摘 要

环境工程作为一个紧靠生态与环境的学科逐渐吸引了国内外大学的目光。我们在环境工程专业的学生中展开了问卷调查，结果显示，同学们在专业学习中最大的障碍是专业术语记忆以及专业单词量限制。鉴于此种情况，本论文拟从原型范畴理论的角度，对专业英语中词汇特别是术语的教学进行研究，针对环境工程专业英语词汇教学的现状，旨在提出有效的方法以提高专业英语词汇教学的质量和效果。为了提高专业英语教学质量，本论文将以原型范畴理论具体内容为基础， 讨论专业英语术语教学的新理念，提出三个原则及其运用。最后，本论文意要证明，基于原型范畴理论的专业术语学习对于专业英语学生来说是有效并且实用的。另外，我们希望原型范畴理论在将来可以成为专业英语术语教学的一种新方法。

关键词: 原型范畴理论；专业英语术语；环境工程英语

Contents

1. Introduction 1

• 1. The Prototype Theory 2
     1. The concept of the Prototype Theory 2
     2. Family Resemblance of the Prototype Theory 3
     3. Prototype Splits of the Prototype Theory 3
  2. Current situation of ESP teaching in China 4
     1. The importance of terms in ESP teaching 4
     2. Features of terms based on the Prototype Theory 5
     3. A questionnaire on the situation of ESP teaching 5
  3. Enlightenment of the Prototype Theory to ESP teaching 8
     1. The teaching of basic words 9
     2. The application of Family Resemblances 9
     3. The application of Prototype Splits 10

3. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

Bibliography 14

ESP Teaching from the Perspective of Prototype Theory

Introduction

Prototype theory, an essential point of view of cognitive linguistics, which is based on Aristotle’s classical categorization theory. And inherited and advanced from it. Prototype theory can date back to the late works of Ludwig Wittgenstein. His famous example is the category GAME. By means of the research of the category GAME, Wittgenstein put forward the theory of Family Resemblance in 1950s. He expounded it in his posthumously published book Philosophical Investigation (1953) where he spent several paragraphs illustrating the structure of “game” based on the similarities between various games. On the basis of this, Labov and Rosch established prototype theory. In 1970s, Rosch, a cognitive psychologist, first formulated prototype theory based on mass tests proving the limitations of the traditional semantic concept, which is a great revolution to the traditional classical categorization theory.

Hutchinson and Waters defined that ESP as a specific occupation or subject in English, which is an English course for specific needs of learners.

ESP flourished rapidly after the WWII. In western countries, there have been some of the works of ESP in the late 1960s. The Linguistic Science and Language Teaching was written by functional linguistics founder Holliday, Mcinfash and Sterens in 1964, which mentioned the concept of ESP. In 1969, Jack Ewer and Latorre published a book named Basic Scientific English Tutorial, a remarkable influential textbook. It was considered to be the start of modern ESP teaching.

The research of ESP at home started ten years later than the western countries. Since the 21st, domestic ESP research boomed rapidly, and many writings appeared in people’s sight. Most of the crucial books are The theory and practice of ESP written by Cheng Shilu and Zhang Guoyang, and The teaching research of ESP written by Guo Jianjing, as well as The theory and application of ESP written by Huang Ping, etc. What’s more, many papers published in core journals, such as The current situation and suggestions of ESP written by Hu Yanxia, The nature, category and

teaching principles of ESP written by Qin Xiubai, and ESP and English teaching in domestic university written by Chen Xia, etc. In the 21st Century, the ESP research develops deeply and broadly. After 50 years’ development, the ESP research in China has achieved certain progress, but still exists some problems.