn the words from the dictionary or vocabulary list one by one. He/she reads the new words the basic meaning of it and then recites some of the useful example sentence of it.
But there are several potential disadvantages to this technique. For example, it may encourage learners to think in their own language, always translating to and from English. Also, it may encourage learners to feel they have learnt a word or expression permanently once they have been given the translation. And it may give wrong ideas about a word or expression.
2.2 Contextualized Learning
The notion of context in linguistics is still a controversial problem．So far scholars have not reached a unanimous idea and there is not a definition, which is widely accepted．According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term “context” usually has two primary meanings：(1)the word around a word，phrase，statement，and the sentences or the other parts of the context that have close relationship with them., which often used to help explain its meanings．(2)the general conditions in which an event，action，etc．takes place．Generally speaking，the first meaning is used in the narrow sense，this is what is known as linguistic context or linguistic setting．Whereas the second meaning is used in broad sense，this is closer to a desirable account of context.
2.3 The Literature Review Of The Context
A number of studies have been conducted on vocabulary acquisition. (马慧，2008，pp.158) suggest that “context” for vocabulary learning can be viewed as both context within a text and the reader’s background knowledge of the subject matter of a given text. I.S.P Nation (2008, pp.125) further states that “many teachers too quickly dismiss the approach of getting learners to study lists of words out of context”, which can be a very effective way of acquiring vocabulary within a short period of time. Later, Qin Jie (2008, pp.23) found that multiple meaning for words and phrases is inevitable．It would be completely impossible for a language to have a separate word for，every entity, event, state, characteristic, and relation．If we want to fully understand the meaning of a word，we should think carefully about the context in which a word occurs，for the distinct meaning of the word exists in the context．Without context， words and sentences become ambiguous in meaning or even meaningless．Labov (1973, pp136) also says “Words have a habit of changing their meaning from one context to another.” If we want to fully understand the meaning of a word, we should think carefully about the context in which a word occurs, for the distinct meaning of the word exists in the context. Without context, words and sentences become ambiguous in meaning or even meaningless. So we can see that context.
Schoutern-Van Parrenern (1989, pp76-77), who presents a four-point-argument as follows:
(1) If words are presented as isolated elements, there is no point of support, no ‘cognitive hold’ for them in learners’ memory, so despite sometimes considerable learning effort, they are quickly forgotten.
(2) If the words are presented in thematically or especially in alphabetically ordered word lists, pupils will often suffer from interference. This not only hampers learning, but also can be decidedly harmful, since unlearning is far more difficult than learning.
(3) Isolated words do not present a linguistic reality; as the meaning of a word is in most cases partly defined by the context.
(4) Isolated words or words in isolated sentences do not present a psychological reality, because they do not carry a message. For this reason they cannot evoke emotions or involvement in the learner, a factor which plays an often underestimated, but yet important part in long-term acquisition.
In a summary, presenting isolated words has so many disadvantages. It makes vocabulary learning and memorization difficult and hampers the understanding of meaning, thus reframing learners’ involvement. However, presenting words in the context overcomes these disadvantages. Context presents a linguistic and psychological reality and provides support and reduces interference. We believe that if learners have to perform certain activities on unfamiliar words in texts, there is a good chance of retaining the words. So concerning vocabulary teaching, words are not to be taught as discrete items but to be taught in context.
In a word, in successful language teaching, it is impossible to teach vocabulary without putting context into consideration, especially in the process of vocabulary teaching of a foreign language.
2.4 The Comparison Between Decontextualized and Contextualized Learning
There are several disadvantages to the decontextualization. For example, it may encourage learners to remember in their own language, just read the isolated word for several times and often can not get the exact meaning of the words while the contextualization will not.
For example, from text one in Book Five of A New English Course, we can find the new word “clumsy”. If we learn it by decontextalization, we would get its meaning from dictionary both in English and Chinese, and then read it for several times. Repeat it again and again no matter in English or in Chinese till have an expression in our mind.
On the other hand, we can put it into a context which described in that way- Have you ever watched a clumsy man hammering a nail into a box? He hits it first to one side, then to another, perhaps knocking it over completely, so that in the end he only gets half of it into the wood.
From the context, the picture of the man has been in our mind and we can sense the characteristic of the man and get the meaning of the word easily. In that way, we can remember the meaning of the new word clearly and use it correctly.
Therefore, to convey the meaning of a word exactly, to remember a word clearly and to use it correctly, it is better to present the word in the sentence or in the text．Vocabulary use cannot be separated from context. The context can help us ascertain the meaning of vocabulary, show its collocation and usage, differentiate it from its synonym, etc. and in order to assessing the meaning of a word in context obliges the learner to develop more language skills，such as anticipating and inference，which become increasingly profitable learning progresses．Moreover, systematically meeting new words in context underlines the f