A Comparative Study Of English Preposition On And Chinese Shang-A Cognitive-semantic Perspective

Space is the most basic category in the physical world, on the basis of which many categories are formed and developed. Spatial expressions are one of the research focuses of present-day cognitive linguistic studies, as they provide an important way to look at how human beings perceive the world and categorize things around them. Previous research from home and abroad has manifested the great explanatory power of cognitive linguistics on the polysemy of spatial prepositions. In such a context, there is relatively not much polysemy research of the preposition on; fewer studies have been conducted cross-linguistically upon on and the Chinese shang, and most of them are just confined to the comparison of the spatial meanings. However, common errors of on made by the Chinese learners of English have proved to have much to do with the commonalities and differences between the two languages. Thus, a comparative study from a cognitive semantic perspective is of great significance. Against such a background, the purpose of this study is twofold:one is to probe into the semantic distribution of the English on and the Chinese shang in terms of cognitive linguistics, and the other is to find out the similarities and differences between them.The present study adopts a cognitive approach to meanings, by tentatively combining the analyses of the meanings sorted out from dictionaries with the examples collected from Chinese and English corpora (i.e. CCLC and COCA). It starts from an etymological analysis of forms and functions of on and shang. Drawing on the prototype theory, image schema and conceptual metaphor theory, the prototypical and metaphorical meanings of on and shang were described and explained. Based on preceding cognitive semantic analyses, comparisons were made between the basic spatial senses and metaphorical senses of these two spatial expressions.It is found that the semantic distributions of on and shang are systematic and that the differences in the basic schemas lead to the differences in the metaphorical meanings. Major findings include:(1) Both on and shang have CONTACT and SUPPORT in the basic spatial senses from which derive diverse metaphorical senses; (2) on emphasizes the contact between the trajector and the landmark, which generates the senses related to PRESSURE schema; in contrast, shang does not require an obligatory contact between the trajector and the landmark, and thus profiles a wider range of spatial relations than on, which explains why shang is replaceable with in, on, over and above in actual use; (3) in terms of spatial dimensions, on tends to profile senses and images horizontally, while shang is more likely to profile senses in vertical orientation.The findings of the present study prove that cognitive theories can also be used to explain Chinese language phenomena. Moreover, by analyzing the structure of the Chinese character, the study offers a new approach to Chinese cognitive semantics, as ideographic characters themselves serve as a kind of representation of concepts in language. In practice, the study helps explain many errors made by Chinese EFL learners concerning the preposition on, and sheds light on second language vocabulary teaching and learning.