A study on meanings of the english preposition in and its vietnamese equivalents from a cognitive semantic perspective

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN KHÁNHA STUDY ON MEANINGS OF THE ENGLISH PREPOSITION “IN” AND ITS VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS FROM A COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC NGHĨA CỦA GIỚI TỪ “IN” TRONG T

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN KHÁNH

A STUDY ON MEANINGS OF THE ENGLISH PREPOSITION

“IN” AND ITS VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS FROM A

COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC NGHĨA CỦA GIỚI TỪ “IN” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ CÁC NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2009

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN KHÁNH

A STUDY ON MEANINGS OF THE ENGLISH PREPOSITION

“IN” AND ITS VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS FROM A

COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC NGHĨA CỦA GIỚI TỪ “IN” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ CÁC NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm

HANOI - 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration ……… i

Acknowledgements ……… ii

Abstract ……… iii

Abbreviations and Symbols ……… iv

Table of Contents ……… v

INTRODUCTION ………. 1

1 Statement of the Problem ……… 1

2 Aims of the Study ……… 3

3 Scope of the Study ……… 3

4 Significance of the Study ……… 3

5 Research Questions ……… 4

6 Design of the Study ……… 4

DEVELOPMENT ……… 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES ……… 5

1.1 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Linguistics ……… 5

1.2 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Semantics ……… 6

1.3 Spatial Prepositions ……… 7

1.3.1 Definition of Spatial Prepositions ……… 7

1.3.2 Syntactic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions 8

1.3.3 Semantic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions ……… 8

1.4 Cognitive Semantics Approach to Spatial Prepositions ……… 9

1.4.1 Experiential Realism, Image Schemas and Spatial Prepositions…… 9

1.4.2 Metaphor and Spatial Prepositions ……… 11

1.4.3 Prototype, Radial Category and Spatial Prepositions ……… 12

1.4.5 Polysemy and Spatial Prepositions ……… 13

1.4.6 Perspective and Subjectivity ……… 14

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY ………. 16

2.1 Research Questions ……… 16

2.2 Methodology ……… 16

2.3 Data ……… 17

2.4 Analytical Framework ……… 18

2.5 Data Analysis, Findings and Discussion ……… 19

2.5.1 Meanings of the English Preposition “in” ……… 19

2.5.1.1 Prototypical Schema for “in”……… 19

2.5.1.2 Non-prototypical Meanings of ‘in’……… 20

2.5.1.3 Metaphorical Extensions ……… 22

2.4.1.3.1 Metaphorical extension of the enclosure prototype ……… 22

2.4.1.3.2 Metaphorical extension of the inclusion sense ……… 25

2.4.1.3.3 Metaphorical extension of the medium sense ……… 26

2.5.1.4 Radial Category of “in” ……… 27

2.5.1.5 Summary ……… 27

2.5.2 The English Preposition “in” and its Vietnamese Equivalents …… 28

2.5.2.1 “in” in English corresponds to “trong” in Vietnamese ……. 29

2.5.2.2 “in” in English corresponds to “ngoài” in Vietnamese … 30

2.5.2.3 “in” in English corresponds to “trên” in Vietnamese 31

2.5.2.4 “in” in English corresponds to “dưới” in Vietnamese …… 32

2.5.2.5 “in” in English corresponds to “ở” in Vietnamese ……… 33

2.5.2.6 “in” in English corresponds to “trước” in Vietnamese … 33

2.5.2.7 “in” in English corresponds to “sau” in Vietnamese …… 34

2.5.2.8 “in” in English corresponds to “bên” in Vietnamese …… 35

2.5.2.9 “in” in English corresponds to “bằng” in Vietnamese …… 36

2.5.2.10 “in” in English corresponds to “về” in Vietnamese …… 36

2.4.2.11 “in” in English corresponds to “vào” in Vietnamese …… 37

2.5.2.12 “in” in English corresponds to other Vietnamese Non-prepositional Expressions……… 37

2.5.2.3 Summary ……… 39

2.5.3 Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese Spatial Cognition ……… 40

2.5.3.1 Similarities ……… 40

2.5.3.2 Differences ……… 40

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

1 Statement of the problem

There is a well-established fact that learners of English as a Foreign Language moreoften than not confront a great many difficulties in actively mastering the language As ageneral rule, they seemingly hold the view that English notional categories, namely nouns,verbs, adjectives and adverbs are crucial, hence striving to learn as many of them aspossible, and that such functional categories as prepositions are of minor significancebecause they are limited in number and their meanings are not important to the meaning ofthe whole sentence What is more, the traditional view considers that all the senses of apreposition are highly arbitrary and are not related to one another As a matter of fact, bothdictionaries and grammars provide long lists of unrelated senses for each preposition andits possible uses in different contexts In other words, EFL learners resort to a great manylinguistic materials whose authors have made monumental efforts to describe this type ofwords on the grounds of only functions and positions other than semantic factorscontributing to determining their choices in use For the above reasons, prepositions aregenerally troublesome to the learners for whom English is a foreign/second language(Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999) Boers and Demecheleer (1998) argue thatprepositions are difficult for ESL/EFL learners because they have literal as well as

figurative meanings For instance, we say, we are at the hospital; or we visit a friend who

is in the hospital, or we lie in bed but on the couch.

Actually, much work has been done in the last decades to find a relationshipbetween the different senses of English prepositions Cognitive Linguistics has paid greatattention to polysemy, and specifically to the meaning of prepositions (Lindner, 1982;Vandeloise, 1991; Pütz & Dirven, 1996; Tyler & Evans, 2003) Interestingly, cognitivelinguists, especially cognitive semanticists have been making momentous contribution toexplaining polysemy in terms of radial categories (Lakoff, 1987) and therefore considerthat the meaning of a polysemous word can be seen as a big semantic network of relatedsenses Furthermore, it now seems evident that there is a highly schematic common core toall the related senses of a preposition, which all derive from a primary spatial schema or

proto-scene (Tyler & Evans, 2003) to other non-spatial, abstract senses “by means of

generalization or specialization of meaning or by metonymic or metaphoric transfer”(Cuyckens & Radden, 2002)

It is also worth noting that cognitive semantics is concerned with investigating therelationship between experience, the conceptual system, and the semantic structureencoded by language (Lakoff, 1987) To put it plainly, cognitive semanticists haveemployed language as the lens through which these cognitive phenomena can beinvestigated As fas as spatial prepositions are concerned, cross-language research incognitive semantics has shown that although spatial cognition exists in any language, thereare differences in strategies of spatial conceptualization employed by people using eachlanguage In other words, it is evident that human experiences with space are held to beidentical, since human beings are endowed with the same biological features and can beexposed to similar experiences with the environment The linguistic encoding of spatialconcepts 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 in general and those at the Military Science Academy in

particular 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 soenormous 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 whatnative English speakers conceptualize spatial relations of the physical world objects andhow they map from these spatial domains to non-spatial domains via metaphor andmetonymy Moreover, how this preposition can be translated in to Vietnamese when theyare in different collocations have so far not been thoroughly investigated The present thesishopes to contribute to the on-going research into how different languages express thevarious 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 ofprepositions Besides indispensable roles of the teachers in the students’ learningachievements, students should be provided with suitable learning strategies to betterlanguage competence as well as cross-cultural awareness

For all the above-mentioned reasons, it is strongly desirable for the author to conduct this thesis.

2 Aims of the study

The current thesis aims at

- uncovering a semantic description of the English preposition in in light of cognitive

semantics

- investigating potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition in

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

3 Scope of the study

The study is limited to investigating senses of the English preposition in and their

Vietnamese equivalents within cognitive semantic theoretical framework Not onlyprototypical but also derived meanings of the preposition motivated from image-schematransformations and metaphorical conceptual mappings will be taken into account This

investigation is based on my manual corpus of 681 in-examples in form of (NP) + in + NP and NP + V + in + NP, where in functions as a preposition, to the exlusion of others where

in plays the role of an adverb or an affix The data were collected from three sources,

namely, the English versions of Vanity Fair by Thackeray, W M., Jane Eyre by Brontë, C.,and English-Vietnamese translation course books for third and fourth- year English majors

at the MSA Vietnamese equivalents of those 681 in-occurrences were also identified andgrouped in terms of frequency and percentage to explore differences and similaritiesbetween English and Vietnamese spatial conceptualization and cognition

4 Significance of the study

This thesis, 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 speakersconceptualize the physical world basing on their experience Additionally, the thesis takes

a comparative stance and looks for cross-linguistic equivalents Potential Vietnameseequivalents of this preposition investigated in the current study will probably construe howVietnamese people convey spatial meanings The thesis hopes to contribute to the overallstock of cognitive semantic studies on prepositions from a cross-linguistic perspective Thefindings 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

5 Research questions

The following questions are proposed in the current research:

- What meanings are conveyed by the English preposition in from a cognitive

semantic perspective?

- What are Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition in?

This study in turn, hopes to contribute to enriching pedagogical proposals forteaching English prepositions and translation of prepositions to English major students atthe MSA

6 Design of the study

The present paper is organized in four main parts The INTRODUCTION part isdevoted 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 TheDEVELOPMENT part is subdivided into two chapters: CHAPTER 1 discusses the generaltheoretical background of the study and CHAPTER 2, the backbone of the thesis,comprises the methods of the study, data collection, analytical framework, data analysis,findings and discussion The CONCLUSION part demonstrates the conclusions of thispiece of research, pedagogical implications, and suggestions for further studies Referencesare also included

DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES

In this chapter, cognitive semantic framework of the study will be presented.Specifically, cognitive linguistics and cognitive semantics theory will be briefly discussed

in 1.1 and 1.2; syntactic and semantic perspectives on spatial prepositions will bedemonstrated in 1.3; several primary notions in cognitive semantics employed to

investigate meanings of spatial prepositions will be explicitly put forward in 1.4.

1.1 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics, a modern school of linguistic study and practice, has been ofspecial interest since it emerged in the late seventies and early eighties It is primarilyconcerned with investigating the relationship between human language, the mind andsocio-physical experience (Croft & Cruse, 2004; Evans & Green, 2006; Langacker, 1987)

To put it in another way, this paradigm views linguistic knowledge as part of generalcognition and thinking; linguistic behaviour is not separated from other general cognitiveabilities which allow mental processes of reasoning, memory, attention or learning, butunderstood as an integral part of it (Johnson, 1987)

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 isunderstood as a product of general cognitive abilities Consequently, a cognitive linguistmust be willing to accept what Lakoff (1987) calls the ‘cognitive commitment’, that is, s/hemust be prepared to embrace the link between language and other cognitive facultiesbecause linguistic theory and methodology must be consistent with what is empiricallyknown about cognition, the brain and language As Saeed (1997) explains, this viewimplies that externally, principles of language use embody more general cognitiveprinciples; and internally, that explanation must cross boundaries between levels ofanalysis In other words, the difference between language and other mental processes is not

one of kind, but one of degree The latter clarifies that language is symbolic in nature,

according to Langacker (1987), because it is based on the association between semanticrepresentation and phonological representation This association of two different polesrefers to the Saussurian conception of the linguistic sign However, for cognitive linguists,language is not structured arbitrarily It is motivated and grounded more or less directly inexperience, in our bodily, physical, social, and cultural experiences because after all, “we

are beings of the flesh” (Johnson 1987: 347) This notion of a ‘grounding’ is known inCognitive Linguistics as ‘embodiment’ (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff and Johnson,1980) Its basic idea is that mental and linguistic categories are not abstract, disembodiedand human independent categories; we create them on the basis of our concreteexperiences and under the constraints imposed by our bodies.

As a consequence, this new paradigm could be seen as a reaction against thedominant generative paradigm which pursues an autonomous and arbitrary view oflanguage

1.2 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Semantics

Cognitive semantics, part of cognitive linguistics movement, is concerned withinvestigating the relationship between experience, the conceptual system, and the semanticstructure encoded by language (Rosch, 1973; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987;Johnson, 1987; Langacker, 1987, 1990, 1999) In specific terms, scholars working in

cognitive semantics investigate knowledge representation (conceptual structure), and meaning construction (conceptualization) Therefore, cognitive semantics studies much of

the area traditionally devoted to pragmatics as well as semantics As a matter of fact,Talmy (2000) states that cognitive semantics sees language meaning as a manifestation ofconceptual structure: the nature and organization of mental representation in all its richnessand diversity, and this is what makes it a distinctive approach to linguistic meaning To put

it plainly, cognitive semanticists have employed language as the lens through which thesecognitive phenomena can be investigated Consequently, research in cognitive semanticstends to be interested in modeling the human mind as much as it is concerned withinvestigating linguistic semantics

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 isencyclopaedic; iv) Meaning construction is conceptualization

The first tenet that conceptual structure is embodied resides in that, due to thenature 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 otherwords, our construal of reality is mediated, in large measure, by the nature of ourembodiment We can only talk about what we can perceive and conceive, and the things

that we can perceive and conceive derive from embodied experience From this point ofview, the human mind must bear the imprint of embodied experience This position holdsthat conceptual is a consequence of the nature of our embodiment and thus is embodied.

The second guiding principle; that is to say, semantic structure is conceptualstructure, 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) However,

the claim that semantic structure can be equated with conceptual structure does not meanthat the two are identical Instead, cognitive semanticists hold that the meanings associatedwith linguistic units such as words, for example, form only a subset of possible concepts inthe minds of speaker-hearers After all, we have many more thoughts, ideas and feelingsthan we can conventionally encode in language (Evans, 2006; Evans & Green, 2006)

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 aparticular concept or conceptual domain (Langacker, 1987) Of course, to claim that lexicalconcepts are ‘points of access’ to encyclopaedic meaning is not to deny that words haveconventional meanings associated with them Nevertheless, cognitive semanticists arguethat the conventional meaning associated with a particular linguistic unit is simply a

‘prompt’ for the process of meaning construction: the ‘selection’ of an appropriate

interpretation against the context of the utterance

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

1.3 Spatial Prepositions

1.3.1 Definition of 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 locationand 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

1.3.2 Syntactic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions

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 ofthe sentence The prepositional complement is often a noun phrase, a nominalised wh-clause, a nominalised ing-clause, or rarely, an adjective or adverb The preposition and itscomplement compose a prepositional phrase, which usually functions syntactically as apostmodifier in a noun phrase or as an adverbial Spatial prepositions constitute part ofprepositions; therefore, they also acquire these perspectives

1.3.3 Semantic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions

Rice (1996) argues that a preposition possesses its own lexical meaning because itstands apart from a noun or pronoun with which different prepositions can be used In otherwords, a preposition has its lexical meaning on the one hand, and a lexical viability, on theother In this work we support this point of view which logically leads to the fact that theexistence of an independent lexical meaning presupposes the existence of some semantickernel around which some additional peripheral meanings are grouped There is no uniqueapproach to what a lexical meaning of a preposition is and some consider it as "relationshipbetween 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 intricatenetwork of meanings around each preposition

The prototypical meaning of most prepositions is always a spatial relation (Tyler &Evans, 2003; Cienki, 1989; Herskovits, 1986; Vandeloise, 1991), 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 itoften refers to the physical world

Likewise, Tyler and Evans (2003) discuss a primary sense around which a semanticnetwork can be drawn The literal, the primary, and the basic meaning all seem to refer tothe same thing - it is a spatial meaning that relates the trajector and the landmark to eachother The secondary literal meaning can be explained by metaphorical and metonymicextensions Taylor and Evans (2003) also show that the way the spatial meaning ofprepositions can be used to describe non-spatial relations is highly motivated Thus,learners of English would find prepositions a less problematic area if they just understoodthe logic behind their usage

1.4 Cognitive Semantics Approach to Spatial Prepositions

In the present study, the semantic analysis of the English preposition in and its

Vietnamese equivalents are accounted for and illustrated within the framework of cognitivesemantics Hence, primary notions proposed by Johnson (1987), Langacker (1987, 1991a)and Lakoff (1987), namely experiential realism and image schemas, prototype and radialcategory, metaphor as a mechanism for meaning extension, polysemy, perspective andsubjectivity are adopted to lay the foundation for data analysis These notions are reviewed

in the ensuing sections

1.4.1 Experiential Realism, Image Schemas and Spatial Prepositions

According to Cognitive Semantics, conceptual systems grow out of bodilyexperience, and are grounded in perception, bodily movement, and experience of a

physical and social character (Johnson, 1987) Lakoff (1987) proposes that experiential realism goes along with connectionism as well as biologism and social realism It assumes

a commitment to the existence of the real world and it acknowledges that reality placesconstraints on concepts The body has the ability to reason which is shaped by genericinheritance, environment, and social as well as physical functioning Lakoff (1987) stresseshuman bodies and recurring activities provide us with a direct experiential basis forunderstanding a wealth of image schemas

Image schema was defined by Johnson (1987: 29) as ‘a recurrent pattern, shape, and

regularity’ in and of ‘actions, perceptions and conceptions’ that are on-going Withreference to Gibbs & Colston (1995) cited in Geeraerts & Cuyckens (2007), image schemasare experiential gestalts; that is to say, different patterns of recurrent bodily experiences thatemerge throughout activity as we manipulate objects, orient ourselves spatially andtemporally, and direct our perceptual focus for various purposes Likewise, Johnson (1987)and Lakoff (1987) held the view that our experience is preconceptually structured at a levelwhere gestalts for general overall shapes are relatively rich in structure Both Johnson and

Lakoff describe some of these gestalts under the name of image schemas Different scholars

provides different lists of image schemas Thus, for Lakoff, the CONTAINER schema thatdefines the predicates IN and OUT would work as the basis for understanding the body ascontainer, the visual fields, and set models The PART-WHOLE schema is transferred todomains such as families, teams, organizations, marriage, and so forth The LINK schemahelps conceptualize social and interpersonal relationships The CENTRE-PERIPHERYschema offers the difference between important things or matters seen as central, and lessimportant or secondary matters as peripheral Finally, the SOURCE-PATH schema givesthe clue for purposes in our daily life as destinations of a journey Other image schemas arePROXIMITY-DISTANCE; FRONT-BACK orientation; LINEAR order; UP-DOWN, etc.According to Lakoff, these image schemas might be also deeply grounded in commonhuman experience that they constitute universal prelinguistic cognitive structures Theseimage schemas lead to primary conceptualizations in the domain of physical experience andwill define the primigenial use of words The internal structure of word meaning is notautonomous, but exists against a background of our general assumptions about the world(socio-cultural beliefs included), and word meaning is frequently prototype-based ratherthan being composed of checklists of features

Johnson (1987) maintains that the projection of image schemas onto abstractthought is mediated mainly by metaphor So, metaphor constitutes a crucial link betweenbodily experience and abstract reason That’s what we shall be looking at in the followingsection

Besides TRs and LMs, image schemas have an important role to play inunderstanding spatial relations designated by prepositions Specifically, the above-mentioned image schemas map in various combinatory ways to specific prepositions in agiven language In addition, they are acknowledged to help explain seeminglycontradictory or counter-intuitive usages of prepositions and particles For instance,Herskovits (1986) clarifies that container schema provides the basis for explaining the

multiple meanings of the preposition in, source-path schema is applicable to account for senses of to, etc It is also important to note, as Langacker (1987) argues, that physical

space will be the most salient domain for conceptualization of prepositions.Ontogenetically, the conceptual schema must be previously elaborated in this basic domain

in order for a speaker to acquire a special concept and is associated with new instances sothat the speaker is able to categorize these new instances In this way, the concept inquestion can be extended to new senses via metaphorical mappings or image schematransformations

1.4.2 Metaphor and Spatial Prepositions

Cognitive semantics, however, does not view metaphor as a speaker’s violation of

rules of competence proposed by Generative Linguistics (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), but

as a means whereby ever more abstract and intangible areas of experience can beconceptualized in terms of the familiar and concrete One cognitive domain can beunderstood, or even created, in terms of components more usually associated with anothercognitive domain

According to Langacker (1990), metaphor is the main conceptual mechanismthrough which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning.Metaphors are mappings across conceptual domains that establish correspondencesbetween entities in the target and source domains, and can project inference patterns fromthe source domain onto the target domain They are grounded in the body, and in everydayexperience and knowledge, to the extent that they constitute a subsystem of our conceptualsystem The system of conventional conceptual metaphor is unconscious, automatic, and

constantly in use; it is central to our understanding of experience and to the way we act onthat understanding; it plays a major role in both the grammar and lexicon of a language;part of it is universal, part of it culture-specific This assumption implies, on the one hand,that the inference patterns of the source domain remain untouched in the target domain,and on the other hand, that only metaphorical mappings are possible when the inferencepatterns of the target domain are consistent with all or part of the source domain (Lakoff,1990; Barcelona, 2003)

It is worth emphasizing that metaphors are not just figures of speech in literature,but also pervasive in everyday language Furthermore, metaphors are not just language butalso a conceptual tool to understand and create more abstract conceptual domains

With respect to spatial semantic categories, certain aspects of the basic physicaldomain are highlighted to understand and create abstract domains (Lakoff & Johnson,1980) In other words, our experience with the concrete world like people, objects, actionsand events are used to conceptualize abstract phenomena In the case of prepositions, whenthese are used in figurative meanings, what we have is a metaphorical mapping fromphysical space onto conceptual space, since conceptual structure is understood in terms ofconceptual image schemas plus a metaphorical mapping (Boers, 1996) Conceptual imageschemas based on spatial experience are directly understood, they provide the conceptualbasis for the uses of prepositions in the physical domain, and are extended metaphorically

to structure other domains Thus metaphor theory gives insight into the mechanisms ofconventional figurative language creation and processing Reasonably, this can be seen as

the mechanism which the semantic categories in activate in order to be used in abstract

domains, i.e in prepositional abstract uses In the analysis of this predicate, we will make

an attempt at accounting for many, if not all, of their metaphorical extensions

1.4.3 Prototype, Radial Category and Spatial Prepositions

Rosch (1973), when addressing attribute domains such as colour or shape, arguesthat categories form around perceptually salient points in the domain, and such form

cognitive prototypes for the categories For such categories, prototypes are probably

psychologically determined and therefore, such categories should be universal; only thecategory boundaries are expected to vary with culture Object categories are also structuredaround prototypes, although for these categories content is assumed to vary with culture It

is argued that categories of objects become organized so as to maximize the correlation and

predictability of attributes within categories So, co-occurrence of attributes leads to aprototype For object categories, prototypes are the objects which most strongly reflect theattribute structure of the category as a whole; thus by means of prototypes, categories can

be made to appear simpler, more clear-cut, and more different from each other than theyare in reality Categories and prototypes can vary across cultures but the principles ofcategory formation and of development of prototypes can be expected to be universal.Prototypes serve as reference points for the categorization of less clear instances Entitiesare assigned membership in a category by virtue of their similarity to the prototype Thecloser an entity to the prototype, the more central its status within the category

Category structures and prototype effects are very crucial sources of developing the

structure of a radial category Prototype effects address ‘certain members of the categories

as being more representative of the category than other members’ (Lakoff, 1987: 41).Within the structure of a radial category, non-prototypes are either directly orintermediately radiating outward from the prototype that occupies the most central position

of the structure Accordingly, the radial category of a polysemy is an elaborated semanticnetwork that essentially consists of its prototypical sense, which is the most central sense,non-prototypical senses, which are less representative and extended from human capacities

of imagination (such as metaphorical mappings and image schema transformation)demonstrating a natural and systematic organization of related senses

1.4.4 Polysemy and Spatial Prepositions

Polysemy, according to Taylor (2002), is a single linguistic form associating with a

number of distinct but related senses Over the past few decades, the issue of polysemy hasbeen paid attention within the framework of cognitive semantics As a matter of fact,cognitive linguists (Langacker, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Johnson, 1987) hold important viewsabout polysemy: the lexicon constitutes a natural category of its various senses organizedwith respect to the most central sense and thus form a semantic network In other words, onaccount of cognitive semantics, a lexicon is much more

Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999), Lakoff (1987) and claim that polysemy can beattributed to figurative usage Indeed, it is held that not only our language, but also ourcognition operates figuratively Polysemy is accounted for within a general approach tohuman categorization that rejects the idea that human reasoning is solely based on thecapacity to manipulate abstract symbols Rather, human reasoning is held to be grounded

in perception, bodily movement, and experience of a physical and social nature In thisview, metaphor, metonymy and mental imagery are the means by which abstract concepts,which are not directly grounded in experience, are understood This approach iscomplemented by insights from prototype-theory (Rosch, 1977, 1978) and the theory ofcognitive models (Lakoff, 1987) Within this account, the related meanings of words formcategories and the meanings bear family resemblances to one another To use Lakoff’swords: polysemy arises from the fact that there are systematic relationships betweendifferent cognitive models and between elements of the same model (Lakoff, 1987: 13).This view has given rise to different models for lexical networks based on the notion that

the different meanings of a given lexeme “form a radially structured category, with a central member and links defined by image-schema transformation and metaphors”

(Lakoff, 1987: 460)

Cognitive semanticists have made several attempts at showing the structure ofprepositional polysemy Such authors as Rice (1996), Lakoff (1987), Langacker (1991a)have proposed lexical networks representing polysemy of prepositions Although, lexicalnetworks described by different scholars are different, they exhibit some commonproperties which clarify that they are integrated structures containing multiple, linkednodes These nodes symbolize either separate senses or usage types of the preposition inquestion The nodes extend out from a central node whose value is commonly taken to bethe prototype of the entire lexical category In the current paper, Rice’s (1996) lexicalnetwork which suggests novel senses are only detectable at the periphery of the category,based on extension from already extended senses

1.4.5 Perspective and Subjectivity

Finally, the point of view in cognitive semantics adopted in the present analysis isthe specific notions of perspective and subjectivity from Langacker (1987, 1990).Following Langacker (1990:5), ‘A foundational claim of cognitive semantics is that anexpression’s meaning cannot be reduced to an objective characterization of the situationdescribed: equally important is how the conceptualizer chooses to construe the situationand portray it for expressive purposes’ The point this author makes is that the semanticvalue of an expression should be determined by numerous facets of construal, consisting ofthe level of specificity at which the situation is characterized, background assumptions and

expectations, the relative prominence accorded various entities, and the perspective taken

on the scene

According to Langacker (1987), the term perspective is the way in which a scene isviewed, which is particular embodied viewing arrangement Factors of perspective subsumefigure/ ground alignment, vantage point, and subjectivity Vantage point and subjectivity

are the factors that concern the present analysis of Vietnamese equivalent of in Vantage

point is the position from which a scene is viewed in the viewer’s line of sight Langacker(1990) mentions that the contrast between subjective and objective construal reflects theinherent asymmetry between a perceiving individual and the entity perceived, whichinvolves two situation, namely, the optimal viewing arrangement and the egocentricviewing arrangement The former signifies that the viewer has a clear perceptual access tothe perceived object which is within the objective scene; however, he is excluded by boththe objective scene and his perceptual field By contrast, in the latter the viewer is included

in both the objective scene and the perceptual field, indicating that the viewer can becomethe focus of viewing attention

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

In this chapter, the research questions will be restated in 2.1, the methods of thestudy will be hightlighted in 2.2, the data will be described in 2.3, the analytical framework

of the study will be introduced in 2.4, and data analysis, findings and discussion will bepresented in 2.5 Particularly, in section 2.5, which constitutes the central focus of the

current study, meanings of the English preposition in and its Vietnamese equivalents will

be thoroughly explored

2.1 Research Questions

It is worth restating the two research questions that guideline the study:

- From a cognitive semantic perspective, what meanings does the English

preposition in have?

- What are potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition in?

2.2 Methodology

The present paper probes into the manifold meanings of the English preposition in

and its potential Vietnamese equivalents from a cognitive semantic perspective It isevident that cognitive semanticists have focused on the analysis of how different senses of

a word are related to each other; however, they have of course also been aware that themotivation of sense distinction is a non-trivial issue since the links between senses can only

be discussed once the distinctness of senses has been established Thus, a variety ofdifferent approaches have been proposed to deal with this problem By and large, cognitivesemantic studies have traditionally been based on decontextualized data, collected andanalyzed by means of introspection As a consequence, the findings may be empiricallyproblematic since not all fine-grained sense distinctions are necessarily supported by thedata (Geeraerts, 2009) The two alternatives to introspection that are currently appliedwithin the scope of cognitive linguistics are psycholinguistic experimentation (Rice, 1996)and corpus analysis (Geeraerts, 2009) Geeraerts points out that while psycholinguisticexperiments lead to elicitation of individual phenomena, corpus analysis providesdescriptions of social phenomena Thus, while a subject in an experiment may provideinformation about the prototypical or peripheral status of a particular sense of a word for anindividual, the analysis of corpora can offer the same information at a social level.Geeraerts calls it onomasiological entrenchment Therefore, higher frequency in the corpusimplies higher entrenchment of a given sense of a word in the linguistic community

Taking this into account, in the present study, in order to answer the first researchquestion, corpus-based analysis is made used of Specifically, prototypical sense of the

preposition in will be determined according to its frequency in the corpus, which in turn

shows the cue validity of the most relevant perceptual aspect for each Other derived

meanings of in will be then classified basing on their relationship with the prototypical one

through sense shifts and metaphorical extension

Additionally, as regards the second research question, contrastive analysis is

incorporated as a tool to investigate potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English in As

James emphasized in his book (1980) that contrastive analysis plays an important role inunderstanding two different languages, and that it can also present a possible solution tothe equivalence problem In this way, a detailed explanation of the specific differences andsimilarities in using language as a reflective tool of people’s cognitive structuring of spacewill be provided

2.3 Data

A corpus of 681 in-instances were collected for our analysis As far as the scope of the study is concerned, only occurrences of in in form of (NP) + in + NP and NP + V + in + NP, where in plays the role of a preposition rather than an adverb or an affix, were taken

from three sources, namely, Vanity Fair by Thackeray, W M., Jane Eyre by Bronte, C andEnglish-Vietnamese translation course books for third and fourth-year English majors at theMSA Those examples which were found to be extremely repetitive were excluded All thesesources were chosen for the fact that they are present in the curricula designed for the third andfourth-year English majors at the MSA, and that the objectivity of translational equivalents could

be guaranteed

Actually, of all the 681 in-samples which have been gathered manually, 221

instances occur in Vanity Fair by Thackeray, W M., 198 in Jane Eyre by Bronte, C and

262 in the English-Vietnamese translation course books for third and fourth-year Englishmajors at the MSA The purpose has been to provide a sufficient amount of information forthe task of disambiguation in those cases where more than one sense could have beeninterpreted for the preposition under analysis In addition, all of their Vietnamesetranslational equivalents have been listed as well This means that the selected English

preposition in as well as its Vietnamese variations were identified The process of

identification and selection were carried out manually by scrutinizing both texts The

preposition extracted from source texts and their target (translated) texts equivalents werethen classified and sorted out accordingly in separated tables The frequency for thedifferent variation types were recorded and calculated as percentages.

2.4 Analytical Framework

The framework of this thesis is based on the particular notions in cognitivesemantics, namely, image schemas, prototype theory and radial category, and metaphoricalmeaning extension

To begin with, in the semantic description of the preposition in, the conceptual

image schema CONTAINER posited by Johnson (1987) is proposed This conceptual

schema designates the prototypical meaning of in, that is, enclosure It is assumed that the

conceptual image schema is acquisitionally previous to meaning extension and that it is thefirst meaning acquired by children At the same time, it offers a basis from which newextended senses derive by virtue of natural, independently motivated image-schematransformations or shifts Extensions are explained as metaphorical and metonymicmappings from spatial domains onto other domains of human experience (social, scientific,

etc…) However, as regards the English preposition in under analysis, only metaphorical

extension will be under in-depth investigation In this way, polysemy appears

Also, Lakoff’s (1987) significant notion of natural category with radial structure(i.e radial category) that is based on prototype theory in language provides a verystraightforward and convenient means in our account of the organization of senses of the

polysemous English preposition in Based on Lakoff’s prototype effects and the structure of radial category, we can clearly observe how the polysemous in constitutes its elaborate semantic network in radial structure Within the radial category, the prototypical sense of in

respectively occupies the central position of the radial structure, for it is the most basic

sense The non-prototypical senses of in motivated by sense shifts, or transformations from

prototypical schema, and metaphorical projection are radiating outwards from the

prototypical sense All the non-prototypical and metaphorical senses of in are linked to the prototypical sense, constituting a natural and systematic network of the various senses of in.

Besides, contrastive analysis as expounded in James (1995) will be employed to

explore Vietnamese equivalents of in What is more, vantage point and subjectivity

proposed by Langacker (1987) also substantially contribute to explicating Vietnamese

potential translational equivalents of in enumerated in our corpus In this way, differences

as well as similarities between English and Vietnamese spatial conceptualisation will beuncovered Put another way, it is interesting to find out how cognitive elements can beencoded in the use of different languages.

2.5 Data Analysis, Findings and Discussions

This section is designed to target two main points, namely, distinct but related

meanings of the polysemous English spatial preposition in and its Vietnamese equivalents.

The former will be analysed in three parts: first, in presenting the conceptual image schema

or prototypical meaning of in, second, in demonstrating the non-prototypical senses of in and metaphorical extensions, and third, in developing the radial category of in The latter will be devoted to investigating Vietnamese translational equivalents of in Specifically, prepositional as well as non-prepositional Vietnamese equivalents of in will be thoroughly

analysed and accounted for

2.5.1 Meanings of the English Preposition “in”

2.5.1.1 Prototypical schema for “in”

What is proposed in numerous works on prepositions like Lindkvist (1950), Miller,

G & Johnson-Laird, P (1976) and Herskovits (1986), Cienki (1989) is that image schemaintroduces the primigenial conceptual schema, or impetus for the concept That centralschema, however, does not remain unchanged through various contexts, and polysemytakes place In this way, it is pervasively worth mentioning that though the origin of the

concept in may be looked for in light of container schema, and the central schema for in, as

claimed to be derived from bodily experience tentatively gives rise to enclosure prototype

It is found that fifty nine out of in-occurrences in our corpus convey this typical meaning.

The enclosure prototype, which constitutes sense 1 in the radial category, as argued

by such researchers as Vandeloise (1991) and Lindkvist (1950), requires that the LM isthree-dimensional, hollow and materially enclosed on all sides It subsumes the three

semantic modes of the spatial conceptualisation of in: the TR coincides with the interior

region defined by the LM; the TR can move within that interior region, and finally the LMexerts control over the TR, either offering it protection by preventing its access of theexternal entities to it or maintaining it in isolation by preventing its access to the exterior.Accordingly, the total enclosure prototype is instantiated with complements denoting:buildings, parts of buildings; human and animal bodies and parts of them; conveyances like

cars, buses, aeroplanes, trains, ships, etc.; inanimate man-made objects such as wardrobes, bottles, pots, tins, boxes, etc For instance:

(1) … every one of the servants in the house … (Thackeray, 2001: 15)

(2) …, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe (Brontë, 2001: 25)

(3) "And the pain in your chest?" (Brontë, 2001: 202)

(4) …I recalled the time when I had traveled that very road in a coach (Brontë, 2001: 297)

2.5.1.2 Non-prototypical Meanings of “in”

The prototypical schema undergoes two main transformations: partial enclosure and interior region as LM (Cienki, 1989; Navarro-Ferrando, 1998), each of which in turn

gives origin to a new chain of meanings

Partial enclosure is encoded when the boundaries defined by the LM are construed

as incomplete, so that part of the trajector is visible This sense of in occurs with such LMs

as corner, door, frame, seat, balcony, beds, clothes, trees, and so forth, which account for

37 occurrences of in in our corpus Consider the following examples:

(5) … in her night dress…(Thackeray, 2001: 46)

(6) …I knew quite well that I was in my own bed (Brontë, 2001: 75)

This partial enclosure sense gives rise to a novel chain of meanings as follows:

1) Inclusion (sense 2) With regard to Vandeloise (1991), and Talmy, L (1983) inclusion

reflects the sense that the TR is found within the limits of an area or line What hasoccurred here is a focalization on topological relations between TRs and LMs This sense

is used with two-dimensional surface complements like land, country, yard, suburb, park, ground, field, roads, territory, garden, forest, plain, desert, island, peninsula, moors, etc.

or proper names that denote this type of geographical area This sense is also used with

one-dimensional LMs like line, direction, route, etc What is noteworthy here is that LMs

designate areas which are conceptualized as having limits and marking the region where

location of the TR demands the preposition in to express the topological relationship of

coincidence which exists between both elements

(7) … the darling girls caught a colt in a paddock, … (Thackeray, 2001: 70)

(8) … light in the churchyard just over his grave (Brontë, 2001: 78)

(9) … I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer (Brontë, 2001: 347)

As regards expressions such as centre, middle, heart, bottom, etc., the location of the

trajector within an entity with limits is more closely defined that the above-mentioned ones:

(10) I wish it were in the bottom of the Thames… (Thackeray, 2001: 9)

(11)… right in the middle of the garden… (Brontë, 2001: 326)

All in all, 78 out of 681 cases of in collected in our corpus manifest the so-called inclusion meaning

2) Integrated parts in the whole (sense 2a) This meaning requires an image schema

involving a TR as a part of a LM The TR is conceived of as located in the interior regiondefined by the external boundaries of the LM Thus, the LM is likely to be a row, a machine, acollection, a set, a programme, a food, a substance, a chain of mountains, etc which consists of

integral components 18 examples of in in our corpus are found to possess this meaning For

instance:

(12) The pictures are displayed in sets (Chung et al, 2002: 23)

(13) we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick (Brontë, 2001: 268)

3) Gap / object embedded in physical object (sense 2b) For example: a gate in the wall,

vacancies in a company, lacking in courage, etc This sense accounts for 11 examples of in

in our corpus Take a look at the following:

(14) A few enterprises were lacking in well-qualified staff. (Chung et al, 2002: 63)

The second transformation from prototypical schema, i.e interior region as LM is used with LMs that indicate the space within a container like hole, space, crack, leak, slot, etc., and in several fixed collocations like in place of, in lieu of (Navarro-Ferrando, 1998).

For instance:

(15) … English excellently dubbed in place of the Russian dialogue (Chung et al, 2003: 57)

4) Medium (sense 3) The term medium is described as the intervening or surrounding

substances, fluid, conditions or influences, according to Zelinsky-Wibbelt, C (1993) The LMbecomes the medium that fills out the interior region defined by the lost boundaries This

meaning occurs with complements like the air, the sky, space, wind, weather phenomena, climate, chemicals, etc Therefore, the trajector is topologically perceived as coincident with the space filled with these media Linguistic expressions such as in the sun, in the rain, in the air, in silence, in the dark, in the twilight, in the moonlight, in the daylight, in the shadow, etc illustrate

this meaning The medium may also be fluids like

water, wine, snow or solid substances like soil, sugar, sand, mud, etc Important is the evidence that our corpus has 46 occurrences of in designating this meaning Take a look at

the following:

(16) …, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; (Brontë, 2001: 291)

(17) … waited it in silence… (Brontë, 2001: 42)

(18)… There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top (Brontë, 2001: 356)

(19) … go to bed in the dark… (Thackeray, 2001: 66)

5) Material (sense 3a) In Vandeloise’s (1991) account, entities that are made of a material

are conceived of as if included in a medium filled with that material Put differently, the TR isclaimed to be made of or fill with the LM Interestingly, colours are also conceptualized as

materials in this sense We, therefore, can find in ink, in silver, in gold, in blood, in green, etc Evidently, 20 instances of in in the corpus under investigation are supposed to express this sense.

Consider the following:

(20)… everything on that table was in silver, too (Thackeray, 2001: 68)

(21) … embroidery, […] raised pattern in blue, pink, bronze and gold… (Chung et al, 2002: 77)

(22) " It was a landscape in water colours (Brontë, 2001: 272)

3.5.1.3 Metaphorical Extensions

Other meanings of in are derived from spatial meanings as their metaphorical

extensions by varying the referents of the LM and the TR (Levinson, 2001) Put anotherway, meanings in the spatial domain gives rise to a number of metaphorical extensions intodomains other than spatial through people’s imaginative capacities, which represents aprimary concern in this section

3.5.1.3.1 Metaphorical extension of the enclosure prototype

It is interesting to note that the mappings of the enclosure sense onto abstract andsocial domains give rise to a series of metaphorical transferences, which take up 252 out of

681 in-occurrences in our corpus The following are the most remarkable cases:

1) THE HUMAN BODY OR ITS PARTS ARE CONTAINERS FOR EMOTIONS, THOUGHTS, PHYSICAL STATES, VITAL FORCES, AND CHARACTER Actually, the head is conceived of as

a container for thoughts, knowledge, imagination, memories and all the activitiesconnected with the brain; the heart and soul are seen as containers for emotions; the body isregarded as a location of a person’s character, and so on

(23) This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind (Brontë, 2001: 257)

(24) …, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts (Brontë, 2001: 190)

(25)… who can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected orphan? (Thackeray, 2001: 79)

Institutions like political parties, associations, schools, universities, classes, Parliaments, churches, clubs, and so on illustrate this sense

(26) I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower school classes (Thackeray, 2001: 10)