The Application Of Image Schema And Metaphor Theory To Preposition Instruction

As function words, prepositions play a very important role in English. The number of prepositions is quite small but senses are abundant. Due to the complexity of their collocation and agile usage, propositions are deemed as very difficult items both in English teaching and learning and it is one of inevitable testing items in various exams such as CET4 and CET 6. Traditional schools of linguists hold the view that the complex senses of prepositions and their complicated collocations are idiomatic and arbitrary. Definitely, they neglected the internal relationships among the complex senses. Thus, the teaching result disappointed both teachers and students. Cognitive semantic linguists believe Image Schema and Metaphor Theory can fully specify the semantic network of the preposition. But most of cognitive studies on prepositions are still made on the theoretical level and the applications of Image Schema and Metaphor Theory in instruction are rarely done. Therefore, the author of this thesis intends to testify the effect of the application of Image Schema and Metaphor Theory in instruction.A study on over was carried out. The thesis analyzed the spatial meanings of over and their metaphorical extensions by means of image schemas and metaphors, thus, the semantic network of over can be presented and which provided a sample to inform how the preposition is analyzed in the experiment. The experiment involves instructing the participants in grasping and applying image schemas and metaphors in their study. The participants of the experiment are two classes of non-English major freshmen. One is experiment group and the other is control group. Each group has 40 students. The only difference between two groups is that the control group was taught by rote and experiment group was taught with the help of image schemas and metaphors. The sentences of the test material were divided into two cases (Case one checked students'master in over, and Case two checked students'master in phrasal verbs with over). Then author compared the tests results of the experiment group and those of the control group so as to discover the effect of the application of the Image Schema and Metaphor Theory in instruction. In test, the results show that the scores of the experiment group were obviously higher than those of the control group. We can conclude that the application of Image Schema and Metaphor Theory can improve students'outcome of learning the preposition (70%>57.25%) and the savvy of the preposition (63.9>43%). In retest, the fall of accuracy rate in experiment group is smaller than in control group, so we conclude the application of Image Schema and Metaphor Theory can prolong students'retention of the preposition (5.86%<8%; 4.7%<8.5%). Therefore, the author believes that the application of Image Schema and Metaphor Theory have positive effects on instruction.