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POSTER (PO)
424
PO 11 Kompetenzen von SchülerInnen
How to Use the Right Preposition in English? A Cognitive
Linguistic Approach
Dienstag (6.9.2011), Aula vor dem Hörsaal B, 13:30 Uhr - 15:00 Uhr
Xin Song, Wolfgang Schnotz
Universität Koblenz-Landau
song@uni-landau.de
In secondary school, English prepositions which are characterized by polysemy, multi-function
and high frequency, emerge a lot in English textbooks. A major problem is that students often
show low achievement in this area. The strategy commonly employed by teachers is teaching
the multiple sense of preposition by rote. However, concerning the field of cognitive linguistics,
new findings have a great impact on the methodologies of foreign language teaching and learning,
such as the cognitive linguistic inspired methods developed by Tyler and Evans (2004). In
this investigation, the aim is to examine the level of German students focusing on “in”, “on” and
“at”, and in which way teachers could teach with well-structured cognitive approaches. The test
bases on the theory of domain that prepositional meanings have three domains: the spatial,
temporal and abstract domain (Radden and Dirven, 2007). It includes 9 booklets with two parts
17 items focusing on cognitive grammar and cognitive semantics which refer to these three
prepositions in three domains. The competence step requires the knowledge of different connotation
of each preposition as well as each domain. Doing this, students have to distinguish
the similarity among these three prepositions and perceive the difference among three domains.
The results indicate that German learners of English produce systematical errors in their
use of prepositions which are rooted in inadequate image schemata. Therefore, teachers should
support this complex process in an adequate way. Pointing the similarity and difference with
cognitive linguistic approaches, students would recognize the mechanism and make improvements.
In short, this investigation shows in which way teachers would teach students systematically
while students are working on preposition tasks at different difficulty level.
Radden, G & Dirven, R (Eds.), Cognitive English Grammar (pp. 303-334). Cognitive Linguistics in Practice 2.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Tyler, A & Evans, V.(2004). Applying Cognitive Linguistics to pedagogical grammar: The case of over. In: Michel
Achard and Susanne Niemeier (Eds.), Cognitive Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and Foreign Language
Teaching (pp.259-282). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.