In prepositions in English and Vietnamese

Using prepositions is challenging not only for the Vietnamese speakers but also for other ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language) speakers. “Preposition usage is one of the most difficult aspects of English grammar to master.” (Chodorow et al., 2007: 25). One of the most likely reasons is the very nature of preposition. Prepositions are usually mono-morphemic words which belong to the closed class of lexical items i.e. items that cannot be derived from other words. Prepositions are also non-inflecting which means that they do not have different forms (e.g. case and gender) like verbs or nouns for instance. ESL/EFL learners usually have difficulties with prepositions because there are not so many prepositions in English as in other languages and students try to make an unnecessary distinction. Also, many usages are not related to the original meaning of that preposition and it can be confusing as learners are often led by the word meaning (Parrott, 2000). For instance, some prepositions are polysemous words which are not closely related. (e.g. She was running on the path by (near) the river/ It will be done by (before) Saturday).

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Problem Identification

Using prepositions is challenging not only for the Vietnamese speakers but also for other ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language) speakers

“Preposition usage is one of the most difficult aspects of English grammar to master.” (Chodorow et al., 2007: 25) One of the most likely reasons is the very nature of preposition Prepositions are usually mono-morphemic words which belong to the closed class of lexical items i.e items that cannot be derived from other words Prepositions are also non-inflecting which means that they do not have different forms (e.g case and gender) like verbs or nouns for instance ESL/EFL learners usually have difficulties with prepositions because there are not so many prepositions in English as in other languages and students try to make an unnecessary distinction Also, many usages are not related to the original meaning of that preposition and it can be confusing as learners are often led by the word meaning (Parrott, 2000) For instance, some prepositions are polysemous words which are not closely related (e.g She was running on the path by (near) the river/ It will be done by (before) Saturday)

The most common cause of difficulties is that many prepositions perform a number of complex syntactic roles Unlike other words, prepositions have several syntactic functions and this can also be demanding for learners In prepositional phrases, prepositions can govern a noun or a verb (e.g at home, at listening), follow a verb (e.g depend on), follow a noun (e.g interest in) or

an adjective (e.g keen on), surround a complement (e.g from now on) or be in the middle of two words (e.g word for word) What can also be confusing is that prepositions can sometimes be short words (e.g on, in, at), long words or phrases (e.g according to, despite, in terms of) or even participles (e.g regarding, concerning) (ibid, 2000)

On the other hand, difficulties occur because prepositions perform complex semantic roles It is not rare in English to have prepositions with similar meanings (e.g in, inside, into) whereas a learner’s native language might not have so many prepositions with similar meanings (e.g in Vietnamese in and into is the same preposition “trong”) Moreover, certain verbs, nouns and adjectives that have similar meaning use different prepositions (e.g fond of / keen on) What also causes difficulty is that the same verbs in a learner’s native language and in English sometimes require different prepositions In English, ESL/EFL learners may find confusing the fact that

some verbs require prepositions and their synonyms do not (e.g talk about/ discuss) Also, different parts of speech of the same word sometimes use different preposition (e.g dependent

on, dependence from) Finally, there are prepositions which are combined with other words to express different meaning (e.g in phrasal verbs)

Other causes of difficulties are different usages of prepositions in formal and informal language For instance, certain prepositions are only used in formal or academic context (e.g notwithstanding) Furthermore, geographical and social background influences the usage of prepositions For example, in Australia preposition on is used with the noun the weekend whereas in Britain at is used with the noun the weekend In Britain, working class would use the expression go up town whereas middle class uses the expression go into town (ibid, 2000) Vietnamese learners experience many difficulties regarding using prepositions in terms of cognitive semantics It is also worth noting that cognitive semantics is concerned with investigating the relationship between experience, the conceptual system, and the semantic structure encoded by language (Lakoff, 1987) To put it plainly, cognitive semanticists have employed language as the lens through which these cognitive phenomena can be investigated As far as spatial prepositions are concerned, cross-language research in cognitive semantics has shown that although spatial cognition exists in any language, there are differences in strategies of spatial conceptualization employed by people using each language In other words, it is evident that human experiences with space are held to be identical, since human beings are endowed with the same biological features and can be exposed to similar experiences with the environment The linguistic encoding of spatial concepts in different languages is, however, different (Choi & Bowerman, 1991; Levinson, 2001)

The preposition “in” represents one of the most typical spatial prepositions in English Vietnamese EFL learners are almost not sure when “in” is acceptably used Additionally, it can

be observed that they just tend to apply straightforward correspondence to prepositions in their mother tongue; for instance, English preposition “in” means “trong” in Vietnamese, “on” means

“trên”, “for” means “cho”, to name just a few – irrespective of complements that are attached to the prepositions, and they think the job is done Apparently, the magnitude of this error is so enormous that it may delay the fluent native-like mastery of the target language

Accordingly, it is essential to grasp the related meanings of the English preposition “in” within the framework of cognitive semantics and in this way immensely understand what native English speakers conceptualize spatial relations of the physical world objects and how they map from these spatial domains to non-spatial domains via metaphor and metonymy Moreover, how this preposition can be translated in to Vietnamese when they are in different collocations have so far not been thoroughly investigated The present thesis hopes to contribute to the on-going research into how different languages express the various spatial relations that can hold between entities

in the world Last but not least, teachers can apply appropriate teaching methods to help students master the meanings of prepositions Besides indispensable roles of the teachers in the students’ learning achievements, students should be provided with suitable learning strategies to better language competence as well as cross-cultural awareness

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Research

The overall aim of the research is to develop pedagogical methods for English teachers and learners to effectively and appropriately English propositions in Vietnam

In order to achieve the overall aim of the research, the following specific objectives are addressed:

- To explore a semantic description of the English preposition “in” regarding cognitive semantics;

- To identify and investigate potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition

“in”;

- To embark on pedagogical implications for teaching, learning and translating English prepositions

1.3 Research Questions

With the topic of interest and statement of research problems, the following research questions are formulated:

(i) What meanings are conveyed by the English preposition “in” from a cognitive

semantic perspective?

(ii) What are Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition “in”?

prepositions and translation of prepositions to Vietnamese EFL learners?

1.4 Scope of the Research

The research is limited to investigating senses of the English preposition “in” and their Vietnamese equivalents within cognitive semantic theoretical framework Not only prototypical but also derived meanings of the preposition motivated from image-schema transformations and metaphorical conceptual mappings will be taken into account This investigation is based on the researcher’s manual corpus of in-examples in form of (NP) + in + NP and NP + V + in + NP, where in functions as a preposition, to the exclusion of others where in plays the role of an adverb or an affix The data were collected from Shakespeare’s literature works in the high schools’ Literature Textbooks of Vietnamese students with English versions Vietnamese equivalents of those in-occurrences were also identified and grouped in terms of frequency and percentage to explore differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese spatial conceptualization and cognition

1.5 Significance of the Research

This research, to some extent, enumerates strong evidence in cognitive semantics that the typically English preposition in possesses numerous but related senses, suggesting that the use of

a particular word reflects the way in which native English speakers conceptualize the physical world basing on their experience Additionally, the research takes a comparative stance and looks for cross-linguistic equivalents Potential Vietnamese equivalents of this preposition investigated

in the current study will probably construe how

Vietnamese people convey spatial meanings The research hopes to contribute to the overall stock of cognitive semantic studies on prepositions from a cross-linguistic perspective The findings of the study, as a result, will substantially contribute to language teaching and learning English as well as English-Vietnamese translation The results and data may also be useful for lexicographers when compiling new general and specialized dictionaries

1.6 Structure of the Research

The research covers five main parts including Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Findings and Discussions and Conclusion and Recommendations

Chapter 1 – Introduction is devoted to presenting statement of the problem, aims of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study, research questions and organization of the study

Chapter 2 – Literature Review discusses the general theoretical background of the study with related theories and literatures

Chapter 3 – Methodology comprises the methods of the study, data collection, analytical framework, and data analysis

Chapter 4 – Findings and discussions presents findings from analyzed data and discussions on research issues

Chapter 5 – Conclusion and Recommendations demonstrates the conclusions of this piece of research, pedagogical implications, and suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter covers cognitive semantic framework of the research including cognitive linguistics and cognitive semantics theory, syntactic and semantic perspectives on spatial prepositions, primary notions in cognitive semantics and meanings of spatial prepositions

2.1 Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive Linguistics is a reaction of modern linguists to truth-conditional (objectivist) semantics and generative grammar which have been the dominant approaches to the study of language meaning and grammatical form since the middle of the last century Its major assumptions are that language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty but an integral part of human cognition and that linguistic knowledge of meaning and form is basically conceptual structure (Croft & Cruse, 2004) Language is a distinct human cognitive ability but the cognitive processes responsible for the storage and retrieval of linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge are basically the same As a consequence much cognitive linguistic research has focused

on describing how concepts are organized (frames, domains, profiles, ICM) and the range of conceptualization or construal operations as instances of more general cognitive processes such as attention/salience, comparison, perspective, Gestalt Both linguistic meaning and structure can be characterized by construal operations such as Langacker’s selection, figure/ground, viewpoint, scanning, etc or Talmy’s force dynamics and image systems, Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of metaphor and metonymy or image schemas (Evans & Green, 2006)

Cognitive linguistics is based on the hypothesis that the structure of world's languages – which number close to 7,000 – can be explained on the basis of general psychological, physiological and anatomical human characteristics (Talmy, 2000) These general characteristics do not only concern language They form a basis for everything that makes us human in our ways of thinking, culture and behavior Completely central to this is our ability to categorize, compare, generalize and associate – and to master best the things we do frequently Cognitive linguistics is a collective term for several

theories – including cognitive grammar, construction grammar, mental space theory, cognitive metaphor theory and grammaticalization theory (Talmy, 2000)

Cognitive linguists research all linguistic phenomena – semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology and so forth – but the core research area is semantics When all is said and done, language is about meaning For example, it seems pointless to research syntax without any consideration of semantic issues

There are two main tenets of cognitive linguistics: (i) Language is an integral part of cognition; (ii) Language is symbolic in nature The former regulates that language is understood as a product of general cognitive abilities The latter clarifies that language is symbolic in nature, according to Langacker (1987), because it is based on the association between semantic representation and phonological representation

2.2 Cognitive Semantics

Based on findings in cognitive psychology, cognitive semantics started to develop in the 1980s

In contrast to structural semantics, it explains meaning primarily in terms of categorization, i.e it assumes that meaning is linked to the way we group all kinds of perceptions into conceptual categories Thus, language and cognition are considered to be inseparable: the structure of linguistic categories is assumed to reflect the structure of conceptual categories Based on this central assumption, cognitive semantics tries to synthesize the traditional theories of both word and sentence meaning by examining categorization and conceptualization

In technical terms, a semantics for a language is defined as a mapping from the syntactic structures to things in the world The prime slogan for cognitive semantics is: meanings are in the head More precisely, a semantics for a language is seen as a mapping from the expressions of the language to some cognitive entities This paradigm of semantics is thus conceptualistic or cognitivistic An important tenet of cognitive semantics is that the structures in our heads that are carrying the meanings of words are of the same nature as those that are created when we perceive – when we see, hear, touch, etc, different things

A consequence of the cognitivist position that puts it in conflict with many other semantic theories is that no reference to reality is necessary to determine the meaning of a linguistic expression Jackendoff (1987, p 123) says: “The buck stops here: expressions at the level of conceptual structure simply are the meanings of utterances.” A related point is that the truth of expressions is considered to be secondary since truth concerns the relation between a cognitive structure and the world To put it tersely: meaning comes before truth

Unlike earlier semantic theories, cognitive semantics emphasizes that linguistic meanings do not form an independent system but is closely related to other cognitive mechanisms, in particular perception Regier (1996, p 27) expresses the point as follows:

The idea is that since the acquisition and use of language rest on an experiential basis, and since experience of the world is filtered through extra-linguistic faculties such as perception and memory, language will of necessity be influenced by such faculties We can therefore expect the nature of human perceptual and cognitive systems to be of significant relevance to the study of language itself One of the primary tasks of cognitive linguistics is the ferreting out of links between language and the rest of human cognition

According to Talmy (2000), Lakoff & Johnson (1980), and Geerearts (1999), cognitive semantics complies with four specific guiding principles: i) Conceptual structure is embodied; ii) Semantic structure is conceptual structure; iii) Meaning representation is encyclopaedic; iv) Meaning construction is conceptualization

The first tenet that conceptual structure is embodied resides in that, due to the nature of our bodies, including our neuro-anatomical architecture, we have a species specific view of the world (Geerearts, 1993; Talmy, 1985, 2000; Taylor, 1989) In other words, our construal of reality is mediated, in large measure, by the nature of our embodiment

The second guiding principle; that is to say, semantic structure is conceptual structure, asserts that language refers to concepts in the mind of the speaker rather than, directly, to entities which inhere in an objectively real external world Put another way, semantic structure (the meanings conventionally associated with words and other linguistic units) can be equated with conceptual structure (i.e., concepts) (Rosch, 1973)

The third guiding principle holds that semantic structure is encyclopaedic in nature This means that lexical concepts do not represent neatly packaged bundles of meaning Rather, they serve as

‘points of access’ to vast repositories of knowledge relating to a particular concept or conceptual domain (Langacker, 1987)

The fourth guiding principle is that language itself does not encode meaning Instead, words (and other linguistic units) are only ‘prompts’ for the construction of meaning (Geerearts, 1999) Accordingly, meaning is constructed at the conceptual level Meaning construction is equated with conceptualization, a process whereby linguistic units serve as prompts for an array of conceptual operations and the recruitment of background knowledge Meaning is a process rather than a discrete thing that can be packaged by language

2.3 Spatial Prepositions

Spatial prepositions, in Cuyckens’ (1993) account, express how two entities relate to each other

in space In other words, these spatial prepositions describe a relation between an ordered pair of arguments x and y in which the spatial preposition indicates the location of an entity x with respect to an entity y, or better with respect to the place referred to by the entity y

Prepositions expressing spatial relations are of two kinds: prepositions of location and prepositions of direction (Finegan, 2004) Prepositions of location or spatial prepositions appear with verbs describing states or conditions, especially be; prepositions of direction appear with verbs of motion

Quirk et al (1985) states that a preposition expresses a relation between two entities One of these entities is called the prepositional complement and it relates to another part of the sentence The prepositional complement is often a noun phrase, a nominalized wh-clause, a nominalized ing-clause, or rarely, an adjective or adverb The preposition and its complement compose a prepositional phrase, which usually functions syntactically as a post-modifier in a noun phrase or

as an adverbial Spatial prepositions constitute part of prepositions; therefore, they also acquire these perspectives

Rice (1996) argues that a preposition possesses its own lexical meaning because it stands apart from a noun or pronoun with which different prepositions can be used In other words, a preposition has its lexical meaning on the one hand, and a lexical viability, on the other In this work we support this point of view which logically leads to the fact that the existence of an independent lexical meaning presupposes the existence of some semantic kernel around which some additional peripheral meanings are grouped There is no unique approach to what a lexical meaning of a preposition is and some consider it as "relationship between words", as an extra linguistic aspect and phenomenon The semantic perspective on prepositions is somewhat trickier

to account for, since it is possible to draw an intricate network of meanings around each preposition

The prototypical meaning of most prepositions is always a spatial relation (Tyler & Evans, 2003), and other meanings can be derived from this one In describing a relational expression of

a spatial preposition, Langacker (1987) used the terms trajector (TR) and landmark (LM) The figure of which the location is indicated is the TR whereas the reference point specifying the location is the LM, and so does Taylor (1989), explicitly following him, whereas Talmy (2000) prefers to speak about primary and secondary objects In the present research study, Langacker’s binomial trajector vs landmark will be employed In this way, the bird in the sentence The bird is

in the tree is the TR, while the tree is the LM, and in is the preposition which describes the spatial relationship between the two From this basic or prototypical meaning, other meanings are drawn Lindstromberg (1998) talks about a literal meaning, rather than a basic meaning, that

is extended metaphorically As an example, he mentions the literal meaning of in as found in the sentence He’s in bed, which is extended metaphorically in the sentence He is in trouble In the latter case the meaning of in is not that of physical containment as in in the first case; rather, trouble is metaphorically seen as a state in which one can be This literal meaning is the one that

is learnt earliest by native speakers and it often refers to the physical world

Likewise, Tyler and Evans (2003) discuss a primary sense around which a semantic network can

be drawn The literal, the primary, and the basic meaning all seem to refer to the same thing - it is

a spatial meaning that relates the trajector and the landmark to each other The secondary literal meaning can be explained by metaphorical and metonymic extensions Taylor and Evans (2003) also show that the way the spatial meaning of prepositions can be used to describe non-spatial