The Analysis Of English Preposition From The Perspective Of Image Schema

The number of English prepositions is quite small but their senses are abundant.It is the most polysemous words no matter what language is(Taylor,J.,1995).That is to say,although English prepositions are simple in form and limited in quantity,they can produce many different meanings which are difficult to understand and acquire when they are collocated with different words,such as verbs,adverbs,nouns,conjunctions and so on..In traditional research,most scholars thought that the collocations of English prepositions are fixed and conventional which should be memorized mechanically.And the internal relations between different semantic items of English prepositions are neglected.Not only students but also teachers are tired of the mechanical teaching method.However,with the appearance and development of cognitive linguistics,it provides a new perspective for the study of English prepositions,especially image schema theory.As a fresh perspective,image schema theory pours fresh blood into language studies which attracts the attention of not only native scholars but also foreign scholars.Image schema is widely used in mapping spatial domain onto abstract domains because of its abstraction.And it can explain the semantic extensions of English prepositions.Therefore,it can provide bases for understanding word meanings in origin and telling the minor differences among semantic items.By taking advantage of cognitive linguistics,spatial metaphor and image schema,this thesis intends to conduct a study of English prepositions from the image schema perspective which explains the polysemous phenomenon of English prepositions.In addition,the paper aims at exploring the effects of English preposition teaching with image schema theory through a teaching experiment,with the expectation of improving English preposition teaching.The complex semantic networks of English prepositions make the author select only one English preposition INTO as a case-study to do the research.In order to make a deeper and more detailed research on English prepositions in the field,the paper takes three dictionaries and six textbooks of Contemporary College English for English major as its data for analyzing the complex meanings of English prepositions.Based on the collected data,the author testifies the feasibility of image schema theory on English prepositions in which it addresses how the spatial senses of the English preposition INTO are extended into non-spatial senses and the internal relations between different semantic items through its basic image schema.First of all,according to the five standards in The semantics of English Prepositions by Tyler and Evans(2003),the author interprets the prototypical sense of the English preposition INTO and determines its basic image schema.Then,the spatial senses of the English preposition INTO are discussed on the basis of transformations of the basic image schema.In addition,through the metaphor mechanism,the spatial domain maps onto the abstract domains,such as “time”,“state”,“emotion”,“vision”,“number”and etc.,forming the semantic network of the English preposition INTO.By doing this,the author continues to take two textbooks of English for Science and Technology(For engineering students)and Advanced Grammar for English for Science and technology as its data for testing the teaching validity of image schema theory.That is to say,the paper testifies the effect of image schema theory on English preposition teaching.Thus,on one hand,this present study attempts to give an analysis of English prepositions from the image-schematic perspective which explains their polysemous phenomenon.On the other hand,it also explores the efficiency of English preposition teaching with image schema theory which means a lot to the improvement of English preposition teaching.Therefore,the thesis is both theoretical and practical implications.