英语论文网

ions: Image Schema and Metaphor
Our understanding and perception of spatial preposition is mainly based on spatialschema and image schema. On the empiricism cognitive view, from figure-ground theory(Rubin, 1915) to image schema theory (Johnson & Lakoff, 1987) and to trajectory-landmarktheory (Langaker, 1990), and this process promoted the further development of spatialprepositions’ semantic meanings and the formation of their abstract meanings. The originalnotion of image schema was first put forward in Metaphors We Live By (George Lakoff &Mark Johnson, 1980). In 1987, Lakoff indicated a further definition “Image schemas arerelatively simple structures that constantly recur in our bodily experience.” Image schema isan important form of conceptual structure in the cognitive semantics literature. It is proposedas primitive level of cognitive structure underlying metaphor and which provides a linkbetween body experience and higher cognitive domains such as language (Mark Johnson,1987). According to these theories, Johnson pointed out several forms of schema which havebeen widely used in many studies, such as center-periphery schema, containment schema,cycle schema, end-of-path schema, force schema, link schema, part-whole schema, pathschema, scale schema and verticality schema.At the beginning of metaphor history, it primarily played an ornamental role on speech,such as named a thing with something else. Usually it was applied in poetry and rhetoric toachieve aesthetic and novelty effect. Over the last twenty years, more and more researcherspaid attention to metaphor from a cognitive perspective. Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff &Johnson, 1980) marked the beginning of a cognitive approach to metaphor study. Theythought metaphor made people understand conceptions of the abstract objects through otherfamiliar objects. Lakoff and Turner (1989) pointed out that metaphors allowed us tounderstand one domain of experience in terms of another one.
……………

2.2 Literature Review of Studies of Spatial Prepositions Acquisition
In this section, we will review the previous researches relevant to English prepositionacquisition. There are three main types of studies:The first kind of studies researches spatial cognitive factors, like prototypes, theinfluence factors’ differences between native language and target language on spatial semanticstructures. Ijaz did a research which examined the conception that native speakers andlearners attributed to various English prepositions in 1986．The results indicated that the EFLlearners differed from the native speakers in the semantic relations they attributed to thewords, and they were good at using the central meaning of the prepositions. The results of thesentence completion task indicated that first language (L1) influence resulted in errors and inavoidance, especially where all English prepositions hadn’t got a equivalent translation in theL1. The author drew a conclusion that “the principle of prototypicality forms the basis of thestructure of semantic categories in all languages” (Ijaz, 1986: 448), and influenced thedifficulties that EFL learners met in acquiring target language’s lexical meanings. In 1990,Correa-Beningfield conducted a study to determine the prototypes of the English prepositionsin, on, at and over, and those of the corresponding Spanish preposition en and sobre; toexamine first language (L1) transfer in the use of sec本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。