A Comparative Study On The Comprehension Of Spatial Prepositions Under The Functional Geometric Framework

Spatial prepositions are among the most favorable linguistic forms in English spatial description.So,it is of prior importance for EFL learners to develop a correct comprehension of spatial prepositions so as to grasp a good command of English.So far,the study of spatial preposition comprehension has privileged a central status in Cognitive Linguistics and Psycholinguistics.However,traditional researches mainly adopt a pure geometric perspective and only geometric factors are regarded as being essential in the comprehension of spatial prepositions,which fail to account for a number of usages.Now more and more researches attempt to find out some other factors that are important in the comprehension and production of spatial prepositions,among which the most recent and widely acknowledged achievement is the Functional Geometric Framework.This framework proposes the idea that the comprehension of spatial prepositions is not only determined by geometric routines but also influenced by some extra-geometric routines(such as functionality),which has received support from both theoretical and empirical researches.Enlightened by the insights of the Functional Geometric Framework,this study aims to conduct a comparative analysis between native speakers'(henceforth NSs)and English Foreign Language(henceforth EFL)learners' comprehension of spatial terms,taking above,below,over and under as examples.The thesis attempts to answer the research questions as follows:Question 1: What's the relative importance of geometry and functionality in the Native Group's comprehension of above,below,over and under?Question 2: What's the relative importance of geometry and functionality in theNon-native Group's comprehension of above,below,over and under?Question 3: What are the differences in the Native Group's and the Non-native Group's comprehension of above,below,over and under?What are the implications?In this study,both the Native Group(42 native speakers)and the Non-native Group(42 EFL learners)are required to rate the appropriateness of the sentences containing above,below,over or under.Geometry and functionality are the two independent variables,and each has three different levels.The three levels of geometry are Canonical,45 degrees,and 90 degrees,while the three levels of functionality include Control,Functioning,and Non-functioning.The materials used include 72 different spatial scenes based on 8 different picture types.The results from both groups are collected and analyzed with the help of EXCEL 2018 and SPSS 21.0.Major findings of this study are shown below:(1)Geometry is the main factor in native speakers' comprehension of above and below,while functionality is the key component underlying their comprehension of over and under.(2)Chinese EFL learners' comprehension of all the four spatial prepositions is mainly influenced by geometry,but functionality is not taken into account.And they consider the use of above/below more appropriate than over/under when describing spatial scenes involving “higher/lower than” relations.(3)Chinese EFL learners are less tolerant towards the changes of geometric relations between objects.Overall,the relative importance of geometry and functionality in the comprehension of above/below and over/under differs between native speakers and Chinese EFL learners.Hence,this study examined the differential effects of geometry and functionality in native speakers' and Chinese EFL learners' comprehension of spatial prepositions.It also provided some pedagogical implications for English teaching and learning.