Cognitive Study On The Acquisition Of Spatial Preposition In By Chinese EFL Learners

In order to find out what arouses the semantic acquisition difficulty of Englishspatial prepositions for Chinese EFL learners, scholars have done a great manyresearches from various perspectives, of which the cognitive semantic analyses are farmore visual, scientific and systematical. In cognitive linguistics, the image schema isa storage pattern of the meaning in brain. More specifically, the core spatial meaningof a preposition extends out non-core spatial meanings by highlighting a certainprofile of the image schema prototype or projecting image schemata into abstractdomains. As a result, the polysemy phenomenon emerges with various cognitivedifficulties, posing the semantic acquisition difficulty of spatial prepositions forChinese EFL learners.Although the cognitive semantic analyses of prepositions with the guide of theimage schema theory are theoretically reasonable, there sill remains someinadequacies and shortages in these theoretical analyses. Moreover, the theoreticalresults may not completely conform to the actual semantic acquisition by ChineseEFL learners. So it is necessary to elaborate semantic system described by imageschemata and to examine the matching between the theoretical analyses and the actualsemantic acquisition by Chinese EFL learners. First, semantic items of preposition inare analyzed by dissecting their corresponding image schemata. Next, a semanticnetwork is constructed by image schemata on the basis of cognitive organizationprinciples to predict the semantic acquisition of various senses associated withpreposition in and the recognition of their corresponding image schemata by ChineseEFL learners. Then, an experimental test is conducted to check whether or not thetheoretical analyses are consistent with the actual semantic acquisition of prepositionin by Chinese EFL learners. Simultaneously, two hypotheses need to be verified. One is that the saliency and the accessibility of image schemata influence the semanticrecognition and memorization of preposition in by Chinese EFL learners. The other isthat the cognitive analyses of the meanings associated with preposition in correspondto the actual semantic acquisition of preposition in by Chinese EFL learners.Thirty-two college students (non-English majors) with the same Englishproficiency of CET4(College English Test4) were recruited as the subjects for thisstudy. The data from the experimental test show that Chinese EFL learners’ actualsemantic acquisition of preposition in is partially consistent with the theoreticalanalyses. The actual semantic acquisition of spatial senses associated with prepositionin by Chinese EFL learners is similar to the theoretical prediction, while therecognition of image schemata (except image schema prototype) is contrary to thetheoretical prediction. As for the acquisition of the metaphorical senses of prepositionin, the actual semantic acquisition by Chinese EFL learners do not form a hierarchicalsequence as predicted by the theoretical analysis. Also, the recognition of imageschema deviates from the theoretical analyses. Moreover, it is surprising to find outthat Chinese EFL learners’ semantic acquisition of metaphorical senses is even betterthan that of spatial senses, after contrasting the acquisition results of spatial sensesand metaphorical senses of preposition in. However, the image schemata recognitionrate of metaphorical senses is lower than the spatial senses’. Judging from all theresults, we can see although the theoretical analysis on the foundation of imageschema theory can not wholly predict the semantic acquisition of preposition in byChinese EFL learners, image schemata indeed have some influences on the semanticdistinction and judgment of preposition in for Chinese EFL learners.