| The establishment and development of cognitive linguistics mainly derives from linguistics itself, particularly from pragmatics and generative semantics (leading exponents: Lakoff, McCawley, Ross). Pragmatics is a new subject rising in the 1970's, which studies language in certain context. Generative semantics linguists diverge from Chomsky's syntax research, and declare that syntax of natural language is related to semantics, which is connected with cognition. They rethink the relationship among cognition, mind and semantics. Metaphors we Live by (Lakoff & Johnson) was published in 1980, which discusses the nature of language from the perspective of metaphor, and proves close relation between language and cognitive structure of metaphor. In the following ten years, Lakoff, Johnson, Langaker engage in systematical researches and experiments on the above aspects. In 1987, three influential books were published in America, which marks the form of cognitive linguistics: Johnson's The Body in the Mind: the Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason; Langaker's Foundations of Cognitive Grammar and Lakoff s Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. In his book, Johnson explains his view of "non-objectivism" and expounds two cognitive models of using and understanding language: image schema and metaphorical structure. Langaker and Lakoff offer further illustration on these twostructures in their books. Langaker (1987, 12) denotes that language is inextricably bound up with psychological phenomena that are not specifically linguistic in character. Lakoff raises "experimentalism", i.e., the acquisition and use of language rest on experiential basis. Since experience of the world is filtered through extralinguistic faculties, such as memory and perception, language will necessarily be influenced by such faculties. The corollary is that the natures of human perceptual and cognitive systems are expected to be of relevance to the study of language itself.Space occupies a privileged position as a foundational ontological category in language, which is often expressed by prepositions. Since all languages' spatial systems are based on human experience of space, it is likely that commonalties on spatial system exist across languages, because all of us share the same neural mechanism and same experiences with object, gravity and suchlike. Prepositions in English are limited in number, but they are widely used in many ways including metaphorical usage. For Chinese learners, how do they master the various usages of these prepositions? In traditional foreign language teaching, teachers usually put emphasis on teaching the literally translated meaning of preposition, which is fuzzy and confused. In that case, students are likely to regard these meanings as completely corresponding meanings of the original prepositions. A lot of errors on preposition usage made by Chinese students result from the traditional teaching method. If we apply cognitive models in teaching, (i.e., teachers offer students image-schema, which is proposed as primitive level of cognitive structure underlying metaphor, and metaphorical extension of prepositions; teach them how to cognize a preposition from the perspective of space and metaphor; show them universality and relativity of cognition on spatial prepositions), students will acquire comprehensive primitive meanings and metaphorical meanings easily.Many scholars, domestic or abroad, have made researches on spatial preposition, such as Barbara Wege (below/above/over, 1990), Lakoff (up/down, over, 1987), John O 'keefe&Jean, M. Mandler (beside/by/below/under/down/beneath/beyond, 1999), Joseph Hilferty ( through), Cai Jianping ( beyond, 1999), Liu Jiarong (over, 1997), Tao Wenhao (over/up, 1997), Lan Chun (上/下, 1999). At, in, on constitute in English a fundamental set of prepositions. Zhang Yu (1998) and Annette Herskovits (1986) have done some researches on at, in, on, but Zhang Yu's study is superficial and incomplete; Annette only lists the usages of t...
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