Polyfunctional character of foreign language in modern people's life has stimulated a new turn of teaching methods. The current stage of socio-cultural state of society is characterized by the desire to globalize and, in particular, to specify the requirements for teaching foreign languages quality. The article puts up the reader to the application of cognitive linguistics principles and prototypical semantics to the process of learning a foreign language vocabulary. The author demonstrates that the activation of cognitive processes in learning a foreign language provides students' personal development, contributes to the qualitative transformation of all kinds of information, representations, and knowledge.