Application of Cognitive Semantics to College English Vocabulary Teaching

To cultivate non-English major college students to learn English words effectively with high efficiency, this paper explains the important basic theories of cognitive semantics to offer a new perspective for language teaching. At the beginning of this paper, it indicates some problems in students' learning English vocabulary. Then, some theories of cognitive semantics which are based on embodied philosophy are offered to be applied to college English vocabulary teaching. Categorization contributes a lot to how to teach students English words systematically and effectively. To distinguish basic level category words, superordinate category words and subordinate category words is helpful. In addition, metaphor and metonymy are responsible for creating polysemous words. Knowing the mental process of them is essential to master words comprehensively and quickly.