The Effects Of Image Schema Based Instruction On The EFL Learners’ Acquisition Of The Preposition ’to’

With the advancement of cognitive linguistics and the theory of image schema, an increasing number of linguists have started to apply the theory of image schema to the acquisition of polysemous prepositions. The preposition ’to’, however, as a frequently used word in English, has neither been investigated theoretically nor empirically from the perspective of image schema. Therefore, this thesis attempts to explore the effectiveness of the ISBI on Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of the preposition ’to’ by comparing the effectiveness of two types of instruction-the ISBI and the TI on the polysemy of the preposition ’to’.This empirical study aspires to answer the following four questions:1. Is the ISBI more effective than the TI in improving students’acquisition of ’to’?2. Are the six types of image schema instruction more effective than the TI in improving students’ acquisition of ’to’?3. Do the students’ psychological activities reflect the effects of ISBI on their acquisition of ’to’?4. Do the students’ psychological activities reflect the effects of six types of image schema instruction on their acquisition of ’to’?The participants of the present study were 45 freshmen from Hong Kong Space College (Su Zhou Campus). They were divided into two groups- the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG). The EG was taught by the ISBI and the CG was taught by the TI. With regard to the teaching materials, the control group instructed by the traditional approach was provided with 16 senses of the preposition ’to’ and 32 examples, which derived from COLLINS Dictionary. The experimental group instructed by the image schema based teaching was taught the same sentences and image schemas of 16 semantic items of the preposition ’to’ one by one. The testing materials included three parts:pretest, post-test and delayed post-test. The data of teaching effectiveness used in this thesis were from the subjects’achievements in three tests— pretest, post-test and delayed post-test. The data of the subjects’ psychological activities were written reports of the reasons why the participants chose a preposition when they completed the three tests. Statistical analysis of the effects of the ISBI and T1 on Chinese EFL learners’acquisition of the preposition ’to’ was generated by the SPSS 17.0 and EXCEL.Data analysis generated the following findings:1) Both the ISBI and TI can enhance students’interpretation of the preposition ’to’, but the ISBI is more effective than the TI in terms of both short-term and long-term effect.2) In terms of the teaching of specific types of image schema, the path schema teaching can not only help students make remarkable progress temporarily and lastingly, but also is more effective than the TI in teaching the preposition ’to’. Besides, the link schema and balance schema teaching have short-term positive effects on students’ acquisition of the preposition ’to’. However, neither the orientation schema nor the background schema can help students make remarkable progress, while the scale schema has negative effects on students’ acquisition of the preposition ’to’.3) The analysis of students’ psychological activities showed that some students under the ISBI chose appropriate prepositions by ’image schema’ after the teaching experiment, whereas those under the T1 still based their selection of prepositions on ’phrase’,’memory’,’guess’,’feeling’ and ’do not know’.4) Students’ psychological activities under the instruction of six types of image schema, it is revealed that students were considerably affected by path schema, link schema and balance schema. However, they were not soundly influenced by orientation schema, scale schema and background schema.The results of the study have provided both theoretical and pedagogical implications for second language teaching and learning of English prepositions.