Meanings of the english prepositions “over, above, under, below” in terms of cognitive semantics perspective

Hà Cẩm Tâm Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: The thesis studies meanings of four vertical prepositions above, over, below, and under to find out their similarities and differences.. These di

semantics perspective Nguyễn Tuyết Nhung

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã Số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm

Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Abstract: The thesis studies meanings of four vertical prepositions above, over, below, and

under to find out their similarities and differences Data for analysis were collected from four

famous literary works The collected data then were grouped and analyzed using image schemas (in analyzing spatial senses) and metaphorical structures (in analyzing metaphorical expressions

or non-spatial senses) The result show that although the four prepositions are described through the UP-DOWN schema but the characteristics of the TR and the LM are different These differences cause different spatial senses and metaphorical uses of the prepositions They also cause the differences in the use of synonyms At the end of the thesis, some suggestions for teaching semantics are also included

Keywords: Giới từ; Tiếng Anh; Ngữ nghĩa học tri nhận

Content:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of contents iv

PART I: INTRODUCTION

2 Aims of the study 2

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background

1.1 An overview of Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics 4

1.2 Spatial Prepositions and Semantic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions 6

1.4 Spatial characteristics of Trajectors and Landmarks 8

Chapter 2: The Study

2.3 Analytical Framework 15 2.4 Data Analysis and Discussions

2.4.1.2 Over 19

PART III: CONCLUSION

3 Limitations of the Research and Suggestions for Further Research 37

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

There is a well-established fact that the acquisition of English prepositions poses major challenges for second language learners Language researchers like Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1988) note several reasons for this difficulty, one of which is quoted by Evans and Tyler (2001) is that it is notoriously difficult to characterize the semantic of prepositions In fact, the traditional views considers that all the senses of a preposition are highly arbitrary and are not related to one another Both dictionaries and grammars provide long lists of unrelated senses for each preposition and its possible uses in different contexts Of those prepositions

are above, over, below, and under which are considered to belong the group of vertical

prepositions They usually make the English learners confused with their polysemy, like in the

followings: She held the umbrella over both of us, and I was in Settle over summer; or He hid under the bed, or I wonder what Britain like under the Romans Moreover, above and over , as well as below and under is said to form two pairs of synonyms since over is defined in terms

of above and under in terms of below And the learners are confused with the distinction between some synonymous prepositions such as above and over For instances, the sentence The helicopter was hovering above the building is interpreted nearly the same as The helicopter was hovering over the building However, the sentence We were flying over the clouds has different meaning with We were flying above the clouds

Traditional studies have represented the semantics of English prepositions as largely arbitrary and difficult to characterize (Frank, 1972, Chomsky, 1995) On the other hand, Cognitive Linguistics, especially Cognitive Semantics offers an alternative perspective, suggesting that the differences in expressing spatial relations can be account for in non-arbitrary ways and that the distinct meanings associated with a particular preposition are related in systematic, principled ways (Linder, 1982; Brugman & Lakoff, 1988; Herkovits,

1986, 1988; Boer, 1996, Evans & Tyler, 2001, 2003)

Cognitive semanticists have been making momentous contribution to explain the polysemy in terms of prototype theory (Rosch (1978) and radial categories (Lakoff, 1987) By this way, the meanings of a polysemous like a spatial preposition can be seen as a big

semantic network of related sense Moreover, cognitive semantics offers a system of image schemas (Johnson, 1987) which are used to structure the our physical experience, and a number of metaphor which help to map the structure of a concrete source domain onto an abstract target domain These tools are useful in determining the relation of spatial meanings

to non-spatial ones of a prepositions

With the purpose to help English learners have an insightful view on these prepositions, Cognitive Semantics was chosen as the tool in my investigation on the meanings of the four

spatial prepositions above, over, below and under in order to find out the spatial as well as

non-spatial senses of each and the similarities as well as differences in their meanings

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are:

To find out the similarities and differences in the meanings of the four prepositions

above, over, below and under

3 Scope of the study

The study is an attempt to explain the meanings conveyed by the four English prepositions

“Over, Above, Under, Below" Not only prototypical but also derived meanings of the

prepositions motivated from image schema transformations and metaphorical extensions will

be taken into account Anyway, the investigation is based on my corpus of 962 examples in

form of NP + prep + NP and NP + V + prep + NP, where over, above, under, below function

as a preposition only The data were collected from 4 main sources, namely, the English versions of “Harry Potter Order of Phoenix” by J K Rowling, “David Copperfield” by C Dickens, “Vanity Fair” by W.M Thackeray and “Gone with the Wind” by M Mitchell

4 Research questions:

To realize the above objectives, the following research questions will be searched out:

How are the prepositions Over, Above, Under, Below different in terms of

cognitive semantic perspective?

5 Organization of the study

The study is organized in four main parts

The INTRODUCTION part is devoted to presenting statement ò the problem, aims of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study, research questions and organization of the study

The DEVELOPMENT part is divided into two chapter: CHAPTER 1 discusses the general theoretical background of the study; CHAPTER 2 includes the method of the study, data collection, analytical framework, data analysis, and discussion

The CONCLUSION part demonstrates the major findings of the study, implications and suggestions for further studies References are also put in this part

REFERENCES

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Online sources

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/contents.htm