台灣學生英語介系詞之第二語言習得

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master Thesis Graduate Institute of English National Taiwan Normal University. 台灣學生英語介系詞之第二語言習得 Second Language Acquisition of English Spatial Prepositions by Taiwanese Students. 指導教授：陳純音博士 Advisor: Dr. Chun-yin Doris Chen 研究生：楊雅婷 Student: Ya-ting Gina Yang. 中華民國一百零二年六月 June, 2013.

(2) 摘要. 本研究旨在探討以中文為母語的學生對四類英語介系詞之第二語言習得，主要的議題包括對不同空間類型的介系詞之習得順序、介系詞之習得是否受到空間概念(接觸及非接觸)的影響、介系詞在具體及抽象意義上的習得是否不同、題型效應以及英語能力是否影響介系詞之習得。本研究採用兩個實驗題型：文法判斷題與語句完成題，試題皆以情境式對話呈現。受試者為八十位以中文為母語的大一學生以及二十位英語母語人士，依據其英語程度，分為初、中初、中高以及高四組。整體實驗結果顯示，受試者在學習英語介系詞時，受到空間概念詮釋、第一語言轉移以及第二語言複雜度的影響。根據受試者的表現，在四種空間類型的介系詞中，面及體的介系詞表現最好，最易習得；而點及線的介系詞最讓受試者感到最困難。在空間概念的影響上，蘊含接觸概念的英語介系詞較易習得，而受試者對於蘊含非接觸概念的英語介系詞表現較差，較難習得。此外，受試者對介系詞在具體意義上的表現較好，而對於介系詞在抽象意義上的表現較差，顯示介系詞的抽象意義較難習得。在題型效應方面，受試者在文法判斷題的表現比語句完成題的表現來得好，顯示介系詞之理解優先於其表達。另外，英語程度的因素也證實會影響介系詞之習得，受試者的表現隨著其英語能力的提升而進步。. 關鍵字：空間介系詞、空間概念、情境效應、題型效應、語言程度效應、第二語言習得. i.

(3) ABSTRACT. English prepositions are considered notoriously difficult that even learners at a high proficiency level in English may still have to contend with them (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 1983, 1999). However, little research explored the issue in both comprehension and production of English spatial prepositions by Chinese EFL learners. Therefore, the present study aims to conduct an empirical study to investigate Chinese learners’ acquisition of four types of English spatial prepositions. A comprehension task (i.e., grammaticality judgment task) and a production task (i.e., sentence completion task) were designed, both of which were presented in conversations. Factors such as difficulty order, spatial information effects, context effects, task effects, and L2 proficiency effects were examined. The subjects were eighty college freshmen in Taiwan and they were further divided into four groups (low, mid-low, mid-high, and advanced) according to their English proficiency levels. In addition, twenty native speakers of English were recruited as a control group. The overall results showed that the four geometric types of English prepositions exhibited different degrees of difficulty. Surface and Volume were found the easiest while Point and Line were found the most difficult to acquire. Moreover, English prepositions with the Contact spatial information were found easier than those with the Non-contact spatial information for the subjects to acquire, due to L1 interference and L2 semantic complexity. Furthermore, it was found that our L2 learners performed better on literal contexts, whereas they had more difficulty in acquiring English prepositions in metaphorical contexts owing to the lack of transparency and a high degree of conventionality of some extended meanings. With regard to task effects, our subjects consistently performed better on the comprehension task than the production task, implying that comprehension preceded production in L2 acquisition. Finally, with regard to L2 proficiency effects, it was found that the subjects at ii.

(4) higher proficiency levels performed better than the lower proficiency groups, and the subjects’ performances improved with the increase in their proficiency levels.. Keywords: spatial prepositions, spatial information, context effects, task effects, proficiency effects, second language acquisition. iii.

(5) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance of many people. I am very grateful to those who have contributed in direct or indirect ways to this thesis. First of all, I would like to express my indebtedness to my thesis advisor, Dr. Chun-yin Doris Chen who led me into the field of second language acquisition. In the process of my thesis writing, her expert suggestions and guidance helped me to develop and organize the thesis and her patience and encouragement always made me keep looking on the bright side and working with confidence. Further, I would like to show my deepest respect and gratitude to my thesis committee members, Prof. Nai-xian Lindsey Chen and Prof. Shu-hui Eileen Chen for their insightful remarks and constructive advice on my thesis proposal. Their meticulous reading and invaluable comments and suggestions improve the quality of this thesis. Many thanks are also owed to Tammy Chang, Janet Chu, Irene Lu, Bess Tzean, and Julian Yang by alphabetical order. Without their kindly help, I could not have recruited enough subjects and collect data efficiently. I am also grateful to those English native speakers who were willing to spend their time participating in the experiment. In addition, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to all the other professors who taught me during my graduate school year at the Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU): Dr. Yung-O Biq, Dr. Hsaio-hui Chan, Dr. Maio-hsia Chang, Dr. Miao-ling Hsieh, Dr. Jen-I Li, Dr. Hsueh-O Lin, Dr. Hsi-yao Su, Dr. Kwock-ping Tse, Dr. Hsiao-hung Wu by alphabetical order. Their teaching and intellectual inspirations brought me to the immense field of linguistics. Moreover, my gratitude is extended to all my classmates of the MA Program in Linguistics, NTNU: Alison Chan, Katherine Chen, Helen Chien, Lina Chiu, Monica Hsu, Abbie Hsu, Sam Jheng, Ann Lee, Vicky Lin, Stella Liu, Bonnie Wei, and Bebe Wu by. iv.

(6) alphabetical order. I gained much benefit from their knowledge, experiences, and friendship. Special thanks go to my forever warmhearted great friends: Kevin Cheng, Jerry Chuang, Winnie Hsiao, Claire Huang, Craig Hwang, and Pomme Tasi for all the laughter, courage and support during my lows and highs, and for contributing for all the great moments and wonderful memories that I always carry in my heart. Last and most importantly, I am forever grateful to my beloved family for showing me support, love and understanding, for believing in me when I did not, for listening and reasoning with me. They are always tolerant of my emotional fluctuations and give me support when I encounter difficulties. I would like to dedicate this thesis to them.. v.

(7) TABLE OF CONTENTS CHINESE ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. i ENGLISH ABSTRACT................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ ix LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... xi Chapter One Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 1.1 Motivation ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Theoretical Background ................................................................................. 4 1.3 Research Questions ........................................................................................ 8 1.4 Significance of the Study ............................................................................... 8 1.5 Terms Defined in the Study ............................................................................. 9 1.6 Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................. 9 Chapter Two. Literature Review .............................................................................. 10. 2.1 Theoretical Approaches to Spatial Prepositions .......................................... 10 2.1.1 Landau and Jackendoff’s (1993) Approach ......................................... 10 2.1.2 Coventry and Garrod’s (2004) Functional Geometric Account .......... 14 2.1.3 Summary .............................................................................................. 19 2.2 Previous Empirical Studies of English Spatial Prepositions ....................... 20 2.2.1 Coventry, Carmichael and Garrod (1994) ............................................. 20 2.2.2 Lin (2004) .............................................................................................. 23 2.2.3 Hsu (2005) ........................................................................................... 26 2.2.4 Lin (2009) .............................................................................................. 28 2.2.5 Summary ............................................................................................. 30 2.3 A New Approach to Spatial Prepositions in English and Chinese ............... 32 2.3.1 Point Description ................................................................................... 33 2.3.1.1 Contact ..................................................................................... 33 2.3.1.2 Non-Contact ........................................................................... 34. vi.

(8) 2.3.2 Line Description .................................................................................... 35 2.3.2.1 Contact ..................................................................................... 36 2.3.2.2 Non-Contact ........................................................................... 37 2.3.3 Surface Description ............................................................................. 38 2.3.3.1 Contact ..................................................................................... 38 2.3.3.2 Non-Contact ........................................................................... 39 2.3.4 Volume Description ............................................................................. 40 2.3.4.1 Contact ..................................................................................... 40 2.3.4.2 Non-Contact ........................................................................... 41 2.3.5 Summary .............................................................................................. 42 2.4 Summary of Chapter Two ............................................................................ 44 Chapter Three Research Design................................................................................ 46 3.1 Subjects .......................................................................................................... 46 3.2 Methods and Materials ................................................................................... 47 3.2.1 The Comprehension Task ...................................................................... 48 3.2.2 The Production Task .............................................................................. 50 3.3 Procedures ...................................................................................................... 52 3.3.1 Pilot Study ............................................................................................. 53 3.3.2 Formal Study ......................................................................................... 54 3.3.3 Scoring and Statistical Analysis ............................................................ 55 3.4 Summary of Chapter Three ............................................................................ 56 Chapter Four Results and Discussion ....................................................................... 57 4.1 Learning Difficulty of Geometric Types of English Prepositions ................. 57 4.1.1 Overall Findings ................................................................................. 57 4.1.2 General Discussion ............................................................................. 62 4.2 Contact vs. Non-Contact Spatial Information ................................................ 64 4.2.1 Overall Findings ................................................................................. 64 4.2.2 General Discussion ............................................................................. 67 4.3 Literal vs. Metaphorical Contexts .................................................................. 70 4.3.1 Overall Findings ................................................................................. 70 vii.

(9) 4.3.2 General Discussion ............................................................................. 72 4.4 Task Effects .................................................................................................... 74 4.4.1 Overall Findings ................................................................................. 74 4.4.2 General Discussion ............................................................................. 77 4.5 Proficiency Effects ......................................................................................... 79 4.6 Summary of Chapter Four ............................................................................. 81 Chapter Five Conclusion........................................................................................... 82 5.1 Summary of the Major Findings .................................................................... 82 5.2 Pedagogical Implications ............................................................................... 83 5.3 Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for Future Research ........ 84. Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 86 Appendix A: Results of the Pilot Study ....................................................................... 91 Appendix B: Consent Form ......................................................................................... 93 Appendix C: The Sentence Completion Task .............................................................. 94 Appendix D: The Grammaticality Judgment Task ...................................................... 98. viii.

(10) LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1 An Example of the LS Task in Coventry et al.’s (1994) Study ..................21 Table 2-2 An Example of the SC Task in Coventry et al.’s (1994) Study ...............21 Table 2-3 Major Findings and Limitations of the Previous Studies ...........................31 Table 2-4 A Comparison of Spatial Prepositions in English and Chinese .................43 Table 3-1 A Summary of the Subjects ........................................................................47 Table 3-2 Test Items Designed for the Grammatical Judgment Task ......................49 Table 3-3 A Test Sample for Part I of the GJ Task ..................................................50 Table 3-4 A Test Sample for Part II of the GJ Task .................................................50 Table 3-5 Test Items Designed for the Sentence Completion Task ..........................51 Table 3-6 A Test Sample for Part I of the SC Task ..................................................52 Table 3-7 A Test Sample for Part II of the SC Task .................................................52 Table 4-1 Subjects’ Overall Performances on the Four Geometric Types of English Prepositions..................................................................................58 Table 4-2 The p-values for the within-group Differences among the Four Geometric Types of English Prepositions ..................................................................60 Table 4-3 The p-values for the Four Geometric Types of English Prepositions ........61 Table 4-4 Subjects’ Overall Performances on the Contact and Non-Contact Spatial Information in the Four Geometric Types of English Prepositions ..........65 Table 4-5 The p-values for the within-group Differences between the Contact and Non-Contact Spatial Information about English Prepositions ..................66 Table 4-6 The p-values for the Contact and Non-contact Spatial Information about the English Prepositions............................................................................66 Table 4-7 Subjects’ Overall Performances on English Prepositions in Literal and Metaphorical Contexts ..............................................................................70 Table 4-8 The p-values for the within-group Difference between the English Prepositions in Literal and Metaphorical Contexts .....................71 Table 4-9 The p-values for English Prepositions in Literal and Metaphorical Contexts ..............................................................................72 ix.

(11) Table 4-10 Subjects’ Overall Performances on the SC Task and the GJ Task ...........75 Table 4-11 The p-values for the within-group Differences on the SC Task and on the GJ Task ........................................................................................76 Table 4-12 The p-values for the SC Task and the GJ Task ........................................76. x.

(12) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2-1 Component Parts of the Functional Geometric Framework ...................16 Figure 3-1 The Procedures of the Study ...................................................................56 Figure 4-1 Overall Performances of Each Group on the Four Geometric Types of English Prepositions .............................................................................59 Figure 4-2 Overall Performances of Each Group on the Contact and Non-Contact Spatial Information ..............................................................65 Figure 4-3 Overall Performances of Each Group on English Prepositions in Literal and Metaphorical Contexts .......................................................................71 Figure 4-4 Overall Performances of Each Group on the SC Task and the GJ Task ...75 Figure 4-5 Subjects’ Performances on the Four Geometric Types of English Prepositions in the SC Task and in the GJ Task ..........................77 Figure 4-6 The Developmental Stages of the English Prepositions ...........................79 Figure 5-1 The Meaning Extension of the Preposition at ...........................................84. xi.

(13) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION. 1.1 Motivation English prepositions play a key role not only in clarifying relationships between time and space but also in expressing of abstract notions carried by a verb. Different abstract meanings and functions of prepositions are derived from the interaction between our bodily experiences and spatial experiences (Langacker 1987, Brugman and Lakoff 1988, Lindstromberg 1996, 1997). Some studies of spatial categorizations in second language acquisition lay great stress on prototypicality (Ijaz 1986) and others focus more on conceptual mappings, acquisition orders, facilitating factors affecting the acquisition of spatial relations (Becker and Carroll 1997). Besides, many cross-linguistic studies have found that among different spatial relations, containment and contiguity/support are acquired first in the acquisition sequence (Johnston and Slobin 1979, Johnston 1985a, Sinha, Thorseng and Hayashi 1994). These studies show that English prepositions are difficult for EFL learners. In Taiwan, there have not been many studies focusing on L2 learners’ acquisition of English prepositions (Hsu 2006, Lin 2004, Lin 2009); however, some studies concerning English writing have stated that English prepositional phrases are among the major misuses to account for learner errors (Chen 2002, Tang 2004, Tseng 2002). In spite of various meanings of prepositions, as Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) pointed out, in order to help students learn more abstract senses of prepositions, familiarizing them with the spatial relations is the first step, since one preposition may generate distinct spatial relationships, as illustrated below. (1) The man is in the house. (2) There is a picture on the wall. (3) They both live on this street. 1.

(14) (4) Two police officers are standing at the corner. (5) The boy throws the mud at the wall. (6) Mom likes shopping at the supermarket. Sentence (1) shows that the preposition in only has a spatial meaning (i.e., enclosure) while the preposition on as in (2) and (3) has two spatial meanings (i.e., contact, along) and the preposition at as in (4-6) denotes three different spatial meanings (i.e., point, target, and general area). It is likely that these different senses may increase complication for EFL learners when they identify spatial information of on and at. Furthermore, the learning difficulty will also increase when these prepositions are extended to metaphorical contexts. As shown in the following examples, other than the spatial sense, the preposition in can be used to demonstrate the temporal sense in (7) and much more abstract senses in (8) and (9). (7) There are two semesters in a school year. (8) Vacuum cleaners are in common use. (9) She spoke more in disappointment than in anger. In addition, the difficulties of learning English prepositions with different usages have been pointed out by some previous studies (Khampang 1974, Rastall 1994). The most common difficulty L2 learners confronted with is the loose correspondence between L1 and L2 in their spatial uses of prepositions. The difference between L1 and L2 can be explicated by the one-to-many correspondence in which zai in Chinese corresponds to in, on, or at in English. As (10)-(12) show, zai in Chinese is corresponding to on, in, and at in English. (10) a. Ta zhu. zai. 3SG live at. Zhongzheng lu. (shang).. Zhongzheng road. (on). b. He/She lives on Zhongzheng Road. (11) a. Ta zai 3SG at. jiaotang (li) daogao. church. (in) pray. b. He/She is praying in the church. 2.

(15) (12) a. Ta zai 3SG at. juhui shang. yudao. yi. party on. meet. a. wei. gaozhong. CL senior high school. tongxue. classmate. b. He/She met one of his/her senior high school classmates at the party. In addition, as (10)-(12) show, Chinese spatial expressions are presented in the structure of ‘Figure + zai + Ground + (postposition)’. Whereas English prepositional expressions normally involve a locative prepositional phrase with whatever the phrase modifies (e.g., nouns, clause), there are three simple types of English locative expressions pointed out by Herskovits (1986: 7) which are shown in (13)-(15). (13) The spider on the wall. (14) The spider is on the wall. (15) There is a spider on the wall. They come in the structure of ‘Figure + Preposition + Ground’ in which they can be structured by one preposition with two noun phrases as in (13), or around a copulative verb as in (14), or even with an existential quantifier as in (15). Therefore, the specific spatial relation in English prepositional phrases is usually neglected due to the cross-linguistic differences between the two languages. Also, L2 learners, even with a high level of proficiency, are often confused with wide varieties of meanings and functions of English prepositions (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-freeman 1999). However, few studies provide insights into their conceptual mapping process in Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of prepositions. Task effects have been often discussed in the acquisition research (Larsen-Freeman 1976, Tarone 1985) and the relation between comprehension and production has also been a hot issue to be concerned. It is commonly assumed that comprehension precedes production (McCarthy 1954) and that different task demands would yield different performance scores (Munnich, Flynn and Martohardjono 1994). There are some studies concerning spatial representation examined with rotation tasks (Levinson 2001, 2003, Li and Gleitman 2002), naming and spatial memory tasks (Munnich et al. 2001). Munnich, Landau and Dosher (2001) 3.

(16) further claimed that the contextual information provided in their task significantly influenced performance on memory tasks. Moreover, some psycholinguistic researches have mentioned the strong effect of context to the processing of metaphoric language (Gibbs 1984, Keysar 1989). Therefore, the present study aims to conduct an experiment to examine Chinese-speaking students’ acquisition of English spatial prepositions. Possible influential factors, L1 transfer, cognitive universal, and L2 proficiency will be taken into consideration to see if these factors affect the performance of Chinese-speaking subjects on different types of prepositions. Both comprehension and production tasks will be employed and the results of the two tasks will be compared to see if subjects perform differently.. 1.2 Theoretical Background There have been a multitude of spatial semantic concepts discussed in the literature, and some of them are presented quite often and become the essential nature of spatial concepts as universal (e.g., Talmy 2000, Levinson 2003, Tyler and Evans 2003). The terms “trajector” (TR) and “landmark” (LM) have been widely used in cognitive semantics. As Langacker (1987) claimed, “landmark” refers to the reference entity which can be static, dynamic, a person or an object, or a whole event while “trajector” refers to the entity whose location is of relevance. The TR-LM relation is closely related to the notions of figure and ground (Talmy 1975, 1983, 2000, Levinson 1996, 2003). Moreover, Jackendoff (1990) and Landau and Jackendoff (1993) draw attention on spatial representations underlying object nouns and spatial prepositions by discussing geometric properties and distinctions of figures, reference objects, and regions in English. Certain geometric types (points, lines, surfaces, and volume), their axial structure, and quantity are regarded as the constraints on figure or reference objects in spatial expressions. Another related concept is “path.” In a more common usage, “path” refers to actual trajectory or imagined motion of the trajectory with respect to 4.

(17) landmark (Talmy 1983, Lakoff 1987). From the cross-linguistic generalization, the alternative usage of “path” is called “minimal path,” which distinguishes three components of a motion event, involving beginning, middle, and end (Jackendoff 1990). In this regard, the meaning of preposition into is derived by combining the minimal path information (e.g., end) with region information (e.g., interior). Furthermore, two kinds of spatial organization as the axial structure of the reference object and contact/support with respect to its surface were examined by Munnich, Landau and Dosher (2001). It was found that both properties of spatial organization were likely to be fundamental to language and cognition. Although the axial structure seems to be an obligatory property of spatial language and encoded in all languages (Hayward and Tarr 1995), Munnich, Landau and Dosher (2001) further found out that contact/support showed a strong effect in their language and memory tasks even there were clear cross-linguistic differences in obligatory linguistic use of these terms. For example, their English speakers tended to obligatorily encode contact/support with on when their attentions focused strongly on support and encode the lack of contact/support with above. However, such distinction was rarely encoded in Korean, that is, the contact or non-contact relation between the figure and the ground is not specifically signified in Korean. Also, when using contact terms, their Japanese speakers symmetrically focused around the reference object while their English speakers focused on the top side than the other sides. Therefore, these properties such as axial structure and contact/support of spatial organization appeared to constitute strong universal in spatial cognition. Based on these different discussions over the spatial language, the present study attempts to integrate geometric types (points, lines, surfaces, and volumes) and extra-geometric information (dynamic-kinematic routines and object knowledge) in order to figure out how conceptual mapping varies between Chinese and English. Different from spatial uses, the abstract uses of prepositions are claimed to be learned individually and hence convey idiomatic meanings (Yates 1999). There are some pieces of 5.

(18) evidence showing that spatial language can be used to structure abstract concepts. In other words, prepositions can be regarded as productive metaphorical devices. As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) mentioned, due to spatial metaphors and extended uses of spatial prepositions, spatial representations are basic and act as productive means for metaphors. The fact that spatial terms can be used in temporal contexts (Clark 1973, Traugott 1978, Heine 1997, Boroditsky 2000, and Gentner, Imai and Boroditsky 2002), emotional contexts (Nagy 1974), communication (Reddy 1979) and other domains of experiences is also confirmed by Keysar, Shen, Glucksberg and Horton (2000). To process the metaphorical extensions, image schemas can be used to account for metaphorical extensions in various uses of prepositions. Heine et al. (1991) observed a tendency in the process of categorical metaphors, as follows: (16) PERSON > OBJECT > ACTIVITY > SPACE > TIME > QUALITY This procession of metaphorical extension starting from PERSON to QUALITY is unidirectional and always proceeds from concrete to abstract. In addition, Boers (2000a, 2000b) suggested that learners’ comprehension be enhanced by drawing their attention to the literal sense. Since figurative expressions are derived from their literal senses, they can be traced back to a limited number of source domains while retaining aspects of spatial meanings systematically. As the aforementioned, geometry and function of the figure-ground relationship have been regarded as factors which distinguish spatial prepositions. In this way, in tends to be used if the geometry of spatial relationship denotes inclusion of the figure in the ground and if the ground functions as a container for the figure. However, to what extent the metaphorical interpretations depend upon the geometry of the underlying spatial relations is seldom explored. According to Jamrozik and Gentner (2011), locus of control contributes to distinguish in and on in abstract meanings in which conventional figure on ground phrases have greater control than figure in ground phrases. Hence, the locus of control aspect of prepositions is suggested to be retained not only in conventional contexts but also can be extended to novel abstract contexts. Whether other aspects of spatial meaning remain 6.

(19) pervasive or in what way these aspects of figure and ground affect different types of spatial prepositions in literal and metaphorical contexts will be the issues to be addressed in the present study. Looking to the points of differences between L1 and L2, we can predict interference by comparing and contrasting learners’ L1 and L2 systematically. In terms of the negative effect of the L1 on second language acquisition, it is claimed by Wode (1978) that the interference only occurs when L1 and L2 have structures with a certain amount of similarities. In addition, Zobl (1982) claimed language transfer accommodates to natural developmental processes in which the normal developmental sequence will not be changed by L1 influence, but the passages through the sequence may be modified. The complex structures would undergo modification by simpler ones. In this way, there may be a delay when learners restructure the forms on the process to the next developmental stage. Also, L2 learners may extend the scope of the existing developmental structures. Then, they may attempt to go through with rule changes which allow a certain degree of structural consistency with an existing developmental structure. Moreover, the linguistic markedness is defined by complexity or relative infrequency of use from something which is more basic, typical or canonical in a language (Greenberg 1966). It is generally claimed that unmarked linguistic features of L1 will tend to transfer while the marked L1 features will not (Eckman 1977, Zobl 1983). In addition, learners’ proficiency is relevant to the language transfer (Taylor 1975). Kellerman (1983) further proposed the U-shaped hypothesis to illustrate the behavior of learners at different levels of proficiency. It was found that beginners were more willing to transfer marked linguistic features, and intermediate learners tended to be conservative to transfer the marked items. The advanced learners were willing to assume transferability. As a result, error frequency at the three stages was low at first, then rose and fell again at last. Conversely, the learners’ accuracy was high at first, then fell and finally rose again, generating the ‘U’ shape. In the present study, L1 influence and L2 learners’ proficiency will be considered possible 7.

(20) factors in data analysis.. 1.3 Research Questions Motivated by the previous literature and the theoretical background mentioned in the previous section, the present study aims to address the following five research questions. 1) What is the learning difficulty of different geometric types of English prepositions? 2) Does the prototypical spatial information (contact vs. non-contact) influence Chinese EFL learners’ performance on English prepositions? 3) Do Chinese EFL learners perform alike on English prepositions in literal and metaphorical contexts? 4) Is the L2 proficiency a factor affecting Chinese EFL learners’ performance on English prepositions? 5) Do different task formats elicit different experimental results from Chinese EFL learners when they acquire English prepositions?. 1.4 Significance of the Study The present study attempts to investigate the second language acquisition of English spatial prepositions with regard to the different types of prepositions, acquisition orders and influential factors affecting Chinese-speaking subjects’ comprehension and production of English prepositions. This study hence provides a new approach to English prepositions and it also bridges the gap between conventional and abstract spatial senses of prepositions and provides insight into the nature of spatial cognition. Finally, the results of this study help to understand how and to what extent the interaction between language and cognition and demonstrate substantial impact on pedagogy.. 8.

(21) 1.5 Terms Defined in the Study The technical terms used in the present study are defined as follows. 1). Comprehension Comprehension is an active and complex process in which one constructs meaning from. aural or written information (Anderson 1985). During the process, one’s attention can be directed to the task or the context which will be useful in comprehension. Hence, the subjects in the grammaticality judgment task of the present study may go through the process to infer meanings to the existing knowledge and choose the appropriate spatial prepositions. 2). Production Language production refers to a process of meaning construction and expression which. applies to speaking and writing. The stages of the language production can be divided into construction, transformation, and execution (Anderson 1985). Hence, the subjects in the sentence completion task of the present study may go through the process to decide the appropriate spatial prepositions and write them down.. 1.6 Organization of the Thesis This thesis is organized as follows. Chapter Two introduces two theoretical studies on English prepositions, reviews four empirical studies on the acquisition of English prepositions, and proposes a new approach to spatial prepositions in English and Chinese. Chapter Three introduces the research design and expected findings of the present study. Chapter Four presents the results and discussion of the experiments. Finally, Chapter Five summarizes the major findings of the present study.. 9.

(22) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW. In this chapter, theoretical viewpoints and empirical studies along with a comparison between the spatial prepositions in Mandarin Chinese and English are discussed. Section 2.1 reviews some theoretical studies of English spatial relations and Section 2.2 reviews four previous empirical studies on spatial cognition and spatial prepositions in language learning. Section 2.3 presents a new classification to the spatial prepositions in English and Mandarin Chinese. Finally, Section 2.4 is a summary of this chapter.. 2.1 Theoretical Approaches to Spatial Prepositions Language can be regarded as an intergraded part of human cognition, hence investigations into the meaning of spatial language has been the interest of linguists. In this section, two different views are recapitulated. Landau and Jackendoff (1993) specify what geometric properties are preserved in the representations of object nouns and spatial prepositions in English while Coventry and Garrod (2004) focus more on the extra-geometric functions of spatial language.. 2.1.1 Landau and Jackendoff’s (1993) Approach Following the premise that any aspect of space expressed in language must be present in nonlinguistic spatial representations, Landau and Jackendoff (1993) explore the language of objects and places to see what geometric properties are stored in the representations of object nouns and spatial prepositions in English. There must be a translation between spatial representations and language. The words and simple phrases encoding objects and places turn to be an issue. Generally, objects are represented by count nouns and places are represented by prepositions or prepositional phrases in English. It is suggested that there are significant 10.

(23) differences in the geometric richness with which objects and places are encoded in the language. When talking about objects (i.e., with count nouns), the principal criteria for identification and naming is the shape and its basic units including axes, solid and hollow volumes, surfaces, and parts are represented as well. Hence, the constraint on the relation between spatial representations and language is emphasized by the importance of shape. The spatial representations which are linked to object names provide different shape descriptions to distinguish all the kinds of objects that are categorized linguistically on the basis of shape. Linguistic and nonlinguistic facts about shape motivate the use of axial system for object representations. As Landau and Jackendoff (1993) suggested, there are three types of axes which are required to account for linguistic terms describing aspects of an object’s orientation. First, the generating axis refers to the principal axis of the object. In the case of a human, the generating axis is vertical. Second, the orienting axes are perpendicular to the generating axis and to each other. To consider the object as a generalized cone, orienting axes serve to orient the principal cone and determine the front-to-back and side-to-side directions. Third, directed axes distinguish two ends of each axis such as top from bottom or front from back. These basic units of shape possessing such an axial structure are combined to form complex object descriptions (Landau and Jackendoff 1993: 221). In contrast, only very coarse geometric object properties are to be represented when an object plays a role as either ‘figure (i.e., the located object)’ or ‘ground (i.e., the reference object)’ in a locative expression. There are three basic elements involving figure, reference object, and region required for the linguistic representation of an object’s place. When talking about an object’s location in English, the figure and the reference object are encoded as noun phrases and the relationship is encoded as a spatial preposition that defines a region where the figure object is located. As shown in (1), the figure (the boy) is located in the region described by the prepositional phrase on the chair while the region is further described by the 11.

(24) reference object (the chair) and the spatial relation expressed by the preposition on, hence to denote the contact with the surface of the reference object. (1) The boy is sitting on the chair. As Landau and Jackendoff (1993) claim, the preposition is the key point in the English expression of place, but the number is small since the notion that prepositions can mean is extremely limited. Several factors defining spatial relations expressed in English are pointed out. The first factor refers to the asymmetry between the figure and the reference object, as can be seen in the following examples, (2a-b) and (3a-b) are taken from Landau and Jackendoff (1993: 224). Note that (2a) and (2b) can describe the very same stimulus even they organize it differently. That is, the primary attention just switches from one object to the other. However, such exchange is unusual in (3). It is claimed that the reference object tends to be the larger and more stable one when objects are unequal in size and mobility, as (3a) shows. Hence, it would be odd and unusual to produce a sentence like (3b). (2) a. The circle (figure) lies around the star (reference object). b. The star (figure) is inside the circle (reference object). (3) a. The book is on the table. b. ?The table is under the book. Second, the restrictions on reference objects by expressions for spatial relations involve certain geometric types such as volumes, surfaces, points and lines with their axial structures. To illustrate, prepositions in, on, near, and at denote little of detailed geometry. The reference object for in can be regarded as a volume with an interior relation, as shown in (4), while near and at are considered to be bounded in extent, as in (5). Being a bit more complex, on requires its reference object possessing a surface, whether it can be a line as in (6), a surface as in (7), or an object with a boundary that is a line or a surface as in (8).. 12.

(25) (4) A cat is sleeping in the box. (5) Students are standing near/at the entrance. (6) A town is on the Canadian border. (7) A school neighbors on the square. (8) A house is on the river / on the hill. Since the object’s shape is relevant to the meaning of the preposition, the axial structures of the reference objects are to be drawn upon for along and across. Along requires its reference object to be linear and horizontal, as can be seen in (9). The reference object (river) denotes a significant linear elongation. Meanwhile, the figure object is also required to have a linear axis which can be presented differently. As shown in (9), the main axis of figure (the road) is parallel to that of the river. Or, the figure object, though has no main horizontal axis, can be an aggregate (the trees) forming a linear figure with an axis parallel to the main axis of the river. Also, when the figure object is in motion, it is the trajectory of the figure (dog’s path), not the figure itself (the dog), to be conceptualized as linear and parallel to main axis of the river. (9). The road is The trees are. along the river.. (Landau and Jackendoff 1993: 228). The dog loped In case of across, its reference object is required to be or to have a surface with sides, that is, across denotes a linear region which goes from one side to the other of the reference object. Different senses of across specify the figure object differently with regard to the region. Two most relevant senses indicate the figure object within the region, as shown in (10) and (11). Sentence (10) indicates that the figure object (the stick) is linear and coaxial with the region while the figure object (the trees) as in (11) is indicated to be distributed along the axis of the region. (10) The stick lay across the road. 13.

(26) (11) The trees extend across the field.. (Landau and Jackendoff 1993: 228). Finally, spatial representations can encode regions by the distance and direction from the reference object. The distance between the figure and reference object, as described by Landau and Jackendoff (1993: 229), is divided into four levels which include (a) the location in the region interior to reference object (i.e., in, inside), (b) the location in the region exterior to the reference object and in contact with it (i.e., on, against), (c) the location in the region proximate to reference object (i.e., near), and (d) the location distant from reference object (i.e., far, beyond). As for the direction between the figure and reference object, it is derived from the axial structure. To specify, prepositions like over, above, under, and below indicate the region determined by the vertical axis. The horizontal plane helps to define prepositions like beside, by, and next to. In addition, there are prepositions serving as operators such as to, from, toward, away from for regions relevant to describing trajectories or object motion. These operators specify the location of the path and where the path begins or ends in place description. In sum, Landau and Jackendoff (1993) claim that different kinds of spatial representations can be drawn upon by language describing objects and places. In this way, object nouns and spatial prepositions serve to encode certain geometric properties. When expressing spatial relations, great attentions are attached to geometric types such as points, lines, surfaces, and volumes with its axial structure. These properties are regarded as the constraints on the figure or reference objects in spatial representations.. 2.1.2 Coventry and Garrod’s (2004) Functional Geometric Account As opposed to the view that spatial prepositions depend on merely coarse-grained “schematised” (Talmy 1983) properties of objects in spatial expressions (Clark 1973, Talmy 1983, Landau and Jackendoff 1993), the functional geometric framework proposed by Coventry and Garrod (2004) states that factors (i.e., extra-geometric routines) other than the 14.

(27) relative positions of objects as what we see in the space contribute to specifying the specific meaning of spatial terms and are important in the comprehension and production of spatial prepositions. To illustrate, with regard to the scope of locatives, it is claimed that even in the most appropriate geometry, the preposition in may not fully capture what it denotes. As illustrated in (12), when there is a pile of pears which are located in the bowl, the one on the top can be described as in the bowl. Whereas, in a bowl may not be normally described in the way when a pear is hanging high above a bowl or when an upside-down bowl is covering a pear in the air. It seems to be a geometric contradiction in that the acceptable expression denotes containment without enclosure while the two unacceptable cases denote enclosure without containment. As Coventry and Garrod (2004) concern, differences in the functional and physical relations between the pear and the bowl as in (12) result in the contrast in the two cases. Another case in (13) also can be described when a man is partially enclosed in the car where his arm is outside the car, but (13) cannot be used to describe a man who is also partially enclosed when his arm is inside the car. (12) The pear is in the bowl. (13) The man is in the car.. (Coventry and Garrod 2004: 38-39). Therefore, the functional geometric framework involves two components as geometric routines and extra-geometric information. A combination of these two components would provide information around the establishment of the specific meaning of a wide range of spatial prepositions. First, geometric routines refer to the description of the geometry of the scene. As in other cases, where objects are located in space is significant to the process of how one describes the location by using language. Second, extra-geometric information is composed of dynamic-kinematic routines and object knowledge. It is suggested that extra-geometric properties can be drawn forth from the dynamic-kinematic aspects of scenes, such as location control. Object knowledge includes general knowledge of the functions of the objects and how they generally interact with each other in specific situations. These 15.

(28) components are shown in the figure below (Coventry and Garrod 2004: 55).. Figure 2-1 Component Parts of the Functional Geometric Framework. As the aforementioned, the combination of geometric routines (i.e., where objects are located) and dynamic-kinematic routines (i.e., how objects interact with each other) has influence on how one chooses or interprets spatial expressions. Coventry and Garrod (2004) also mentioned Johnson-Laird’s (1983) idea that we build up mental models of situations and draw spatial inferences about them due to the recognition of spatial relations between objects. However, as Coventry and Garrod (2004:56) claim, geometry alone is inadequate to support many spatial inferences. If X is in Y and Y in Z, then one may draw a geometric inference that X is in Z1. Nevertheless, there are only a few geometric inferences related with spatial relations, such as in or on, and they are both not secure and of no specific consequence. On the other hand, functional geometric relations including containment and support explicate to a much wider range of spatial inferences which go beyond what can be inferred from the geometry of the scene alone. In the case of containment, if Y contains X, then Y controls the location of X. Hence, X will move when Y moves. Or, if we want to move X independently of Y, then X has to be removed from Y in advance. In the same way, the case of support relation indicates that if X is on a support of Y, then it can be inferred that X will fall to the 1. There is a limited number of geometric inferences related to spatial relations, only the topological spatial relations such as in and on are more likely to be applied with such relatum, the projective spatial relation (e.g. over, above, under) and the euclidean spatial relation (e.g. across, between, through) are seldom applied with it. 16.

(29) ground if Y is moved. It follows that the link between the geometry of the situations and the extra-geometric spatial relation are indicated when we try to comprehend a range of spatial prepositions. The functional relation like location control is claimed to define the range of geometric configurations that support the function. The configurations which can serve to support location control are thought of as the prototypical configurations or prototypes for certain kinds of geometry. For example, as the preposition in shows, the location control and geometric enclosure are highly correlated. It is suggested that the configurations which have the association with the function like enclosure may be geometrically distinct, as shown in (14) and (15). The case of containment as in (14) shows that the configuration display the located object (soup) is minimally surrounded by the reference object (the shallow bowl). Or, the located object (beans) is completely enclosed by the reference object (a sealed can), as shown in (15). (14) Soup in the shallow bowl. (15) Beans in a sealed can.. (Coventry and Garrod 2004: 58). In addition, this framework suggests that the identification of objects may have effects on the relationships we judge to hold between those objects in two ways. First, the identification of objects may affect the visual routines which are applied to objects in a configuration. Specifically, location control only happens to be crucial when an object is identified as a container or supporting surface. One can consider that identification of a container-like object will generate a convex hull routine and a related location control routine. When both routines are satisfied, such an object should be identified as a potential container. As shown in (16), in the cup is acceptable in that the reference object (the cup) has the convex hull and the location of figure (the ball) is controlled by the reference object (the cup). However, in the table is unacceptable since the identification of the reference object (the table) does not generate the convex hull routine for a container. 17.

(30) (16) The ball is in the cup / *in the table.. (Coventry and Garrod 2004: 60). Also, objects posses particular functions, and such information from memory contributes to the application of different routines. For instance, a case where the same object can be categorized as a plate or a dish is clear to illustrate. The same configuration of located and reference objects can be conceptualized differently in that on is appropriate when the reference object is regarded as a plate while in becomes appropriate when the reference object is labeled as a dish. The second way in which the identification of objects may influence the relationships between them is the knowledge about how objects interact in the specific situation. For example, the preposition at denotes that the proximity of the objects relative to activity or situation is of interest. As can be seen in (17), when someone is at a piano, at the office, or at a desk, in terms of the geometric routine, it is assumed that they are in the position to the piano, the office, and the desk. In terms of the extra-geometric information, these particular situations along with the knowledge brought about from each reference object (piano, office, desk) inferred that the figure object (the man) is interacting with each reference object, hence, playing the piano, working in the office, and studying or working at the desk. It is noted that the geometry is reliant on how we interact with the reference objects. (17) The man is at a piano / at the office / at a desk. Similarly, preposition in as shown in (18) implicates that the knowledge of objects and functional relations between objects constrain the application of the geometric and extra-geometric routines. In this regard, the boy’s location is controlled by these reference objects. That is, the boy needs to be enclosed completely by the car, the closet, and the house. (18) A boy is in the car / in the closet / in the house. Simply stated, both geometric and extra-geometric aspects of spatial relations are involved in the functional geometric framework. The situation-specific meaning in spatial language is not only established by the geometric routines but also the dynamic-kinematic 18.

(31) routines and object knowledge.. 2.1.3 Summary To sum up, theoretical studies on spatial prepositions are recapitulated from two different perspectives. On the one hand, as Landau and Jackendoff (1993) claim, different kinds of spatial representations are drawn upon by language describing objects and places. When objects are named for a certain category, their descriptions concern a lot with the complex representations of shapes and surfaces. Also, in locative expressions, descriptions seem to be highly schematized when the same objects serve as the figure or reference object. That is, a reference object can be schematized as a point, a surface, and a container with its axial structure. Likewise, a figure object can be schematized as something with no geometric structure like a lump or blob, a unit with axial structure along one of its dimensions, or either a single or distributed entity. Landau and Jackendoff (1993) claimed that only a limited number of different spatial relations between objects are encoded in natural languages, and these spatial relations have to embrace all the possibilities in the real world. On the other hand, by arguing for Landau and Jackendoff (1993) claim, Coventry and Garrod (2004) place much more emphasis on the extra-geometric information (i.e., dynamic-kinematic routines and object knowledge). In order to capture meanings of the whole range of spatial representations, the functional geometric framework has been highlighted. In addition to how we see in the representation of spatial relations, how we act in the world and how the objects meaningfully interact in the world may give rise to the specific meaning of spatial prepositions. In the acquisition of spatial prepositions, many factors mentioned by these two approaches are likely to play a role, but it seems that the extra-geometric information like object knowledge needs to be accumulated through experiences while the information about relative positions tends to be noticed and used during the learning process. Besides, whether children acquiring spatial language can present the evidence of the influence of 19.

(32) extra-geometric routines needs to be explored. There has been little direct investigation of the relative influence of extra-geometric information. Given that the two approaches point out the factors distinguishing spatial prepositions in English, the present study aims to explore the conceptual mapping between languages and spatial understanding of L2 learners and to provide empirical evidence for the way how these factors affect spatial prepositions of different types by conducting an L2 acquisition study.. 2.2 Previous Empirical Studies of English Spatial Prepositions This section reviews some previous studies on English spatial prepositions. Coventry, Carmichael, and Garrod (1994) examined the object-specific effects on the use of spatial prepositions. Lin (2004) conducted experiments with native Chinese speakers to see if his subjects could use English locative spatial terms by analyzing their errors and acquisition patterns. Hsu (2005) investigated the functions and uses of prepositions in, on, at and further explored the effect of the cognitive semantic approach on the acquisition of English prepositions. Lin (2009) focused on the spatial cognition by investigating whether Chinese EFL learners’ spatial thinking would be affected during their process of learning English spatial prepositions. These relevant empirical studies will be reviewed in the following sections.. 2.2.1 Coventry, Carmichael and Garrod (1994) Following Garrod and Stanford (1989), who argued that a mental model2 could be employed to mediate the use of spatial prepositions, Coventry, Carmichael and Garrod (1994) conducted an experiment to investigate the roles of object specific functions and task requirement3 in the use of spatial prepositions. 2. 3. Garrod and Stanford (1989) referred ‘mental model’ to a temporary structure in working memory which served as an interface between language and the spatial world. Coventry, Carmichael, and Garrod (1994) referred 'task requirement' to an experimental measure, indicating 20.

(33) In their experiment, spatial prepositions in, on, over, and beside were examined with their object specific functions which might contribute to the building of mental models4 of spatial scenes. Two tasks were employed, i.e., a Lickert scale judgment task and a sentence completion task. The subjects’ responses to each task were compared to see if their comprehension and production patterned alike. The subjects included 40 undergraduate students who were native speakers of English. They were further divided into two groups: a Lickert-scale group and a sentence completion group. The Lickert scale group was asked to rate sentences on a scale of 1-5 for appropriateness of the corresponding scenes, as shown in Table 2-1 while the sentence completion group needed to complete the sentences with prepositions they considered most appropriate to the scenes, as shown in Table 2-2.. Table 2-1 An Example of the Lickert Scale Task in Coventry et al.’s (1994) Study. The ball is in the jug. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Table 2-2 An Example of the Sentence Completion Task in Coventry et al.’s (1994) Study. The ball is. 4. the jug.. the effects of two tasks in their study. Subjects might come up with information associated with spatial preposition and information related to the visual scene they perceived. 21.

(34) Each group was asked to watch a video with 103 scenes of objects5 in different positions. By comparing results of the two tasks, it was found that highlighting the functional relationship between figure and ground had effects on the use of prepositions. In the case of in with scenes of a jug vs. a bowl, the results of the Lickert scale group and the sentence completion group showed significant effects on the use of in with addition of liquid. In the Lickert scale group, in was judged to be more appropriate with the scene when the bowl had liquid (M = 21.5)6 than when the jug had the liquid (M = 16.8). Similarly, the sentence completion group also used in more when the bowl had liquid (frequency of use = 76) than when the jug had liquid in it (frequency of use = 52). As they claimed, the addition of liquid highlighted the specific function of the jug but it did not affect that of the bowl, hence, such scene provided the greatest specific function contrast. Such object specific effects could also be seen on the use of over with scenes of a jug with liquid versus an empty jug. However, the significant effect was only found in Lickert scale group. The use of over for the scenes with a jug poised above a glass was judged to be significantly more appropriate when the jug had liquid (M = 12.7) than when liquid was not present (M = 10.7). The frequency of use of over remained the same whether the liquid was present or not in the sentence completion group. It was claimed that the presence of liquid in the jug also emphasized the functional interaction between the jug and the glass. The results indicated that functional relations between objects were closely related to the use of spatial prepositions. Their correlation provided the base for conceptualizing the visual scene and describing such spatial arrangement of the scene. To sum up, it was noticed that functionality effects had been investigated by manipulating objects in various positions in their experiment. However, the presence of certain scenes (i.e., to describe an object on top of a pile in a bowl or in a jug) may not. 5. 6. The materials were: a glass fruit bowl, a coffee jug, oranges, apples, bananas, a blue tennis ball, an orange tennis ball, ping-pong balls, a table lamp, a book, a glass mug, water, black currant cordial, and a saucer. M referred to the mean of summed Lickert-scale ratings. The number was derived according to the formula “sum of each subject’s ratings / total number of subjects”. 22.

(35) normally apply in our daily life; therefore, it would take more time for the subjects to process and produce. Besides, due to the fact that the sentence completion task was only concerned with frequency of the use of tested prepositions in their study, the prepositions the subjects produced were not further analyzed. Lastly, there might be a task bias for comparing the subjects’ responses to the two tasks and evaluating their comprehension and production at the same time since they recruited different subjects for the tasks.. 2.2.2 Lin (2004) In order to delve into the issue in the interwoven relationship between language and thought, Lin (2004) conducted several experiments on the acquisition of English locative prepositions for native Chinese speakers. Her research questions were concerned with common learning patterns, order of learning difficulty, and mechanisms underlying the common learning patterns of the acquisition of English locative prepositions for native Chinese speakers. Four experiments were conducted in her study. Experiment 1 was considered an exploratory study of data collection which served to explore how native Chinese speakers used English locative prepositions. Experiments 2 and 3 were served to test hypotheses generated from data collected in Experiment 1 by employing training procedures. Experiment 4 was conducted as a supplementary to explore how native English speakers learned the spatial terms in Chinese. The subjects of each experiment were different. Experiment 1 involved 58 students from National Taiwan University. The subjects of Experiment 2 were adults who were randomly grouped into AdultIn7 (trained on the contrast of in and on) and AdultOver (trained on the contrast of over and on) while those of Experiment 3 were children who were also grouped. 7. There were 17 subjects in the AdultIn group (mean age 25.88 years) and 16 subjects in the AdultOver group (mean age 26.00 years). 23.

(36) into ChildIn8 (trained on the contrast of in and on) and ChildOver (trained on the contrast of over and on). Experiment 4, as a supplementary experiment, involved 8 native English speakers who were taking Chinese lessons at Harvard University. The four experiments were conducted step by step. In Experiment 1, the most frequently used locative prepositions in, on, at, over, and under (Funk and Wagnalls 1953, Jackson 1990) were tested to investigate how native Chinese speakers described static spatial relation. Three tasks (i.e., two free production tasks and a multiple-choice task) were conducted with 22 hand-drawn pictures9. After the three tasks, a general English reading proficiency test and an interview about the subjects’ English learning history were conducted respectively. Experiments 2 and 3 were conducted to investigate how the Figure/Ground manipulation related to the cognitive process in learning English locative terms. Thus, in the pretest, posttest and postponed posttest, a set of hand-drawn pictures were given along with their own respective incomplete sentences with two options (in vs. on or over vs. on). Also, regarding to the asymmetrical error patterns on versus over and on versus in, the ManMade objects with pseudo-names were designed to control the Figure and Ground. What the two experiments concerned was how redirecting the subjects’ attention to the scenes and linking the scenes to English prepositions would enhance the scores of test items. Experiment 4 was designed to explore native English speakers’ use of Chinese locative terms. The 22 hand-drawn pictures used in Experiment 1 were adopted again. The subjects’ written Chinese sentences for the pictures were compared with the Chinese free production data collected from the native Chinese speakers in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 1 indicated several issues. First, it was not easy for the native Chinese speakers to use English locative prepositions correctly in that more than half of the test items in the multiple-choice task had a correct response rate of less than 80%. Second, 8. 9. There were 18 subjects in the ChildIn group (mean age 9.94 years) and 19 subjects in the ChildOver group (mean age 9.96 years). There were 2 exemplars and 20 test items (i.e., 4 pictures provided for each of the 5 prepositions). 24.

(37) according to the scores on the five prepositions in the multiple-choice task, the degree of difficulty was arranged in a one-dimensional hierarchy by the following order: on (M = 2.16) > at (M = 2.40) > over (M = 2.52) > under (M = 3.07) > in (M = 3.74) (starting from the most difficult one), meaning the easier items were learned better. Third, it was found that there was asymmetrical error distribution in which 77.9% of errors under over and 66.6% of errors under in categories were replaced with on. However, errors under the on category were replaced between at (63.9%) and in (29.6%). Also, it was found that the same spatial terms in Chinese (i.e., zai…shang / zai…shangmian) were elicited by on pictures (68.7%) and over pictures (65%) in the free production task. Hence, Lin stated that L1 interference must play an essential role for differentiating on from over. The errors with over were attributed to the lack of obligatory specification of contact/contiguity in Chinese. The higher frequency and the lower complexity of on accounted for the preference for using it. Moreover, the results of Experiments 2 and 3 also showed the asymmetrical error patterns and supported the claim that the cognitive universal was related to the acquisition of locative prepositions. In terms of the order of difficulty, it was found that on and over were difficult for both the adults and the children. For the children, on and over were fairly hard. For the adults, on was the more difficult than over. Lin stated that certain concept about on seemed to be fossilized and that the subjects were confused with over that both the children and the adults had difficulty in learning it. On the other hand, the result of the supplementary experiment showed that the difficulty for the native English speakers was not the selection of Chinese locative postpositions but the sentence structure. It was found that L1 transfer was more likely to apply to sentence structures for native English speakers learning Chinese. In sum, it was concluded that L1 transfer and cognitive processes were the two factors affecting the acquisition of English locative prepositions. However, not all the manipulations of the ManMade objects presented effectively. Some of the scenes with on and in appeared visually ambiguous, which resulted in poor effects found in the ChildIn group. Besides, the 25.

(38) necessity of using ManMade objects needed to be reconsidered since the subjects’ usage of prepositions were determined by the shape or spatial functions of the object. Also, the number of subjects in Experiment 4 was pretty small, the results of which might not be comparable with those of other experiments. Last but not least, it was the reading proficiency that Lin employed to reveal the relationship between the English proficiency that and the acquisition of English prepositions. Arguably speaking, the role of general L2 proficiency needs to be further explored.. 2.2.3 Hsu (2005) Hsu (2005) conducted an empirical study of the effects of the cognitive semantic approach and the traditional approach 10 on the acquisition of English prepositions. She investigated three most frequently used prepositions in, on, and at 11 along with their respective concrete senses (i.e., spatial meanings) and abstract senses beyond space and time (i.e., figurative use). Her research questions were (1) whether the cognitive semantic approach facilitated preposition learning, (2) which uses (e.g., spatial, temporal, or other figurative use) of English prepositions presented the greatest difficulty to students and how they were affected by negative L1 transfer, (3) what learners’ attitudes were toward the instruction of English prepositions. Seventy high school students at an equivalent proficiency level were divided into a control group and an experimental group. All the subjects of the two groups took the pretest first and received two one-hour preposition instructions12. The control group was instructed with the traditional approach and the experimental group was instructed with the cognitive. 10. 11. 12. The traditional approach usually exhibits a random list of definitions with phrases or sentences item by item in dictionaries or textbooks in dealing with English prepositions. Prepositions in, on, at are on the list of 1,000 basic words proposed by the Ministry of Education for elementary school and junior high school students. They are words for Level One (i.e., most frequently-used vocabulary proposed by the CEEC). Instruction I for both groups was the same, it focused on the spatial senses of prepositions which were introduced along with corresponding pictorial graphs. 26.

(39) semantic approach. These two different approaches were applied in Instruction II13 in which various senses of prepositions were illustrated. Then, Posttest I along with a questionnaire with three open-ended questions14 were conducted immediately after Instruction II while Posttest II was managed one week after Posttest I. The questions for the three tests (Pretest, Posttest I and II) were presented in the multiple-choice and blank-filling formats. In comparing the performance of the two groups on Pretest I and Posttest I, the t-test results showed that both groups made progress in their mean score after the treatment. It was indicated that both of the traditional approach, t (35) = -6.575, p < .001, and the cognitive semantic approach, t (33) = -5.553, p < .001, were beneficial to the subjects in learning English prepositions. However, when comparing the scores on Posttest I and Posttest II for two approaches, the t-test results did not show any significant differences. It was found that the claim that the cognitive semantic approach was more effective than the traditional approach. Moreover, as the respective top ten difficult items in the pretest and the posttest, it was found that the expressions with on and at were more difficult than the expressions with in for the EFL learners. These difficult uses were abstract senses beyond space and time. Hsu stated that the spatial sense of in was more straightforward while those of on and at were more divergent. Hence, it was easier for the subjects to acquire expressions with in since various senses of in could be unified by its core meaning, containment within an enclosure. By contrast, relating the various senses of on and at to their core meaning was difficult for the subjects. What’s more, the subjects’ responses to the questionnaire items revealed that they tended. 13. 14. In Instruction II, various senses of prepositions in, on, and at in control group were presented in a consistent way with the layout on English dictionary in random order while those in the experimental group were displayed according to the relativity across the abstractness continuum along metaphorical extensions with schematic graphs. The questions included: (1) what is your way in learning English prepositions before the treatment? (2) what will your way of learning English prepositions be like after the treatment? (3) what is(are) the most difficult preposition(s) for you? 27.

(40) to learn English prepositions by rote memory before the instruction (66.66% for the control group and 55.80 % for the experimental group). Furthermore, 75% for the control group, but only 50% for the experimental group, were positive toward the given preposition instructions after the treatment. Apart from the three prepositions in, on, and at, which were considered to be difficult to tell apart since they were the high-frequency words with various senses, other prepositions like above, through and within were also found difficult for the two groups in both groups in that those were the prepositions they seldom encountered. All in all, Hsu explored the effect of the cognitive semantic approach to teaching expressions with English prepositions for Chinese EFL learners. However, the results of her study were mainly discussed by comparing the subjects’ general performances on three tests. The subjects’ comprehension and production in the process of the acquisition of English prepositions were not specifically explained. Moreover, the format of the three tests was not consistent. Pretest I and Posttest I were in a multiple-choice format and a blank-filling format, but the number of test items in the two formats were small and uneven. Posttest II was only conducted in a blank-filling format without fillers. Besides, since the number of test items was pretty small, how different senses were allotted in each test was unknown. Also, the clarification of the sense of activity was indefinite. For example, at funerals was claimed to be the most difficult item while at first sight was the least one for both groups. However, it was noticed that funerals was more concrete than sight, and it should be easier for the subjects to comprehend.. 2.2.4 Lin (2009) In line with the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Whorf 1956), Lin (2009) conducted an empirical study to explore how Taiwanese EFL learners’ spatial cognition was influenced by English learning. It was assumed that people at different English proficiency levels would perform differently on spatial thinking. Her research questions were about whether EFL 28.