（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）认知法在教授高中生英语介词on的应用.pdf

v 摘摘 要要 对于大多数中国学生来说,在学习外语中怎样学习词汇一直是个难题，介词 也不例外，它作为英语语言里应用最广和最频繁的词类之一，经常会令学生迷惑 不解。本文将以介词 on 为研究对象来说明怎样以更系统的方式帮助学生学习英 语介词。 传统的语言学家例如 leech, rauh 和 herskovits 等人只是对介词语义采取描 述性大方式来分析，把重点放在介词与其它词类发生关系时的作用上，而忽视了 一个介词的多种含义之间的内在联系。因此，传统的介词教法通常是将介词的各 个意义分别列出，再用例句加以解释。但是，按照这种传统方法学习介词，往往 导致学生对介词的各个意义死记硬背，很难灵活运用。 恰恰相反，认知语言学家采取了不同的分析角度。认知语言学家例如 brugman，lakoff 和 tyler 等人通过对英语介词 over 等词的研究证明了介词的各 个义项并不是孤立存在的， 而是通过家族相似性相关联并以原型意义为中心形成 一个语义网络。原型意义是最具代表性的，是介词的最初获得的“空间”义。本 文在认知语言学的理论框架下， 探讨了原型理论和意象图式在教授英语空间介词 on 过程中的认知作用。原型理论是认知语言学中的重要观点，由心理学家 rosch 率先提出。 基于原型理论， 原型就是一个范畴类别中最突出、 最具代表性的成员， 所有其它成员与原型具有相似性。语义范畴的义项成员具有不同的地位，他们有 中心、边缘义项之分。langacker 在其认知语法理论中分析了意象图式的三个主 要组成部分：动体(tr)、界标(lm)和路径(path)：tr 是主体，其空间方位有待确 定，lm 为参照物，为主体的方位提供参考，英语空间介词通常用动体和界标之 vi 间的关系图式来表示。 多年来，语言学家和外语教师试图找到一种学习英语介词的有效方法。英语 介词具有很多义项，各个义项既相互联系但又有所区别。从理论的角度出发，核 心义可以帮助英语学习者学习英语介词，掌握不同义项之间的联系，从而更好的 理解介词的其他义项，促进介词深度和广度的学习。 为了证明这一观点， 作者把认知语言学中的原型理论和意象图式运用于外语 教学，并用实验和问卷的方式对其应用的效果和实用性进行研究。本文以彰武高 中高二年级两个班级的 100 名学生组成的两个实验组为研究对象，首先进行前 测，然后采用不同的教学方法，其中一组对象的教学方法中包含原型理论，而另 一组不包含。认知教学法集中探讨了对英语介词 on 各个义项的理解，提出英语 介词 on 的各个义项构成是以核心义为中心的， 其它的各个义项主要是在核心义 的基础上通过意象图式的作用形成的。其后，对这两组对象进行后测以对比他们 的学习效果。测试的结果通过 spss 软件进行分析。在问卷部分，对接受认知教 学方法的一组对象进行问卷调查，了解他们对认知教学法的态度。实验结果表明 从认知的角度教授高中生英语介词是一种有效的方法。 关键字：关键字：认知语言学；介词；原型理论；意象图式；核心意义 ii abstract for most chinese students, how to learn vocabulary is always difficult in the foreign language study, including english prepositions. as one of the most widely and frequently used parts of speech, english prepositions are extremely perplexing for the students. this study introduces a systematic way to help students study english prepositions in terms of on. traditional linguists such as leech, rauh and herskovits take a descriptive method toward the meanings of the prepositions, which put emphasis on the function of prepositions in relation to other word classes and neglect the internal relationships among the complex meanings. the traditional method of teaching prepositions is to list all the meanings of a word, and then illustrate them with sentences. learning prepositions by this method usually leads to the mechanical recitation without cognition of the word meanings. in contrast, cognitive linguists take a different perspective. in their research, the prepositional polysemy takes the important place. for example, brugman, lakoff and tylers research of english preposition over testified that the senses of a lexical word are a semantic network centered around one or more prototypes through cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor and image schema. the various senses are related to each other by family resemblance. prototypical sense is the most typically original spatial meaning of prepositions. within the framework of cognitive linguistics, the study discusses cognitive role of prototype and image schema in the teaching of english spatial preposition on. prototype theory is an important view in iii cognitive linguistics, which is first put forward by psychologist rosch. based on the prototype theory, prototype is the most prominent and typical member with which other members have similarities. members in a category have different status, which are divided into central sense and peripheral sense. langacker analyzes three main parts of image schema in cognitive grammar: tr, lm and path among which the tr is the main body and the lm is reference. the spatial position of the tr is not certain and the lm provides reference point for the tr. english spatial prepositions is usually presented by the image schema of the tr and the lm. linguists and foreign language teachers have been trying to find out an efficient way of learning english for many years. english prepositions have many senses, which are not only related but also distinct. theoretically, primary sense can facilitate learners in studying english prepositions. if students can grasp the relatedness among the senses, they can have a better understanding of other senses which helps students deeply and widely. in order to prove the above view, the author applies the prototype theory and image schema in cognitive linguistics in efl and studies its effectiveness and applicability in terms of an experiment and a questionnaire. this study investigates 100 students in grade two consisting two groups of subjects in zhangwu senior high school. first of all, they are given a pretest and then different teaching methods about the uses of preposition on, one with cognition and the other without. the cognitive approach concentrates on different senses of on by pointing out that other senses of on are derived from primary sense by image schema. the following is to carry out a iv posttest about their study effectiveness. the test results are analyzed by spss. in the questionnaire part, the subjects who receive the cognitive treatment are asked to fill in an attitude questionnaire. the experiment results show that cognitive approach is an efficient way for teachers to teach senior high school students english preposition on. key words: cognitive linguistics, preposition, prototype, primary sense, image schema vii list of figures figure 1: representation of image schema of over 19 figure 2: the protoscene of on44 figure 3: the dependence sense of on 47 figure 4: the hanging sense of on. 49 figure 5: the activity sense of on. 50 figure 6: the belonging sense of on. 52 figure 7: the particular place sense of on 55 figure 8: a semantic network of on60 viii list of tables table 3.1: results before the experiment . 27 table 3.2: time arrangement for the whole task 32 table 3.3: time schedule for each task 32 table 4.1: t-test for the pretest. 34 table 4.2: frequency statistics for the scores of on in the pretest. 35 table 4.3: t-test of the achievements in the posttest. 36 table 4.4: responses to statement 1. 38 table 4.5: responses to statement 2. 39 table 4.6: responses to statement 3. 40 table 4.7: responses to statement 4. 41 table 4.8: responses to statement 5. 42 ix list of abbreviations efl english as a foreign language tr trajectory lm landmark i acknowledgments there are many people who have influenced my study and made this dissertation possible. first, i wish to express my profound gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor professor zhang ping, whose comments, observations and insightful guidance are invaluable for the completion of this work. i am very grateful to her for all her help and advice, and especially for inspiring much of this research as well as for encouraging me while i was writing this dissertation. in spite of professor zhangs busy schedule, she always made use of time to ensure that i would complete this research. i will always remain indebted to her. i would also like to thank many of my classmates and friends with whom i have had many fruitful discussions about thesis. finally, i must thank my family, who have provided love and support all over these years. my mother and father have always believed in me, which has helped me to get to where i am now. most importantly, i want to thank my husband for his love and understanding. he never complained when i had to spend a weekend working on this dissertation, and always offered to encourage me when i was feeling down. 1 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 the importance of prepositions in efl learning and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (gettysburg address, 1863) the above sentence is quoted from gettysburg address. because of the use of three prepositions, the speech is forceful, concise and vivid. as closed-class words, prepositions are quite limited in number. however, prepositions are one of the most frequently used parts of speech in english. although prepositions are easy in form, they are the most difficult for the learners to learn. some beginners think prepositions are easy because they seem to be very simple. beginners learn “in the classroom”, “on the desk” easily. but when they learn a little further, they will be puzzled by “in a hurry”, “on a basis of”. and they will be at a loss why “in a mess” may indicate state. what makes the prepositions more difficult and much more confusing is that prepositions can form a number of set-phrases and idioms, most of which can not be explained and have to be memorized one by one. facing to such embarrassing difficulties, beginners should try to memorize the various uses of the prepositions while mechanically learning to use a few very simple and clear uses of prepositions indicating time and place. even though english prepositions are small in number, they are very important in efl learning. this can be seen from high frequency in use. about 100 english 2 prepositions are frequently used. however, a small part of english prepositions play an important role in our daily communication. carter and mccarthy listed 50 most frequently used words from 330,000 words of cambridge international corpus (cic) written data (mostly newspaper and magazines) and 330,000 words of spoken data, which revealed that prepositions dominated top frequency of both lists, among them are with, to, from, at, in, of, by, for, and on. a poor command of a small number of high-frequency words must have great probability to hinder a learner from developing full competence in language use and comprehension. some cognitive linguists even put that the use of preposition by language learners is a valid measure of their proficiency in english. prepositions are one of the most frequently used parts of speech in english. on the other hand, english prepositions have been shown to be extremely difficult for language learners to acquire and continue to pose problems for learners even at the very advanced level. the difficulties faced by learners highlight the need for an effective teaching method. we believe that the cognitive analysis has the potential of providing a number of implications for the teaching of english prepositions. prepositions are among the most frequently used and most polysemous words in english. most of efl teachers and students are painfully aware of the fact that when it comes to mastering a foreign language, such as english, one of the most troublesome areas is the usage of prepositions. learning how to use prepositions correctly in a foreign language is an enormous task, one that is usually not accomplished in the learning process, and one that many learners never manage to 3 completely master. as lindstromberg points out, less than 10% of upper-level efl students can use and understand prepositions correctly. 1.2 the objective of the study it is a new way to analyze spatial english prepositions from a cognitive view, which enables people to have a clear idea about the relatedness among the different meanings. the meanings of a word are not inherent and eternal, but come from the use of people in different language environments instead. this kind of use is not arbitrary, but out of humans cognitive association. in addition, the boundary of human category is not certain situation, which depends on peoples cognitive ability. mastering the mystery and rule of this will be of great significance in foreign language teaching. cognitive linguistics believes that the metaphorical projection from concrete to abstract domain is the principle in control of the relationship among different meanings of the prepositions. with the understanding of this point, the teachers can have a good explanation of the relatedness between the concrete meaning and abstract meaning, though they may not predict the development of meanings. thus it can not only help students understand the rule for the meaning development, it is but also of great help in improving the students reading comprehension ability. for example, the understanding of the role played by the spatial concept in meaning extension will be of some help in understanding the multidimensionality of the meaning of prepositions. hence, it is easier to understand other abstract meanings based on their spatial meaning. in fact, the metaphorical meaning of polysemy in any language derives from 4 the prototypical meaning. this offers a good way of studying the metaphorical extension of english and other languages. the objective of the thesis is to investigate the applicability or feasibility of adopting cognitive linguistics in efl. the thesis will propose the teaching method based on the prototype theory in cognitive linguistics. the method integrates the cognitive strategy with the commonly-used approaches in teaching the english preposition on in an efl classroom. the main reason for selecting on as the subject of the study is high frequency of use but less inadequacy of study. my hypothesis is that the employment of cognition in explaining the meanings of on will facilitate efl and make the learners understanding of different senses of the english prepositions better. this will be proved by carrying out an experiment and a questionnaire with two groups of senior high school students. 1.3 the layout of the dissertation the organization of this paper is as follows: chapter one is a general introduction which introduces the importance of prepositions in efl learning and the objective of the study. the last part is to present the structure of the whole thesis. chapter two is literature review. firstly, it introduces briefly the definition of spatial concept. secondly, it presents the cognitive linguistics including prototype theory, image schema, as well as protoscene, distinct senses and semantic network. thirdly, it focuses on the traditional studies on prepositions such as cooper and leech, herskovits and rauh. at last, it is concerned with the main cognitive studies on 5 prepositions. chapter three is the main part of the thesis, which lists the hypothesis and illustrates in detail the design of an experiment and a questionnaire, as well as the procedure for their implementation. chapter four is devoted to the results of the study including pretest, posttest and questionnaire. from the results, the prototype method and semantic network network are applied in the teaching english prepositions. here cognitive approach used in the teaching prepositions is explained in detail. after the explanation, discussion section is given. finally, the conclusion part summarizes the present study. this part contains major findings, implication, limitations and suggestions of the present study. 6 chapter 2 literature review 2.1 the definition of spatial concept survival space is one significant behavioral environment, most concerned with human forefathers. space, occupying a privileged place in language and in cognitive system, is given the primacy. this may be because spatial relations are relatively concrete, as they are the relationships that are direct to us human beings and thus easily accessible. spatial perception and cognition is fundamental to human abilities to navigate through space, identify and locate objects, and track entities in motion. the spatial orientations are employed more extensively to help human beings know more about the world. space exists in the objective world. people who are living in such a world, can sense it through their interaction with the world as well as to express it through their languages. because of the primacy of space, in the human interaction with the outside world, the spatial concepts are initially formed in human beings brain. spatial concepts arise directly from human experience. the earliest concepts have something to do with space, and space perception is the most basic capability that the primitives possessed during their evolution. furthermore, the study by piaget shows that spatial concept is one of the earliest concepts during infants cognitive development. thus we can see that space is very important in human cognitive system (zhang hui, 1998). the importance of space is greatly reflected in language. space is at the very heart of all conceptualization and consequently at the very heart of cognitive 7 semantics that seeks to explore “the fundamental, spatial basis of conceptualization in and through language” (levinson, 2003, pp. 62-69). in english, spatial relations are mainly expressed by closed-class forms. a closed class is a relatively small set of linguistic forms that adds members only rarely. these forms “are not free to express just anything within these conceptual domains; but are limited to particular aspects and combinations of aspects, ones that can be thought to constitute the structure of those domains” (talmy, 2000, pp. 180-181). that is to say, spatial representation may form the basis for more abstract thought and representation. it has been noticed that certain conceptual systems such as time, kinship, emotion are structured by human conception of space through metaphor. prepositions as spatial expressions are highly representative of the nature of linguistic meaning. it becomes a canonical research topic in cognitive linguistics. 2.2 cognitive linguistics 2.2.1 the definition of cognitive linguistics cognitive linguistics is a new approach to the study of language that emerged in 1970s as a reaction against the dominant generative paradigm which pursues an autonomous view of language. different from the traditional structuralism approach and gen