Abstract

English vocabulary plays a significant role in English acquisition , and is of critical importance to English learners.

   Lexical sense relations have assumed an important part in the discussion of word meaning. There are four common sense relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, collocation. We make use of different theories to guide the teaching of lexical items with different semantic relations. We apply the theory of semantic-component analysis in synonym teaching, the theory of markedness in antonym teaching and the theory of basic-level category in superordinate and hyponym teaching. Collocations are taught under the guide of some essential principles.

   Analyzing various semantic relations employed in vocabulary teaching, we find a concrete procedure for vocabulary teaching with the help of the integration of various sense relations, whose process is also in pair with Brown and Payne's model of vocabulary teaching: encountering new words, acquiring their forms, constructing their sense relations, consolidating and applying them .

   We carried out an experiment to measure the effect of the sense relation strategy. The results of the experiment prove that constructing semantic relations of words is useful and efficient in vocabulary teaching.

Key words: sense relations; semantic field theory; vocabulary teaching; word meaning

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2.Literature Review-1

3. Lexical Semantic Relations-2

3.1 Synonymy-2

3.2 Antonymy-4

3.3 Hyponymy-5

3.4 Collocation-7

4.A Integrated Pedagogical Procedure-8

4.1 A integrated pedagogical procedure-8

4.1.1 Encountering new words-8

4.1.2 Acquiring the word form-9

4.1.3 Constructing sense relations-9

4.1.4 Consolidating-9

4.1.5 Applying the words-10

5. An Experimental Study-10

5.1 Purpose-10

5.2 Subjects-11

5.3 Material-11

5.4 Procedure-11

5.5 Result-12

6.Conclusion-13

Works Cited.14

Appendix .15