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Introduction
Vocabulary is a key point and difficult point in English teaching. AsWilkins (1972) said, “Without grammar very little can be conveyed,without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” Therefore, vocabulary isthe basis of English teaching. For many teachers and students, prepositionis one of the difficulties in vocabulary teaching and learning. The reasonwhy is that although prepositions are simple in form, limited in quantity,it can express many meanings. It is difficult to understand, especiallywhen prepositions collocated with other words and phrases. According tothe traditional method, when these different usages of preposition appear,teachers often emphasize the collocation and give some examples toconsolidate them. Then students have to memorize it mechanically byrote, which neglects the internal connection among the semantic items.Students forget the meanings easily and apt to confuse the differentmeanings. Thus, preposition teaching is ineffective and new methods forpreposition teaching are needed.
Cognitive linguistics has been a hot topic in recent years and itprovided a cognitive way for scholars. Since the early 1980s, cognitivelinguists such as Lankoff (1987) began to study the polysemy ofprepositions from the cognitive perspective. Then other scholars had awide and deep study on usages of English prepositions, such as Deane(1993), Dewell (1994), Kreitzer (1997) and Tyler & Evans (2001; 2003).Many of them used image schema to explain the prepositions.The idea of image schema was first mentioned simultaneously byJohnson and Lakoff (1980) in Metaphor We Lived by. In 1987, Johnsonand Lakoff published new books The Body in the Mind and Women, Fire,and Dangerous Things respectively to have a further research. Johnsondiscussed the base experience and the function of image schema. Imageschema is crucial in meaning construction which is not a concrete imagebut an abstract cognitive structure. While Johnson (1987) used imageschema theory to explain category theory and proposed four types ofimage schema transformation. The experience and knowledge are basedon these structures and relationships. Thus, image schemas come from theinteraction between human and the object world in our daily life. Thedevelopment of image schema promotes the preposition research.
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Chapter One Literature Review
Due to the small quantity but extensive usages, the study ofpreposition and preposition teaching was attached attention by peoplefrom all over the world. At beginning, each sense of a preposition isthought arbitrary. However, with the development of cognitive linguistics,its study become more and more reasonable. The current chapter will startwith the review study of prepositions based on cognitive linguistics.Subsequently, the review of the study of preposition teaching. Thechapter end up with a critical summary of the findings.
1.1 Studies of Preposition Based on Cognitive Linguistics
Preposition is the most frequent words. It serves as a bridge to makea sentence smooth. Prepositions and their collocations with nouns, verbsadjectives and adverbs may occur different senses which puzzles andmotivates many researchers.Before the cognitive linguistics coming into being, researcherstended to consider each sense is isolated rather than systematic. Wood(1967) listed all the meanings of the preposition IN. Twenty-sevenconventional senses and five special usages were listed. However, hethought that each sense is unrelated as well as arbitrary and ignored therelationship among them.The cognitive study of preposition started with the prepositionOVER. In 1980s, the emergence of cognitive linguistics offered a newview for the study of preposition. As a pioneer, Brugman (1981) analyzedthe polysemous preposition OVER based on the prototype theory. Sheregarded polysemous preposition as the natural categories of senseswhich exists a proto-sense and other senses that resemble the proto-sense.Therefore, preposition shows spatial relation between an element in focus(the figure) as well as element not in focus (the ground). She alsoemphasized the importance of syntactic considerations in prepositionanalysis because of its implication in prepositional senses.Later, Lakoff (1987) did an extension work on the prepositionOVER. He put forward 24 image schemas and 8 basic spatial schemas ofOVER, which represents different senses respectively. In his opinion, thesenses of OVER compose a semantic network which includes a centralsense and other non-central senses. Lakoff established a series of“transformational” image schemas. With the case study of the eightspatial schemas, Lakoff regarded the schema of “above and cross” ascentral schema and other non-central schemas are activated throughtransformations which are based on central sense.
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1.2 Empirical Studies of Preposition Teaching
Influenced by traditional grammar, most teachers are likely to choosea mechanical and ineffective method which causes the teaching ofpreposition like this- listing its functions or usages one by one. Studentsget bored in preposition teaching and usually get half the results withdouble the effort. The prominent researcher who studies traditionalgrammar and has a great influence in our country is Zhang Daozhen(2002). He classified preposition based on structures and meanings.According to the structure, Zhang divided prepositions into simpleprepositions, compound prepositions, -ing prepositions and phrasalprepositions. When considering senses, he grouped it as leading timephrases, place phrases and other phrases. After classifying, he explainedthe functions of preposition phrases in sentences. The method has greatadvantages in language teaching and it can help students to form a systemof preposition. With the development of English teaching study, differentkinds of methods appear and the effectiveness of teaching is developed.Due to the more reasonable study of preposition, researchers eagerto apply it and look for more effective methods for preposition teaching.It usually takes too much time to teach prepositions in every stage ofEnglish teaching. However, it can’t make it all the time. Thus, thepreposition teaching becomes a hot topic for many linguists. The study athome is slower than the study abroad which is also influenced by that.
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Chapter Three Methodology............51
3.1 Research Design....51
3.1.1 Research Questions........52
3.1.2 Research Subjects...........53
3.1.3 Research Instruments.....53
3.2 Research Procedure........57
3.2.1 Teaching Procedure........58
3.2.2 Data Collection......77
3.2.3 DataAnalysis.........79
Chapter Four Results &Discussion...........81
4.1 Immediate Effects of Teaching Preposition Based on the Image Schemas.....81
4.2 Delayed Effects of Teaching Preposition Based on the ImageSchemas.....89
4.3 Students’ Attitudes toward Teaching Preposition Based on theImage Schemas............95
Chapter Four Results &Discussion
SPSS 21.0, a kind of statistical software, was used to analyze thepre-test and post-test in this chapter. Meanwhile, the validity andreliability of the questionnaires were also tested through SPSS 21.0.Besides, its frequency is also tested. Together with the analysis of theexperimental data, the results and discussion of the results would also befound in this chapter.
4.1 Immediate Effects of Teaching Preposition Based on theImage Schemas
With the interval of four weeks, the author contrasted with thepretest and the immediate post-test scores that the students got so as toprove the immediate effect of teaching preposition “in” and “on”. In orderto reflect the experimental effect, the author divided the comparison intoCG and EG respectively. With the last class of the preposition teachingfinished, the immediate post-test was conducted immediately. On the onehand, there is no time for the students to review for the test, on the otherhand, the author can get the reliable data to testify the immediate effect.The scores of the pretest and the immediate post-test were inputted intoSPSS 21.0 and analyzed with it. Results of the analyses are listed below.Results of the pre-test are shown in tables 4-1 to 4-5. The students,both in EG and CG, were did the test without being informed before. Theauthor input the scores into SPSS 21.0 to know whether the students’level of preposition in the two groups is similar or not. Experiment can beconducted if the two groups’ level of preposition learning is similar.Before conducting the teaching experiment, there was anIndependent-Samples T Test to compare the average scores of the twogroups, there is also a test to make sure the scores are normallydistributed.
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Conclusion
In China, the English learning becomes widespread. Many peoplelearn it as a foreign language. However, English and Chinese belong todifferent family of languages, therefore, many differences are existed.Students may encounter many difficulties in the process of Englishlearning. The teaching of preposition is one of the big problems. Thenumber of prepositions are small, however, they have abundant innersenses. They express different meanings when collocated with differentwords or used in different sentences. Students can’t neglect their sensesbecause neglecting a preposition may misunderstand the sentences oreven the passages.Many students in China are usually instructed preposition in atraditional way which means they are told every sense of a prepositionand memorize them with hard work. In their mind, each sense of apreposition is independent and individual, which leads to the ignorance ofthe possible relationship between them. The traditional way in teachingpreposition is showed in Chapter 3. The main teaching steps are like these.Firstly, the teacher gives some examples and makes students translatethem with the purpose to recall the prior knowledge. Then, the teacherlists every item of its senses and explains it with some examples. In the following steps, much exercises will be done and these senses will bereviewed over and over again in order to consolidate. The method is veryineffective. Although students memorize all the senses, they are easily toforget about them in a short time because they just memorize themmechanically.As the cognitive linguistics emerged and developed rapidly,linguists as well as applied linguists began to analyze words, sentences ortexts via the original theories, such as, conceptual metaphor, conceptualmetonymy and image schema. Image schema appeared based on thetheory of prototype theory and conceptual metaphor which comes intobeing in our daily life and in the process of contact with the outer world.It’s an abstract concept, however, it can be expressed with simple lines orgraphs which is advocated by the theory of Dual Coding Theory. With thetwo different kinds of code to store information, the process of acquirelanguage will be faster and the memory becomes enduring. Compared tothe traditional method, the image schematic method aims to help studentsestablish a vivid image schema at first. Then the semantic knowledge isinput gradually. With the guidance of image, the process of cognitionbecomes clear. Next, metaphorical extension.#p#分页标题#e#
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References (abbreviated)
