The Effect of Image-Schema-Based Instruction on Learning/ Acquiring Polysemous Prepositions
الكلمات المفتاحية:
Image-Schema-Based Instruction، Learning، Acquiring، Polysemous Prepositionsالملخص
Polysemous prepositions represent a real challenge for students and teachers alike. The many meanings of these words have always been pedagogically treated in a piecemeal fashion and as largely arbitrary. This makes their learning more complicated because learners keep on experiencing difficulty with their semantics. However, the use of a new way to teach polysemous prepositions such as applying image-schemas seems to be very promising. This paper aims at presenting the characteristics of the semantics of polysemous prepositions and reports on an experimental study which examines the efficacy of image-schema-based instruction on learning the semantics of the English prepositions above, across, in, on, out, over and through. It also investigates the students’ attitudes towards the usefulness of this form of instruction. Eighty students studying English as a foreign language at the University des Fréres Mentouri, Constantine were chosen randomly. They were divided into a Control Group and a Treatment Group. Comparisons of pre-test and post-test results show that the group who received instruction based on image-schemas experienced a dramatic change in their understanding of the semantics of the target prepositions. On the basis of the results of the students’ questionnaire and experiment, it can be deduced that image-schema-based instruction plays an important role in improving the learning of polysemous prepositions, and it can serve as a vital tool in teaching them.
التنزيلات
المراجع
Brenda, M. (2014). The Cognitive perspective on the polysemy of the English preposition
Over. UK: The British Library.
Coventry, K. R., & Garrod, S. C. (2004). Saying, seeing and acting. The psychological
semantics of spatial prepositions. Essays in Cognitive Psychology Series. Hove and
New York: Psychology Press.
Croft, W. & Cruse D. A. (2004). Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Csábi, S. (2004). A cognitive linguist view of polysemy in English and its implications for
teaching. In M. Achard and S. Niemayer (eds), Cognitive linguistics second Language
acquisition and foreign language teaching (pp. 233-56). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Denning, K., Kessler, B., and Leben, W.R.. (2007). English vocabulary elements, New York,
Oxford University Press.
Evans, V. (2007). A glossary of cognitive. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Elbaum and Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press.
Evans, V., & Tyler, A. (2005). Applying cognitive linguistics to pedagogical grammar: The
English prepositions of verticality. Revista Brasileira de Linguistica Aplicada, 5 (2),11-
.
Gärdenfors, P. (2007). Cognitive Semantics and Image Schemas with Embodied Forces. In I.
M. Krois, M. Rosengren, A. Steidele 81 Westerkamp D. (Eds.), Embodiment in cognition
and culture. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamin.
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning, imagination,
and reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Knowles, M. & Moon, R. (2006). Introducing metaphor, London: Routledge.
Lakoff, G., (1987). Woman, fire and dangerous things. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar, Vol. 1: Theoretical
prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lindstromberg, S. (2010). English prepositions explained. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Lipka, L. (2002). English lexicology lexical structure, word Semantics, and word-Formation
(3rd ed.). Tubingen: Gunter Narr.
Mandler, J.M., & Pagán Cánovas, C. (2014). On defining image-schemas. Language and
Cognition, 6 (4), 1-23. doi:10.1017/langcog.2014.14
McGregor, W. (2009). Linguistics: An introduction. London: Continuum.
Murphy, G.L. (2002). The big book of concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Murphy, M. L. (2010). Lexical meaning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morimoto, S., & Loewen, S. (2007). A comparison of the effects of image-schema- based
instruction and translation-based instruction on the acquisition of L2 polysemous words.
Language Teaching Research, 11(3), 347–372.
Nerlich, B. (2003). Polysemy: past and present. In B. Nerlich, Z. Todd, V. Herman, and D.
D. Clarke (eds), Polysemy: Flexible Patterns of meaning in mind and language.
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 49–76.
Radden, G., & Dirven, R. (2007). Cognitive English grammar. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Radden, G. & Kôvecses, Z. (1999). Towards a theory of metonymy. In K. U. Panther & G.
Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 17- 59). Amsterdam and
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Ricoeur, P. (1977). The rule of metaphor: Multi-disciplinary studies in the creation of
meaning in language (R. Czerny, K. McLaughlin, & J. Costello, Trans.). Toronto: The
University of Toronto Press.
Riemer, N. (2010). Introducing semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Saeed, J. (2009). Semantics (3rd ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Soares da Silva, A. (2003). Image-schemas and category coherence: the case of the
Portuguese verb deixar. In H. Cuyckens, R. Dirven & J. Taylor (eds.), Cognitive
Approaches to Lexical Semantics (pp. 281- 322). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Taylor, J. R. (1993). Prepositions: Patterns of polusemization and strategies of
disambiguation. In C. Zelinsky-Wibbelt (Ed.), The semantics of prepositions. New York:
Mouton de Gruyter.
Tyler, A. and V. Evans (2003). The Semantics of English prepositions. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tyler, A., Mueller, C., & Ho, V. (2010a). Applying cognitive linguistics to learning the
Semantics of English to, for and at: An Experimental Investigation. Vigo Internationl
Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8, 181- 206.
Ungerer, F. & Schmid, H. J. (2006). An Introduction to cognitive linguistics (2nd ed).
Harlow: Pearson Longman.
Yates, J. (1999). The ins and the outs of prepositions: A guide book for ESL students.
Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron Educational Series.
Yule, G. (2006). Oxford practice grammar advanced: Oxford practice grammar. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Note:
- In this paper, the terms sense and meaning are used interchangeably
