A Corpus-based Study On The Semantic Network And The Acquisition Of The Preposition At By Chinese English Majors

As a universal phenomenon and a common topic in linguistics, polysemy has attracted attention from academics in different linguistic areas, who have tried to explore how distinct senses can share one single linguistic form. Traditional view attributes the semantic regularity and productivity of linguistic symbols to the function of syntax, seeing the lexicon as a repository of arbitrary symbols. However, traditional approaches to polysemy phenomenon lack systematicity, failing to explain the underlying relationship between all the distinct senses of a single lexeme.Cognitive linguistics provides a brand new perspective on polysemy. According to Tyler and Evans (2001), all the distinct meanings associated with many individual lexemes are instantiated in memory in terms of imagistic schematic representations through human recurring daily experience. Unlike traditional approaches, two important tenets have been put forward by cognitive linguists. First, image schemas, which arise from perceptual reanalysis of the recurring daily patterns, play an indispensable role in the comprehension and memorization of all the distinct senses of a specific word. Second, all the distinct senses are organized around a primary sense, based on such cognitive principles as metaphorical mapping and image-schematic conceptualization.Following Brugman’s (1981) pioneering study on the polysemy of the preposition over, scholars such as Lakoff (1987), Fauconnier (1997) and Kreitzer (1997) have proposed various cognitive approaches to explicating the polysemy of over, trying to put forward a more persuasive explanation of the semantic network of English prepositions. However, in spite of their emphasis on human cognition, some cognitive approaches have incurred a strong criticism for their subjectivity. Unlike the previous cognitive approaches, the principled polysemy network proposed by Tyler and Evans (2001) provides detailed illustrations on how human cognition works out the distinct senses from the primary one, around which a well-motivated semantic network has formed. In addition, by applying the principled polysemy network to the preposition over, they propose relatively comprehensive criteria for the determination of the prototypical sense, thus reducing the subjectivity in the explanation of the prepositional polysemy.In light of the principled polysemy network proposed by Tyler and Evans (2001), the present author aims to build the semantic network of the preposition at, trying to illustrate how the primary sense of at is decided and how the other distinct senses are derived in terms of human perceptions and experience within the spatio-physical world. What is more, through corpus-based study, the author wants to figure out whether Chinese English majors’ acquisition of all the distinct senses of at follows some kind of cognitive order, and to display their actual using situation of the senses.The present study obtains three major findings. First, the author manages to build the cognitive semantic network of at based on Tyler and. Evans’(2001) principled polysemy network, manifesting the importance of human cognition in endowing linguistic symbols with rich senses based on human embodied experience, and illustrating the close relationship between the distinct senses of at. Second, the comparisons conducted between the writings by Chinese English majors of different levels of language proficiency in SWECCL (Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners) demonstrate their general cognitive process of acquisition of the preposition at. As far as the preposition at is concerned, Chinese English majors tend to learn the primary sense and the senses in the time domain much earlier than those in other cognitive domains. Third, contrastive study between Chinese English majors of high language proficiency in SWECCL and native English-speakers in BNC (British National Corpus) demonstrates the difficulties Chinese learners have in learning some senses of at, such as the sense of employment and that of precondition.In the final part, the author offers some suggestions for the teaching of English prepositions. It is preferable for English teachers to have a clear understanding of the learners’ acquisition order of all the different prepositions, and to explain the derivation of all the distinct senses for a specific preposition, which significantly contributes to the idiomaticity of the learners’ spoken and written expression. In addition, suitable learning environment is required for Chinese students to understand native English-speakers’ conceptualization of the semantic network.