The reflection of markedness in prototype category theory on semantic level and its implications for second language acquisition

Markedness is one of the analytical principles of linguistics; it indicates the existence of asymmetric relationship inside the language category, and this concept is widely used in phonology, semantics, syntax analysis, sentence structures, pragmatics and applied linguistics. Therefore, the markedness is quite valuable to the analysis of languages. Prototype category theory is an important theory in cognitive linguistics. It is totally different from the traditional category theory and claims that categories are constituted by the Family Resemblance among the members but not by the essential and enough circumstances. This paper mainly discusses the markedness phenomenon on semantic level and tries to explain it by using the prototype category theory which belongs to the category of cognitive linguistics. With the analysis of different word meanings, this paper tries to explore the reflection of markedness by using prototype category theory in three different areas, that is, antonyms, gender nouns and polysemous words in English. With the research results obtained from the analysis of markedness on semantic level, the paper will discuss the implications of markedness for language transfer and vocabulary teaching and learning in second language acquisition.