| Taking the cognitive approach to metaphor, this research is subscribed to the view that metaphor is essentially a mapping across conceptual domains; that metaphorical thinking is part of the cognitive process through which the human mind conceptualizes the world; that underlying the numerous linguistic expressions of metaphor, there is a huge coherent system of conceptual metaphors operating without our consciousness and organize our thinking. In the meantime since space enjoys a privileged position as a foundational ontological category in language, and since the human conception of space seems to structure other parts of conceptual system through metaphorical mappings, this study chooses spatial metaphor as the focus of investigation of English prepositions.Although labeled as a small word with limited numbers, prepositions present itself the largest problem, it is apt to be neglected and problems-prone more often than not, in the meantime having a good command of preposition words id not an easy job to do whether in learning or in teaching, because it seems that most of prepositions have fertile senses among which there seem to have no relations one another. Focusing upon those issues, the research attempts to give answers to1) What problems and barriers do students have in process of acquiring and using?2) As for metaphorical use of prepositions do students have a good command?3) In what way do prepositions extend themselves to other domains via metaphor?4) How to get further understanding of preposition semantic via metaphor in the range of vocabulary acquisition?Based upon the questionnaire out of 108 students consisting 36 candidates major in English as well as other 72 English non-majors and interview with 20 students among who 7 students majoring in English and the other 13 non-major in English, and through both qualitative and quantitative analyses, the study has found out that:1) There are many kinds of problems and difficulties the students encounter in the process of learning, e.g. much trouble in mastering sorts of prepositional phrases; vague or simple description of prepositions in dictionaries and coursebooks at hand, still let alone metaphorical usages; ambiguous portrayal of prepositional semantic and a lack of information about paradigmatic semantic contrasts; to be worse, none of those having a better understanding in what way prepositions extend themselves via metaphor.2) It is revealed that the metaphorical extension is the extension of meaning in a new direction through popular adoption of an originally core meaning, so metaphor is a tool to have a systematic and cohesive interpretation of the various senses of English prepositions.3) Lexicon is a network of association, a web-like structure of interconnected links, so it's metaphorization that establishes the semantic mapping in the various senses of a certain prepositions because it helps provide students with an opportunity to construct commonness interconnection between these different related senses, creating precise elaboration. It is useful to build up the semantic network of prepositions via metaphor in learning.4) It is necessary that both students and instructors should develop metaphorical competence in English learning and teaching.Based upon such findings the research further points out that:5) With a multi-dimensional classification of the English prepositions the students will get a keen interpretation of the internal and external systematicity to each preposition and its spatial metaphor.6) Prepositions are mainly used to structure the following kinds of abstract target domains, namely TIME, QUANTITY, STATE, COMPARISON, PURPOSE, SOURCE, CAUSE and METHOD/INSTRUMENT, etc.Drawn on such perceptions, this research contributes some pedagogical implication to the English learning and teaching, that is, a more systematic semantic network of English prepositions derived from diverse written or spoken materials and a series of suit-for-teaching-and-learning coursebooks and dictionaries should be done for lear...
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