A Study On Prepositional Phrases In STCW

The thesis aims to help seafarers study, comprehend and comply with STCW convention to promote the implementation of it. On the other hand, it is also suggestive and helpful for English teaching hereafter.Though limited in number, prepositions are used quite frequently in English. They cannot stand alone and must be bound with nominal groups as prepositional phrases, which enables limited prepositions to perform various kinds of functions. Therefore, a study on prepositional phrases is essential. This thesis takes prepositional phrases in STCW as the research object. STCW refers to International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. The aim of it is to exert control on the technical quality and watchkeeping conduct of seamen, and it has been functioning well in this aspect. It also plays an important part in ensuring the safety of life and property at sea, protecting marine environment all over the world and controlling the impact of human factors on marine perils effectively. In consideration of this point, the research is carried out.This thesis is based on the theory of functional grammar, STCW being the target corpus. The statistics obtained from CLAWS, WordSmith and Chi-square Test provide objective basis for the study. First, in light of the data collection, the thesis makes a study on simple and complex prepositions respectively according to Quirk’s classification. After analyzing frequencies, the basic structure of each type is generalized. Then, taking Halliday’s functional grammar as the basis, the thesis focuses on functions of prepositional phrases in sentences, which are Adjuncts and Postmodifiers. Last, on the foundation of the statistics collected, the preposition with the highest frequency——of is singled out for a separate study.The research shows:(1) Simple prepositions occur far more frequently than complex prepositions, among which of ranks the first in frequency.(2) The one thing that complex prepositions have in common is that almost all of them end with a simple preposition.(3) Prepositional phrases generally function as Adjuncts and Postmodifiers in sentences; while of prepositional phrases mainly serve as Postmodifiers.