A Study On Applying Image Schema Theory To Polysemous Prepositions Teaching And Learning A Case Study Of UNDER

Vocabulary learning is one of the most important elements in the process of English learning and teaching, while preposition is a hard learning points due to the existence of polysemy. It goes without saying that preposition plays an important role in English teaching and learning. How to tell the differences lying between the complicated and confusing semantic items of every preposition puzzles nearly all learners. In recent years, more and more researchers and scholars focus on the study of polysemy. Traditional linguists treat these various different senses of a word as separate with one another. The traditional studies are confined to the external reasons that cause the changes of meanings of polysemy, which fails to reveal the essential nature of polysemy. Traditional teaching method exerted listing method with sentence examples, and students memorize all the meanings without understanding. Therefore, vocabulary learning is a burden to students.The presentation and development of cognitive linguistic provide a new perspective for the study of polysemy. In terms of cognitive linguistic, multiple senses of a word are related, forming a polysemy network organized around the central meaning of the word, the configurations of the network are represented by image schemas. Image schema is a recurring, dynamic pattern of our perceptual interactions and motor programs that gives coherence and structure to our experience. It is accepted that an image schema is meaningful structures generated by human perceptual interactions and bodily movements within our environment. We can conceptual the word meanings from the conceptual origin and tell the minor differences among semantic items with image schemas.Under the theoretical framework of image schema theory, a teaching experiment is carried out in the paper to discuss the effectiveness of image schema theory in English polysemous preposition teaching and learning, with the expectation of provide certain help to English prepositions’ teaching and learning. Since the semantic network of prepositions are all very complex, the author takes only one preposition under as the case study so as to make a deeper research in the field. In the experiment, two classes from a normal senior high school are selected as subjects and they are provided with different approaches about the multiple senses of under, one with image schemas, and the other with traditional method. A short time and a long term tests are given to the two classes to find out the results. The test results are analyzed by SPSS16.0. By doing this, the author proves that image schema can simplify conceptualization process and make the understanding process simpler. The teaching experiment proves the efficiency of teaching preposition under with image schemas. The experiment means a lot to the improvement of preposition teaching.