The Implications of 'Language Games' to English Teaching

摘要

"Language Games", as a key term in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, emphasizes the everyday usage of language. This concept not only plays a revolutionary role in the development of philosophy, but also sheds new insights into language teaching. With the purpose of providing a perspective of language philosophy on English teaching in China, the paper, through a descriptive analysis, explores the implications of "language games" to language teaching in three aspects of its relevant notions, that is, forms of life, family resemblance and rule following, and concludes that our English teaching should be reformed to focus on cultivating learners' ability to use English for communication by adopting the authentic teaching content, the contextual teaching process and the interactive teaching model.