| The preposition is one of the most basic vocabularies people employ to express spatial concept, and it is an important part of English language. Talmy (2000:177-178), a famous cognitive linguist, divides the structure of a language into two levels: the macroscopic expository level and the microscopic skeletal level. The latter could also be called the grammatical level or the functional level which is the fine structural level of a language. Talmy claims that the grammatical level of a language may play a central role by functioning as a skeletal conceptual microcosm or a model for the structure of other domains. He also puts the study of prepositions in a forefront position of the research of the spatial fine structure of the English language.The word preposition originates from the Latin language. The incipient studies of prepositions were in the grammatical field, focusing on the positions and the functions of prepositions in sentences. With the development of cognitive linguistics since 1970s, people have had a completely new view of prepositions.The theoretical basis of this thesis is the prototype theory and three most basic human mental mechanisms: mappings, accommodation and Figure and Ground orientation. Based on the brilliant achievement our predecessors have made, and taking over,above,and on as three example words, this thesis proves the fact that every sense of a preposition is from the prototypical features of the word.Prototypical features are features based on which all members of a family are brought together. The more prototypical features one member of the family shares, the more prototypical the member is in the family, and vice versa. This thesis discovers the prototypical features of over, above and on as follows.·Over: higher titan, directly above with or without a space between the Figure and the Ground;·Above: higher than, directly over, without a space between the Figure and the Ground;·On: higher than, supportive, and with a space between the Figure and the Ground.Starting from the prototypical features of the three prepositions, we can find that the Figure of over, above and on are always higher than the Ground. No wonder the three words are all translated as zai…shang, which means higher than, in Chinese. Apparently, some prototypical features of over overlap that of above and on. Starting from the similarities and differences between the prototypical features of the three words, this thesis has a comparison of the similarities and differences between the other senses of the three words.Though people use different words to refer to the same entity and we usually call these words synonyms, they still have some subtle differences. This thesis emphasizes the subtle differences between the similarities of each two of the prepositions.Since over, above and on are all translated as zai…shang in Chinese, Chinese students have troubles discerning them, which is to be proved in an experiment in Chapter 5. In order to solve such a problem, this thesis puts forward three teaching steps: i) helping students learn the prototypical features of the preposition; ii) starting from the prototypical features of a preposition, helping students to learn the senses of the preposition; iii) asking students to do some prepositional exercises, which may include reading comprehension or doing multiple choice exercises of prepositional synonyms or phrases, and using prepositions to describe positions or directions etc.To prove the efficiency of these three steps, an experiment was done among sixty students in Chongqing Normal University, half of them majoring in secretary writing in Literature and Journalism College, and the other half majoring in life sciences in College of Life Sciences. The result of the experiment shows that this teaching method can emancipate students from the burden of memorizing every sense of each preposition and students will be more interested in the study of English prepositions.
|
PDF Full Text Request