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Introduction
0.1 Research Background
Rosch (1973)put up with prototype theory, which was the basis forpreposition metaphor. Traditional concept of category, represented byAristoteles, assumed that category depended on a set of necessary andsufficient conditions: there was a clear boundary in category, indicatingthat an object either belongs to one category or not , and there wasn’t anambiguous situation. Rosch found out some limitations of the traditionalconcept of metaphor, so he put up with “prototype theory”. Roschresearched ten English categories, like [FRUIT], [FURNITURE],[VEHICLE] and so on, concluded two significant findings: 1) subjectswidely believed that members in a category had different status. 2) theseten categories all proved the so called prototype effect that there weresome central members close to prototype in a category and there werealso some periphery members which are far away from prototype in acategory, for example, the central members of [FRUIT] are apple, pearand so on, while the periphery members of it were tomato and so forth.So boundaries of categories were ambiguous, neither absolute belongingnor absolute not belonging. Prototype effect laid the foundation ofsemantic explanation of vocabulary. It indicates that several meanings ofeach vocabulary are not arbitrary, independent; on the contrary, several meanings of each vocabulary forms a radiation structure, in whichperiphery members radiates from the most representative members. Eachmeaning is related with each other. We take spatial preposition as anexample in this study; the spatial meaning of a spatial preposition is aprototype of it, and other meanings of it can extend from this spatialmeaning through metaphor, and all these meanings are related to eachother. However, it is just a theory, which needs some empirical researchesto prove its practicability.
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0.2 The significance of the research
Every preposition has many seemingly unrelated, arbitrary meanings,which is always a difficult point in preposition teaching and learning.Only by memorizing, students cannot grasp them well, contributing tofrequent errors in applying prepositions, so one more comprehensive teaching method is necessary for preposition teaching.Cognitive linguistics believe that meanings of each preposition arerelated with each other, Firstly, each preposition has a central and themost concrete meaning which is highly related to our daily life. Secondly,the rest meanings of a preposition are extended from the most central one.Thirdly, we can simplify the preposition teaching by following asequence from concrete ones to abstract ones. Finally, metaphor theorycan fully demonstrate the semantic network of prepositions. So applyingmetaphor theory from the perspective of cognitive linguistics may be agood way for English preposition instruction.Whether it is efficient or not depends on the results and effects ofempirical researches. Research background shows that numerousresearches are with regard to preposition instruction based on metaphortheory, but most of them focus on students from high schools or colleges,few of them focusing on students from junior middle schools. Though thetextbook of middle school covers simple prepositions, students cannotgrasp them well through learning by rote. So applying this instruction tostudents in middle school is of great significance, which will be good forthe cultivation of excellent learning habits, and will have a profoundimpact on students’ learning at a higher level. If there is a significantdifference between experimental group and control group, this teachingmethod from cognitive linguistics can be used widely in preposition teaching, which is able to reduce the burden of teaching and learning, andpromote students to have a better grasp and proper application of lots ofmeanings of each preposition. Therefore, it is of great value to carry outthis study.
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Chapter One Literature Review
1.1 Development of metaphor research
Traditionally, metaphor was only a figure of speech. People alwaysthought that metaphor could only be used in a formal way, so apart fromrhetoricians and literati, almost nobody paid any attention or did anyresearch on it.The publishment of Metaphors we lived by had changed it, reallyestablishing the cognitive status of metaphor. It opened up a new way,which is from cognitive perspective, to study metaphor. In this book,Lakoff and Johnson (1980) strongly opposed this phenomenon, and haveput forward the idea of “Conceptual Metaphor”, which emphasized thatmetaphor is a cross-domain mapping existing in the system of conceptionand it is also a part of everyday speech, having an impact on how weobserve, deliberate and behave in daily life. So metaphor is not only afigure of speech but also a way of thinking, and we can use thiscross-domain mapping to comprehend new and abstract things.
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1.2 Researches on English preposition instruction based onmetaphor theory
Lakoff(1980) established a structure of semantic extension network,and made at least 24 seemingly muss meanings of OVER related in thisstructure. Lakoff assumed that OVER as an English preposition had sixelementary spatial schema. In addition, Lakoff also explained how theseimage schema interacted with each other through radiation category.Central meaning of preposition is the center of radiation, and othermeanings distributed like radiation, but related, which gradually radiatedfrom the central meaning. The research carried out by Lakoff madevarious meanings of prepositions systematic. But the biggest problem wasthat there was only subjective analysis in his research, lacking empiricalstudy.Lindstronmberg(1996) adopted a new, systematic way to analyzeprepositions’ prototype meanings, and to analyze how these meaningsgradually extended to atypical meanings. He interpreted his methodthrough studying the case of ON, which was good for both teachers andstudents for a better understanding of usage of preposition. The schemamethod of Lindstronmberg was actually a miniature of prototype theory.In present researches, Tyler & Evans(2003) insisted that the originalmeanings of all prepositions depended on spatial relationships betweentwo physical entities. The Semantics of English Prepositions written byTyler & Evans took up the challenge of how best to represent the distinctmeanings or senses associated with a single lexical form and usedcorresponding graphs to make a general explanation of many frequentlyused English spatial prepositions, such as to, for, at, over, up and so on,,which was helpful for a better understanding of their various meaningsand was also the foundation of later empirical studies of these prepositioninstructions.
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Chapter Three Methodology ............ 28
3.1 Research Design......... 28
3.2 Research Procedure.... 32
3.2.1 Data Collection .............. 32
3.2.2 Data Analysis .... 45
Chapter Four Results & Discussion ............. 46
4.1 the effects of preposition instruction based on metaphor theory....... 46
4.2 students’ attitudes toward preposition instruction based onmetaphor theory ............... 51
Chapter Four Results & Discussion
This chapter describes the results and discussion of the research,covering two central issues: (1) the effects of preposition instructionbased on metaphor theory; (2) students’ attitudes toward prepositioninstruction based on metaphor theory.
4.1 the effects of preposition instruction based on metaphortheory
The effects of preposition instruction based on metaphor theory canbe measured through the following two aspects: comparison of the samegroup on pretest and post-test, comparison of the different groups onpost-test, both of which are indispensable in this study. Independentsamples test is used to mark these differences and can make this studyresult more convincing.Firstly, t-test was used to analyze the difference of learners’performance between pretest and post-test to check whether the subjectscan benefit from the traditional preposition instruction. Table 4.1 andTable 4.2 show the t-test results of traditional preposition instruction.In the pretest, the mean score of control group is 50.69. In thepost-test, the mean score of control group is higher. It reached 60.48.The value of P in t-test between pretest and post-test by control group is0.000, which is obviously less than 0.05.As it is described in table 4.1 the control group made great progressin their mean score after the treatment. The mean score is from 50.69 to60.48. Table 4.2 shows that the value of P is obviously less than 0.05,indicating that the control group’s performance has significant changeafter English preposition instruction, which is based on traditionalteaching method.
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Conclusion
The present study tried to explore teaching effects on Englishprepositions instruction in junior high school based on metaphor theory.The whole paper was surrounded by two research questions: 1) What’sthe effect of preposition instruction based on metaphor theory? 2) Whatare the students’ attitudes toward preposition instruction based onmetaphor theory?In order to carry it successfully, many works were done beforeapplying it to instruction. Firstly, the author read a few books written byauthoritative linguists, such as The Semantics of English Prepositionswritten by Tyler & Evans, Applying Cognitive Linguistics to learning theSemantics of English to, for and at written by Tyler, Mueller & Ho,COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNINGwritten by Andrea Tyler, so she could have a whole understanding ofpreposition teaching based on metaphor and she could know how toarrange experiment and what needed to be read to enrich her theoreticalframework. Secondly, related documents were read extensively. Thirdly,she deeply studied textbook in grade 7 and grade 8, so that she couldknow the levels of students and chose meanings of prepositions AT, ON,IN, TO, FOR from textbook, which could ensure that this study waswithin their present levels. Finally, the teaching plan and test paperwere compiled under the guidance of some front-line teachers in Zhi Lanmiddle school, in Changde. All of these processes were essential to thisthesis.After preposition instruction, Independent Samples Test wasadopted to check whether the control group and experimental group havesignificant difference in post-test, which could perfectly answer the firstresearch question: What’s the effect of preposition instruction based onmetaphor theory? Firstly, Independent Samples Test showed that bothcontrol group and experimental group had significant change afterinstruction, which indicated that students were not pay attention topreposition learning so when this instruction aroused their attention therewas great improvement in scores. Secondly, Although there weresignificant changes in both group, Independent Samples Test showed thatthere was also significant difference between control group andexperimental group, which proved that the instruction based on metaphor theory was more efficient than traditional preposition instruction.#p#分页标题#e#
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References (abbreviated)
