a study on meanings of the english preposition in and its vietnamese equivalents from a cognitive semantic perspective = nghiên cứu các nghĩa của giới từ in trong tiếng anh và các nghĩa tương đương

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN KHÁNH A STUDY ON MEANINGS OF THE ENGLISH PREPOSITION “IN” AND ITS VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS FROM A COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC NGHĨA CỦA GIỚI TỪ “IN” TRO

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN KHÁNH

A STUDY ON MEANINGS OF THE ENGLISH PREPOSITION

“IN” AND ITS VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS FROM A

COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC NGHĨA CỦA GIỚI TỪ “IN” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ CÁC NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ

NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2009

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN KHÁNH

A STUDY ON MEANINGS OF THE ENGLISH PREPOSITION

“IN” AND ITS VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS FROM A

COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC NGHĨA CỦA GIỚI TỪ “IN” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ CÁC NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ

NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm

HANOI - 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration ……… i

Acknowledgements ……… ii

Abstract ……… iii

Abbreviations and Symbols ……… iv

Table of Contents ……… v

INTRODUCTION ……… 1

1 Statement of the Problem ……… 1

2 Aims of the Study ……… 3

3 Scope of the Study ……… 3

4 Significance of the Study ……… 3

5 Research Questions ……… 4

6 Design of the Study ……… 4

DEVELOPMENT ……… 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES ……… 5

1.1 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Linguistics ……… 5

1.2 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Semantics ……… 6

1.3 Spatial Prepositions ……… 7

1.3.1 Definition of Spatial Prepositions ……… 7

1.3.2 Syntactic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions 8

1.3.3 Semantic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions ……… 8

1.4 Cognitive Semantics Approach to Spatial Prepositions ……… 9

1.4.1 Experiential Realism, Image Schemas and Spatial Prepositions…… 9

1.4.2 Metaphor and Spatial Prepositions ……… 11

1.4.3 Prototype, Radial Category and Spatial Prepositions ……… 12

1.4.5 Polysemy and Spatial Prepositions ……… 13

1.4.6 Perspective and Subjectivity ……… 14

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY ………. 16

2.1 Research Questions ……… 16

2.2 Methodology ……… 16

2.3 Data ……… 17

2.4 Analytical Framework ……… 18

2.5 Data Analysis, Findings and Discussion ……… 19

2.5.1 Meanings of the English Preposition “in” ……… 19

2.5.1.1 Prototypical Schema for “in”……… 19

2.5.1.2 Non-prototypical Meanings of ‘in’……… 20

2.5.1.3 Metaphorical Extensions ……… 22

2.4.1.3.1 Metaphorical extension of the enclosure prototype ……… 22

2.4.1.3.2 Metaphorical extension of the inclusion sense ……… 25

2.4.1.3.3 Metaphorical extension of the medium sense ……… 26

2.5.1.4 Radial Category of “in” ……… 27

2.5.1.5 Summary ……… 27

2.5.2 The English Preposition “in” and its Vietnamese Equivalents …… 28

2.5.2.1 “in” in English corresponds to “trong” in Vietnamese ……. 29

2.5.2.2 “in” in English corresponds to “ngoài” in Vietnamese … 30

2.5.2.3 “in” in English corresponds to “trên” in Vietnamese 31

2.5.2.4 “in” in English corresponds to “dưới” in Vietnamese …… 32

2.5.2.5 “in” in English corresponds to “ở” in Vietnamese ……… 33

2.5.2.6 “in” in English corresponds to “trước” in Vietnamese … 33

2.5.2.7 “in” in English corresponds to “sau” in Vietnamese …… 34

2.5.2.8 “in” in English corresponds to “bên” in Vietnamese …… 35

2.5.2.9 “in” in English corresponds to “bằng” in Vietnamese …… 36

2.5.2.10 “in” in English corresponds to “về” in Vietnamese …… 36

2.4.2.11 “in” in English corresponds to “vào” in Vietnamese …… 37

2.5.2.12 “in” in English corresponds to other Vietnamese Non-prepositional Expressions……… 37

2.5.2.3 Summary ……… 39

2.5.3 Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese Spatial Cognition ………

2.5.3.1 Similarities ………

2.5.3.2 Differences ………

40

40

40

46

I

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem

There is a well-established fact that learners of English as a Foreign Language more often than not confront a great many difficulties in actively mastering the language As a general rule, they seemingly hold the view that English notional categories, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are crucial, hence striving to learn as many of them as possible, and that such functional categories as prepositions are of minor significance because they are limited in number and their meanings are not important to the meaning of the whole sentence What is more, the traditional view considers that all the senses of a preposition are highly arbitrary and are not related to one another As a matter of fact, both dictionaries and grammars provide long lists of unrelated senses for each preposition and its possible uses in different contexts In other words, EFL learners resort to a great many linguistic materials whose authors have made monumental efforts to describe this type of words on the grounds of only functions and positions other than semantic factors contributing to determining their choices in use For the above reasons, prepositions are generally troublesome to the learners for whom English is a foreign/second language (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999) Boers and Demecheleer (1998) argue that prepositions are difficult for ESL/EFL learners because they have literal as well as

figurative meanings For instance, we say, we are at the hospital; or we visit a friend who

is in the hospital, or we lie in bed but on the couch

Actually, much work has been done in the last decades to find a relationship between the different senses of English prepositions Cognitive Linguistics has paid great attention to polysemy, and specifically to the meaning of prepositions (Lindner, 1982; Vandeloise, 1991; Pütz & Dirven, 1996; Tyler & Evans, 2003) Interestingly, cognitive linguists, especially cognitive semanticists have been making momentous contribution to explaining polysemy in terms of radial categories (Lakoff, 1987) and therefore consider that the meaning of a polysemous word can be seen as a big semantic network of related senses Furthermore, it now seems evident that there is a highly schematic common core to all the related senses of a preposition, which all derive from a primary spatial schema or

proto-scene (Tyler & Evans, 2003) to other non-spatial, abstract senses “by means of

generalization or specialization of meaning or by metonymic or metaphoric transfer” (Cuyckens & Radden, 2002)

It is also worth noting that cognitive semantics is concerned with investigating the relationship between experience, the conceptual system, and the semantic structure encoded by language (Lakoff, 1987) To put it plainly, cognitive semanticists have employed language as the lens through which these cognitive phenomena can be investigated As fas as spatial prepositions are concerned, cross-language research in cognitive semantics has shown that although spatial cognition exists in any language, there are differences in strategies of spatial conceptualization employed by people using each language In other words, it is evident that human experiences with space are held to be identical, since human beings are endowed with the same biological features and can be exposed to similar experiences with the environment The linguistic encoding of spatial concepts in different languages is, however, different (Choi & Bowerman, 1991; Levinson, 2001)

The preposition in represents one of the most typical spatial prepositions in English

Vietnamese EFL learners in general and those at the Military Science Academy in

particular are almost not sure when in is acceptably used Additionally, it can be observed

that they just tend to apply straightforward correspondence to prepositions in their mother

tongue; for instance, English preposition in means trong in Vietnamese, on means trên, for means cho, to name just a few – irrespective of complements that are attached to the

prepositions, and they think the job is done Apparently, the magnitude of this error is so enormous that it may delay the fluent native-like mastery of the target language

Accordingly, it is essential to grasp the related meanings of the English preposition in

within the framework of cognitive semantics and in this way immensely understand what native English speakers conceptualize spatial relations of the physical world objects and how they map from these spatial domains to non-spatial domains via metaphor and metonymy Moreover, how this preposition can be translated in to Vietnamese when they are in different collocations have so far not been thoroughly investigated The present thesis hopes to contribute to the on-going research into how different languages express the various spatial relations that can hold between entities in the world Last but not least, teachers can apply appropriate teaching methods to help students master the meanings of prepositions Besides indispensable roles of the teachers in the students’ learning achievements, students should be provided with suitable learning strategies to better language competence as well as cross-cultural awareness

For all the above-mentioned reasons, it is strongly desirable for the author to conduct this thesis

2 Aims of the study

The current thesis aims at

- uncovering a semantic description of the English preposition in in light of cognitive

semantics

- investigating potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition in

- embarking on pedagogical implications for teaching, learning and translating

English prepositions

3 Scope of the study

The study is limited to investigating senses of the English preposition in and their

Vietnamese equivalents within cognitive semantic theoretical framework Not only prototypical but also derived meanings of the preposition motivated from image-schema transformations and metaphorical conceptual mappings will be taken into account This

investigation is based on my manual corpus of 681 in-examples in form of (NP) + in + NP and NP + V + in + NP, where in functions as a preposition, to the exlusion of others where

in plays the role of an adverb or an affix The data were collected from three sources,

namely, the English versions of Vanity Fair by Thackeray, W M., Jane Eyre by Brontë, C., and English-Vietnamese translation course books for third and fourth- year English majors

at the MSA Vietnamese equivalents of those 681 in-occurrences were also identified and grouped in terms of frequency and percentage to explore differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese spatial conceptualization and cognition

4 Significance of the study

This thesis, to some extent, enumerates strong evidence in cognitive semantics that

the typically English preposition in possesses numerous but related senses, suggesting that

the use of a particular word reflects the way in which native English speakers conceptualize the physical world basing on their experience Additionally, the thesis takes

a comparative stance and looks for cross-linguistic equivalents Potential Vietnamese equivalents of this preposition investigated in the current study will probably construe how Vietnamese people convey spatial meanings The thesis hopes to contribute to the overall stock of cognitive semantic studies on prepositions from a cross-linguistic perspective The findings of the study, as a result, will substantially contribute to language teaching and

learning English as well as English-Vietnamese translation The results and data may also

be useful for lexicographers when compiling new general and specialized dictionaries

5 Research questions

The following questions are proposed in the current research:

- What meanings are conveyed by the English preposition in from a cognitive

semantic perspective?

- What are Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition in?

This study in turn, hopes to contribute to enriching pedagogical proposals for teaching English prepositions and translation of prepositions to English major students at the MSA

6 Design of the study

The present paper is organized in four main parts The INTRODUCTION part is devoted to presenting statement of the problem, aims of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study, research questions and organization of the study The DEVELOPMENT part is subdivided into two chapters: CHAPTER 1 discusses the general theoretical background of the study and CHAPTER 2, the backbone of the thesis, comprises the methods of the study, data collection, analytical framework, data analysis, findings and discussion The CONCLUSION part demonstrates the conclusions of this piece of research, pedagogical implications, and suggestions for further studies References are also included

DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES

In this chapter, cognitive semantic framework of the study will be presented Specifically, cognitive linguistics and cognitive semantics theory will be briefly discussed

in 1.1 and 1.2; syntactic and semantic perspectives on spatial prepositions will be demonstrated in 1.3; several primary notions in cognitive semantics employed to

investigate meanings of spatial prepositions will be explicitly put forward in 1.4

1.1 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics, a modern school of linguistic study and practice, has been of special interest since it emerged in the late seventies and early eighties It is primarily concerned with investigating the relationship between human language, the mind and socio-physical experience (Croft & Cruse, 2004; Evans & Green, 2006; Langacker, 1987)

To put it in another way, this paradigm views linguistic knowledge as part of general cognition and thinking; linguistic behaviour is not separated from other general cognitive abilities which allow mental processes of reasoning, memory, attention or learning, but understood as an integral part of it (Johnson, 1987)

There are two main tenets of cognitive linguistics: (i) Language is an integral part

of cognition; (ii) Language is symbolic in nature The former regulates that language is understood as a product of general cognitive abilities Consequently, a cognitive linguist must be willing to accept what Lakoff (1987) calls the ‘cognitive commitment’, that is, s/he must be prepared to embrace the link between language and other cognitive faculties because linguistic theory and methodology must be consistent with what is empirically known about cognition, the brain and language As Saeed (1997) explains, this view implies that externally, principles of language use embody more general cognitive principles; and internally, that explanation must cross boundaries between levels of analysis In other words, the difference between language and other mental processes is not

one of kind, but one of degree The latter clarifies that language is symbolic in nature, according to Langacker (1987), because it is based on the association between semantic

representation and phonological representation This association of two different poles refers to the Saussurian conception of the linguistic sign However, for cognitive linguists, language is not structured arbitrarily It is motivated and grounded more or less directly in experience, in our bodily, physical, social, and cultural experiences because after all, “we

are beings of the flesh” (Johnson 1987: 347) This notion of a ‘grounding’ is known in Cognitive Linguistics as ‘embodiment’ (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) Its basic idea is that mental and linguistic categories are not abstract, disembodied and human independent categories; we create them on the basis of our concrete experiences and under the constraints imposed by our bodies

As a consequence, this new paradigm could be seen as a reaction against the dominant generative paradigm which pursues an autonomous and arbitrary view of language

1.2 A Brief Overview of Cognitive Semantics

Cognitive semantics, part of cognitive linguistics movement, is concerned with investigating the relationship between experience, the conceptual system, and the semantic structure encoded by language (Rosch, 1973; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987; Johnson, 1987; Langacker, 1987, 1990, 1999) In specific terms, scholars working in

cognitive semantics investigate knowledge representation (conceptual structure), and meaning construction (conceptualization) Therefore, cognitive semantics studies much of

the area traditionally devoted to pragmatics as well as semantics As a matter of fact, Talmy (2000) states that cognitive semantics sees language meaning as a manifestation of conceptual structure: the nature and organization of mental representation in all its richness and diversity, and this is what makes it a distinctive approach to linguistic meaning To put

it plainly, cognitive semanticists have employed language as the lens through which these cognitive phenomena can be investigated Consequently, research in cognitive semantics tends to be interested in modeling the human mind as much as it is concerned with investigating linguistic semantics

According to Talmy (2000), Lakoff & Johnson (1980), and Geerearts (1999), cognitive semantics complies with four specific guiding principles: i) Conceptual structure

is embodied; ii) Semantic structure is conceptual structure; iii) Meaning representation is encyclopaedic; iv) Meaning construction is conceptualization

The first tenet that conceptual structure is embodied resides in that, due to the nature of our bodies, including our neuro-anatomical architecture, we have a species-specific view of the world (Geerearts, 1993; Talmy, 1985, 2000; Taylor, 1989) In other words, our construal of reality is mediated, in large measure, by the nature of our embodiment We can only talk about what we can perceive and conceive, and the things

that we can perceive and conceive derive from embodied experience From this point of view, the human mind must bear the imprint of embodied experience This position holds that conceptual is a consequence of the nature of our embodiment and thus is embodied

The second guiding principle; that is to say, semantic structure is conceptual structure, asserts that language refers to concepts in the mind of the speaker rather than, directly, to entities which inhere in an objectively real external world Put another way,

semantic structure (the meanings conventionally associated with words and other linguistic

units) can be equated with conceptual structure (i.e., concepts) (Rosch, 1973) However,

the claim that semantic structure can be equated with conceptual structure does not mean that the two are identical Instead, cognitive semanticists hold that the meanings associated with linguistic units such as words, for example, form only a subset of possible concepts in the minds of speaker-hearers After all, we have many more thoughts, ideas and feelings than we can conventionally encode in language (Evans, 2006; Evans & Green, 2006)

The third guiding principle holds that semantic structure is encyclopaedic in nature

This means that lexical concepts do not represent neatly packaged bundles of meaning Rather, they serve as ‘points of access’ to vast repositories of knowledge relating to a particular concept or conceptual domain (Langacker, 1987) Of course, to claim that lexical concepts are ‘points of access’ to encyclopaedic meaning is not to deny that words have conventional meanings associated with them Nevertheless, cognitive semanticists argue that the conventional meaning associated with a particular linguistic unit is simply a

‘prompt’ for the process of meaning construction: the ‘selection’ of an appropriate

interpretation against the context of the utterance

The fourth guiding principle is that language itself does not encode meaning Instead, words (and other linguistic units) are only ‘prompts’ for the construction of meaning (Geerearts, 1999) Accordingly, meaning is constructed at the conceptual level Meaning construction is equated with conceptualization, a process whereby linguistic units serve as prompts for an array of conceptual operations and the recruitment of background knowledge Meaning is a process rather than a discrete thing that can be packaged by language

1.3 Spatial Prepositions

1.3.1 Definition of Spatial Prepositions

Spatial prepositions, in Cuyckens’ (1993) account, express how two entities relate

to each other in space In other words, these spatial prepositions describe a relation

between an ordered pair of arguments x and y in which the spatial preposition indicates the location of an entity x with respect to an entity y, or better with respect to the place referred

to by the entity y

Prepositions expressing spatial relations are of two kinds: prepositions of location and prepositions of direction (Finegan, 2004) Prepositions of location or spatial

prepositions appear with verbs describing states or conditions, especially be; prepositions

of direction appear with verbs of motion

1.3.2 Syntactic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions

Quirk et al (1985) states that a preposition expresses a relation between two entities One of these entities is called the prepositional complement and it relates to another part of the sentence The prepositional complement is often a noun phrase, a nominalised wh-clause, a nominalised ing-clause, or rarely, an adjective or adverb The preposition and its complement compose a prepositional phrase, which usually functions syntactically as a postmodifier in a noun phrase or as an adverbial Spatial prepositions constitute part of prepositions; therefore, they also acquire these perspectives

1.3.3 Semantic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions

Rice (1996) argues that a preposition possesses its own lexical meaning because it stands apart from a noun or pronoun with which different prepositions can be used In other words, a preposition has its lexical meaning on the one hand, and a lexical viability,

on the other In this work we support this point of view which logically leads to the fact that the existence of an independent lexical meaning presupposes the existence of some semantic kernel around which some additional peripheral meanings are grouped There is

no unique approach to what a lexical meaning of a preposition is and some consider it as

"relationship between words", as an extra linguistic aspect and phenomenon The semantic perspective on prepositions is somewhat trickier to account for, since it is possible to draw

an intricate network of meanings around each preposition

The prototypical meaning of most prepositions is always a spatial relation (Tyler & Evans, 2003; Cienki, 1989; Herskovits, 1986; Vandeloise, 1991), and other meanings can

be derived from this one In describing a relational expression of a spatial preposition,

Langacker (1987) used the terms trajector (TR) and landmark (LM) The figure of which

the location is indicated is the TR whereas the reference point specifying the location is the

LM, and so does Taylor (1989), explicitly following him, whereas Talmy (2000) prefers to

speak about primary and secondary objects In the present research study, Langacker’s binomial trajector vs landmark will be employed In this way, the bird in the sentence The

bird is in the tree is the TR, while the tree is the LM, and in is the preposition which

describes the spatial relationship between the two From this basic or prototypical meaning, other meanings are drawn Lindstromberg (1998) talks about a literal meaning, rather than

a basic meaning, that is extended metaphorically As an example, he mentions the literal

meaning of in as found in the sentence He’s in bed, which is extended metaphorically in the sentence He is in trouble In the latter case the meaning of in is not that of physical containment as in in the first case; rather, trouble is metaphorically seen as a state in which

one can be This literal meaning is the one that is learnt earliest by native speakers and it often refers to the physical world

Likewise, Tyler and Evans (2003) discuss a primary sense around which a semantic network can be drawn The literal, the primary, and the basic meaning all seem to refer to the same thing - it is a spatial meaning that relates the trajector and the landmark to each other The secondary literal meaning can be explained by metaphorical and metonymic extensions Taylor and Evans (2003) also show that the way the spatial meaning of prepositions can be used to describe non-spatial relations is highly motivated Thus, learners of English would find prepositions a less problematic area if they just understood

the logic behind their usage

1.4 Cognitive Semantics Approach to Spatial Prepositions

In the present study, the semantic analysis of the English preposition in and its

Vietnamese equivalents are accounted for and illustrated within the framework of cognitive semantics Hence, primary notions proposed by Johnson (1987), Langacker (1987, 1991a) and Lakoff (1987), namely experiential realism and image schemas, prototype and radial category, metaphor as a mechanism for meaning extension, polysemy, perspective and subjectivity are adopted to lay the foundation for data analysis These notions are reviewed in the ensuing sections

1.4.1 Experiential Realism, Image Schemas and Spatial Prepositions

According to Cognitive Semantics, conceptual systems grow out of bodily experience, and are grounded in perception, bodily movement, and experience of a

physical and social character (Johnson, 1987) Lakoff (1987) proposes that experiential

realism goes along with connectionism as well as biologism and social realism It assumes

a commitment to the existence of the real world and it acknowledges that reality places constraints on concepts The body has the ability to reason which is shaped by generic inheritance, environment, and social as well as physical functioning Lakoff (1987) stresses human bodies and recurring activities provide us with a direct experiential basis for understanding a wealth of image schemas

Image schema was defined by Johnson (1987: 29) as ‘a recurrent pattern, shape,

and regularity’ in and of ‘actions, perceptions and conceptions’ that are on-going With reference to Gibbs & Colston (1995) cited in Geeraerts & Cuyckens (2007), image schemas are experiential gestalts; that is to say, different patterns of recurrent bodily experiences that emerge throughout activity as we manipulate objects, orient ourselves spatially and temporally, and direct our perceptual focus for various purposes Likewise, Johnson (1987) and Lakoff (1987) held the view that our experience is preconceptually structured at a level where gestalts for general overall shapes are relatively rich in structure

Both Johnson and Lakoff describe some of these gestalts under the name of image schemas

Different scholars provides different lists of image schemas Thus, for Lakoff, the CONTAINER schema that defines the predicates IN and OUT would work as the basis for understanding the body as container, the visual fields, and set models The PART-WHOLE schema is transferred to domains such as families, teams, organizations, marriage, and so forth The LINK schema helps conceptualize social and interpersonal relationships The CENTRE-PERIPHERY schema offers the difference between important things or matters seen as central, and less important or secondary matters as peripheral Finally, the SOURCE-PATH schema gives the clue for purposes in our daily life as destinations of a journey Other image schemas are PROXIMITY-DISTANCE; FRONT-BACK orientation; LINEAR order; UP-DOWN, etc According to Lakoff, these image schemas might be also deeply grounded in common human experience that they constitute universal prelinguistic cognitive structures These image schemas lead to primary conceptualizations in the domain of physical experience and will define the primigenial use of words The internal structure of word meaning is not autonomous, but exists against a background of our general assumptions about the world (socio-cultural beliefs included), and word meaning is frequently prototype-based rather than being composed of checklists of features

Johnson (1987) maintains that the projection of image schemas onto abstract thought is mediated mainly by metaphor So, metaphor constitutes a crucial link between bodily experience and abstract reason That’s what we shall be looking at in the following section

Besides TRs and LMs, image schemas have an important role to play in understanding spatial relations designated by prepositions Specifically, the above-mentioned image schemas map in various combinatory ways to specific prepositions in a given language In addition, they are acknowledged to help explain seemingly contradictory or counter-intuitive usages of prepositions and particles For instance, Herskovits (1986) clarifies that container schema provides the basis for explaining the

multiple meanings of the preposition in, source-path schema is applicable to account for senses of to, etc It is also important to note, as Langacker (1987) argues, that physical

space will be the most salient domain for conceptualization of prepositions Ontogenetically, the conceptual schema must be previously elaborated in this basic domain

in order for a speaker to acquire a special concept and is associated with new instances so that the speaker is able to categorize these new instances In this way, the concept in question can be extended to new senses via metaphorical mappings or image schema transformations

1.4.2 Metaphor and Spatial Prepositions

Cognitive semantics, however, does not view metaphor as a speaker’s violation of

rules of competence proposed by Generative Linguistics (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), but

as a means whereby ever more abstract and intangible areas of experience can be conceptualized in terms of the familiar and concrete One cognitive domain can be understood, or even created, in terms of components more usually associated with another cognitive domain

According to Langacker (1990), metaphor is the main conceptual mechanism through which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning Metaphors are mappings across conceptual domains that establish correspondences between entities in the target and source domains, and can project inference patterns from the source domain onto the target domain They are grounded in the body, and in everyday experience and knowledge, to the extent that they constitute a subsystem of our conceptual system The system of conventional conceptual metaphor is unconscious, automatic, and

constantly in use; it is central to our understanding of experience and to the way we act on that understanding; it plays a major role in both the grammar and lexicon of a language; part of it is universal, part of it culture-specific This assumption implies, on the one hand, that the inference patterns of the source domain remain untouched in the target domain, and on the other hand, that only metaphorical mappings are possible when the inference patterns of the target domain are consistent with all or part of the source domain (Lakoff, 1990; Barcelona, 2003)

It is worth emphasizing that metaphors are not just figures of speech in literature, but also pervasive in everyday language Furthermore, metaphors are not just language but also a conceptual tool to understand and create more abstract conceptual domains

With respect to spatial semantic categories, certain aspects of the basic physical domain are highlighted to understand and create abstract domains (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) In other words, our experience with the concrete world like people, objects, actions and events are used to conceptualize abstract phenomena In the case of prepositions, when these are used in figurative meanings, what we have is a metaphorical mapping from physical space onto conceptual space, since conceptual structure is understood in terms of conceptual image schemas plus a metaphorical mapping (Boers, 1996) Conceptual image schemas based on spatial experience are directly understood, they provide the conceptual basis for the uses of prepositions in the physical domain, and are extended metaphorically

to structure other domains Thus metaphor theory gives insight into the mechanisms of conventional figurative language creation and processing Reasonably, this can be seen as

the mechanism which the semantic categories in activate in order to be used in abstract

domains, i.e in prepositional abstract uses In the analysis of this predicate, we will make

an attempt at accounting for many, if not all, of their metaphorical extensions

1.4.3 Prototype, Radial Category and Spatial Prepositions

Rosch (1973), when addressing attribute domains such as colour or shape, argues that categories form around perceptually salient points in the domain, and such form

cognitive prototypes for the categories For such categories, prototypes are probably

psychologically determined and therefore, such categories should be universal; only the category boundaries are expected to vary with culture Object categories are also structured around prototypes, although for these categories content is assumed to vary with culture It

is argued that categories of objects become organized so as to maximize the correlation and

predictability of attributes within categories So, co-occurrence of attributes leads to a prototype For object categories, prototypes are the objects which most strongly reflect the attribute structure of the category as a whole; thus by means of prototypes, categories can

be made to appear simpler, more clear-cut, and more different from each other than they are in reality Categories and prototypes can vary across cultures but the principles of category formation and of development of prototypes can be expected to be universal Prototypes serve as reference points for the categorization of less clear instances Entities are assigned membership in a category by virtue of their similarity to the prototype The closer an entity to the prototype, the more central its status within the category

Category structures and prototype effects are very crucial sources of developing the

structure of a radial category Prototype effects address ‘certain members of the categories

as being more representative of the category than other members’ (Lakoff, 1987: 41) Within the structure of a radial category, non-prototypes are either directly or intermediately radiating outward from the prototype that occupies the most central position

of the structure Accordingly, the radial category of a polysemy is an elaborated semantic network that essentially consists of its prototypical sense, which is the most central sense, non-prototypical senses, which are less representative and extended from human capacities

of imagination (such as metaphorical mappings and image schema transformation) demonstrating a natural and systematic organization of related senses

1.4.4 Polysemy and Spatial Prepositions

Polysemy, according to Taylor (2002), is a single linguistic form associating with a

number of distinct but related senses Over the past few decades, the issue of polysemy has been paid attention within the framework of cognitive semantics As a matter of fact, cognitive linguists (Langacker, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Johnson, 1987) hold important views about polysemy: the lexicon constitutes a natural category of its various senses organized with respect to the most central sense and thus form a semantic network In other words, on account of cognitive semantics, a lexicon is much more

Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999), Lakoff (1987) and claim that polysemy can be attributed to figurative usage Indeed, it is held that not only our language, but also our cognition operates figuratively Polysemy is accounted for within a general approach to human categorization that rejects the idea that human reasoning is solely based on the capacity to manipulate abstract symbols Rather, human reasoning is held to be grounded

in perception, bodily movement, and experience of a physical and social nature In this view, metaphor, metonymy and mental imagery are the means by which abstract concepts, which are not directly grounded in experience, are understood This approach is complemented by insights from prototype-theory (Rosch, 1977, 1978) and the theory of cognitive models (Lakoff, 1987) Within this account, the related meanings of words form categories and the meanings bear family resemblances to one another To use Lakoff’s words: polysemy arises from the fact that there are systematic relationships between different cognitive models and between elements of the same model (Lakoff, 1987: 13) This view has given rise to different models for lexical networks based on the notion that

the different meanings of a given lexeme “form a radially structured category, with a

central member and links defined by image-schema transformation and metaphors”

(Lakoff, 1987: 460)

Cognitive semanticists have made several attempts at showing the structure of prepositional polysemy Such authors as Rice (1996), Lakoff (1987), Langacker (1991a) have proposed lexical networks representing polysemy of prepositions Although, lexical networks described by different scholars are different, they exhibit some common properties which clarify that they are integrated structures containing multiple, linked nodes These nodes symbolize either separate senses or usage types of the preposition in question The nodes extend out from a central node whose value is commonly taken to be the prototype of the entire lexical category In the current paper, Rice’s (1996) lexical network which suggests novel senses are only detectable at the periphery of the category, based on extension from already extended senses

1.4.5 Perspective and Subjectivity

Finally, the point of view in cognitive semantics adopted in the present analysis is the specific notions of perspective and subjectivity from Langacker (1987, 1990) Following Langacker (1990:5), ‘A foundational claim of cognitive semantics is that an expression’s meaning cannot be reduced to an objective characterization of the situation described: equally important is how the conceptualizer chooses to construe the situation and portray it for expressive purposes’ The point this author makes is that the semantic value of an expression should be determined by numerous facets of construal, consisting of the level of specificity at which the situation is characterized, background assumptions and

expectations, the relative prominence accorded various entities, and the perspective taken

on the scene

According to Langacker (1987), the term perspective is the way in which a scene is viewed, which is particular embodied viewing arrangement Factors of perspective subsume figure/ ground alignment, vantage point, and subjectivity Vantage point and

subjectivity are the factors that concern the present analysis of Vietnamese equivalent of in

Vantage point is the position from which a scene is viewed in the viewer’s line of sight Langacker (1990) mentions that the contrast between subjective and objective construal reflects the inherent asymmetry between a perceiving individual and the entity perceived, which involves two situation, namely, the optimal viewing arrangement and the egocentric viewing arrangement The former signifies that the viewer has a clear perceptual access to the perceived object which is within the objective scene; however, he is excluded by both the objective scene and his perceptual field By contrast, in the latter the viewer is included

in both the objective scene and the perceptual field, indicating that the viewer can become the focus of viewing attention

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

In this chapter, the research questions will be restated in 2.1, the methods of the study will be hightlighted in 2.2, the data will be described in 2.3, the analytical framework

of the study will be introduced in 2.4, and data analysis, findings and discussion will be presented in 2.5 Particularly, in section 2.5, which constitutes the central focus of the

current study, meanings of the English preposition in and its Vietnamese equivalents will

be thoroughly explored

2.1 Research Questions

It is worth restating the two research questions that guideline the study:

- From a cognitive semantic perspective, what meanings does the English

preposition in have?

- What are potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English preposition in?

2.2 Methodology

The present paper probes into the manifold meanings of the English preposition in

and its potential Vietnamese equivalents from a cognitive semantic perspective It is evident that cognitive semanticists have focused on the analysis of how different senses of

a word are related to each other; however, they have of course also been aware that the motivation of sense distinction is a non-trivial issue since the links between senses can only be discussed once the distinctness of senses has been established Thus, a variety of different approaches have been proposed to deal with this problem By and large, cognitive semantic studies have traditionally been based on decontextualized data, collected and analyzed by means of introspection As a consequence, the findings may be empirically problematic since not all fine-grained sense distinctions are necessarily supported by the data (Geeraerts, 2009) The two alternatives to introspection that are currently applied within the scope of cognitive linguistics are psycholinguistic experimentation (Rice, 1996) and corpus analysis (Geeraerts, 2009) Geeraerts points out that while psycholinguistic experiments lead to elicitation of individual phenomena, corpus analysis provides descriptions of social phenomena Thus, while a subject in an experiment may provide information about the prototypical or peripheral status of a particular sense of a word for

an individual, the analysis of corpora can offer the same information at a social level Geeraerts calls it onomasiological entrenchment Therefore, higher frequency in the corpus implies higher entrenchment of a given sense of a word in the linguistic community

Taking this into account, in the present study, in order to answer the first research question, corpus-based analysis is made used of Specifically, prototypical sense of the

preposition in will be determined according to its frequency in the corpus, which in turn

shows the cue validity of the most relevant perceptual aspect for each Other derived

meanings of in will be then classified basing on their relationship with the prototypical one

through sense shifts and metaphorical extension

Additionally, as regards the second research question, contrastive analysis is

incorporated as a tool to investigate potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English in As

James emphasized in his book (1980) that contrastive analysis plays an important role in understanding two different languages, and that it can also present a possible solution to the equivalence problem In this way, a detailed explanation of the specific differences and similarities in using language as a reflective tool of people’s cognitive structuring of space will be provided

2.3 Data

A corpus of 681 in-instances were collected for our analysis As far as the scope of the study is concerned, only occurrences of in in form of (NP) + in + NP and NP + V + in

+ NP, where in plays the role of a preposition rather than an adverb or an affix, were taken

from three sources, namely, Vanity Fair by Thackeray, W M., Jane Eyre by Bronte, C and English-Vietnamese translation course books for third and fourth-year English majors at the MSA Those examples which were found to be extremely repetitive were excluded All these sources were chosen for the fact that they are present in the curricula designed for the third and fourth-year English majors at the MSA, and that the objectivity of translational equivalents could be guaranteed

Actually, of all the 681 in-samples which have been gathered manually, 221

instances occur in Vanity Fair by Thackeray, W M., 198 in Jane Eyre by Bronte, C and

262 in the English-Vietnamese translation course books for third and fourth-year English majors at the MSA The purpose has been to provide a sufficient amount of information for the task of disambiguation in those cases where more than one sense could have been interpreted for the preposition under analysis In addition, all of their Vietnamese translational equivalents have been listed as well This means that the selected English

preposition in as well as its Vietnamese variations were identified The process of

identification and selection were carried out manually by scrutinizing both texts The

preposition extracted from source texts and their target (translated) texts equivalents were then classified and sorted out accordingly in separated tables The frequency for the different variation types were recorded and calculated as percentages

2.4 Analytical Framework

The framework of this thesis is based on the particular notions in cognitive semantics, namely, image schemas, prototype theory and radial category, and metaphorical meaning extension

To begin with, in the semantic description of the preposition in, the conceptual

image schema CONTAINER posited by Johnson (1987) is proposed This conceptual

schema designates the prototypical meaning of in, that is, enclosure It is assumed that the

conceptual image schema is acquisitionally previous to meaning extension and that it is the first meaning acquired by children At the same time, it offers a basis from which new extended senses derive by virtue of natural, independently motivated image-schema transformations or shifts Extensions are explained as metaphorical and metonymic mappings from spatial domains onto other domains of human experience (social, scientific,

etc…) However, as regards the English preposition in under analysis, only metaphorical

extension will be under in-depth investigation In this way, polysemy appears

Also, Lakoff’s (1987) significant notion of natural category with radial structure (i.e radial category) that is based on prototype theory in language provides a very straightforward and convenient means in our account of the organization of senses of the

polysemous English preposition in Based on Lakoff’s prototype effects and the structure

of radial category, we can clearly observe how the polysemous in constitutes its elaborate

semantic network in radial structure Within the radial category, the prototypical sense of

in respectively occupies the central position of the radial structure, for it is the most basic

sense The non-prototypical senses of in motivated by sense shifts, or transformations from

prototypical schema, and metaphorical projection are radiating outwards from the

prototypical sense All the non-prototypical and metaphorical senses of in are linked to the prototypical sense, constituting a natural and systematic network of the various senses of in

Besides, contrastive analysis as expounded in James (1995) will be employed to

explore Vietnamese equivalents of in What is more, vantage point and subjectivity

proposed by Langacker (1987) also substantially contribute to explicating Vietnamese

potential translational equivalents of in enumerated in our corpus In this way, differences

as well as similarities between English and Vietnamese spatial conceptualisation will be uncovered Put another way, it is interesting to find out how cognitive elements can be encoded in the use of different languages

2.5 Data Analysis, Findings and Discussions

This section is designed to target two main points, namely, distinct but related

meanings of the polysemous English spatial preposition in and its Vietnamese equivalents

The former will be analysed in three parts: first, in presenting the conceptual image schema

or prototypical meaning of in, second, in demonstrating the non-prototypical senses of in and metaphorical extensions, and third, in developing the radial category of in The latter will be devoted to investigating Vietnamese translational equivalents of in Specifically, prepositional as well as non-prepositional Vietnamese equivalents of in will be thoroughly

analysed and accounted for

2.5.1 Meanings of the English Preposition “in”

2.5.1.1 Prototypical schema for “in”

What is proposed in numerous works on prepositions like Lindkvist (1950), Miller,

G & Johnson-Laird, P (1976) and Herskovits (1986), Cienki (1989) is that image schema introduces the primigenial conceptual schema, or impetus for the concept That central schema, however, does not remain unchanged through various contexts, and polysemy takes place In this way, it is pervasively worth mentioning that though the origin of the

concept in may be looked for in light of container schema, and the central schema for in, as

claimed to be derived from bodily experience tentatively gives rise to enclosure prototype

It is found that fifty nine out of in-occurrences in our corpus convey this typical meaning

The enclosure prototype, which constitutes sense 1 in the radial category, as argued

by such researchers as Vandeloise (1991) and Lindkvist (1950), requires that the LM is three-dimensional, hollow and materially enclosed on all sides It subsumes the three

semantic modes of the spatial conceptualisation of in: the TR coincides with the interior

region defined by the LM; the TR can move within that interior region, and finally the LM exerts control over the TR, either offering it protection by preventing its access of the external entities to it or maintaining it in isolation by preventing its access to the exterior Accordingly, the total enclosure prototype is instantiated with complements denoting: buildings, parts of buildings; human and animal bodies and parts of them; conveyances like

cars, buses, aeroplanes, trains, ships, etc.; inanimate man-made objects such as wardrobes,

bottles, pots, tins, boxes, etc For instance:

(1) … every one of the servants in the house … (Thackeray, 2001: 15)

(2) …, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe (Brontë, 2001: 25)

(3) "And the pain in your chest?" (Brontë, 2001: 202)

(4) …I recalled the time when I had traveled that very road in a coach (Brontë, 2001: 297)

2.5.1.2 Non-prototypical Meanings of “in”

The prototypical schema undergoes two main transformations: partial enclosure and interior region as LM (Cienki, 1989; Navarro-Ferrando, 1998), each of which in turn

gives origin to a new chain of meanings

Partial enclosure is encoded when the boundaries defined by the LM are construed

as incomplete, so that part of the trajector is visible This sense of in occurs with such LMs

as corner, door, frame, seat, balcony, beds, clothes, trees, and so forth, which account for

37 occurrences of in in our corpus Consider the following examples:

(6)…I knew quite well that I was in my own bed (Brontë, 2001: 75)

This partial enclosure sense gives rise to a novel chain of meanings as follows:

1) Inclusion (sense 2) With regard to Vandeloise (1991), and Talmy, L (1983) inclusion

reflects the sense that the TR is found within the limits of an area or line What has occurred here is a focalization on topological relations between TRs and LMs This sense

is used with two-dimensional surface complements like land, country, yard, suburb, park,

ground, field, roads, territory, garden, forest, plain, desert, island, peninsula, moors, etc

or proper names that denote this type of geographical area This sense is also used with

one-dimensional LMs like line, direction, route, etc What is noteworthy here is that LMs

designate areas which are conceptualized as having limits and marking the region where

location of the TR demands the preposition in to express the topological relationship of

coincidence which exists between both elements

(7) … the darling girls caught a colt in a paddock, … (Thackeray, 2001: 70)

(8)… light in the churchyard just over his grave (Brontë, 2001: 78)

(9)… I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer (Brontë, 2001: 347)

As regards expressions such as centre, middle, heart, bottom, etc., the location of the

trajector within an entity with limits is more closely defined that the above-mentioned ones:

(10) I wish it were in the bottom of the Thames…(Thackeray, 2001: 9)

(11)… right in the middle of the garden… (Brontë, 2001: 326)

All in all, 78 out of 681 cases of in collected in our corpus manifest the so-called inclusion meaning

2) Integrated parts in the whole (sense 2a) This meaning requires an image schema

involving a TR as a part of a LM The TR is conceived of as located in the interior region defined by the external boundaries of the LM Thus, the LM is likely to be a row, a machine, a collection, a set, a programme, a food, a substance, a chain of mountains, etc

which consists of integral components 18 examples of in in our corpus are found to

possess this meaning For instance:

(12) The pictures are displayed in sets (Chung et al, 2002: 23)

(13) we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick (Brontë, 2001: 268)

3) Gap / object embedded in physical object (sense 2b) For example: a gate in the wall,

vacancies in a company, lacking in courage, etc This sense accounts for 11 examples of in

in our corpus Take a look at the following:

(14) A few enterprises were lacking in well-qualified staff (Chung et al, 2002: 63)

The second transformation from prototypical schema, i.e interior region as LM is used with LMs that indicate the space within a container like hole, space, crack, leak, slot, etc., and in several fixed collocations like in place of, in lieu of (Navarro-Ferrando, 1998)

For instance:

(15) … English excellently dubbed in place of the Russian dialogue (Chung et al, 2003: 57)

4) Medium (sense 3) The term medium is described as the intervening or surrounding

substances, fluid, conditions or influences, according to Zelinsky-Wibbelt, C (1993) The

LM becomes the medium that fills out the interior region defined by the lost boundaries

This meaning occurs with complements like the air, the sky, space, wind, weather

phenomena, climate, chemicals, etc Therefore, the trajector is topologically perceived as

coincident with the space filled with these media Linguistic expressions such as in the sun,

in the rain, in the air, in silence, in the dark, in the twilight, in the moonlight, in the daylight, in the shadow, etc illustrate this meaning The medium may also be fluids like water, wine, snow or solid substances like soil, sugar, sand, mud, etc Important is the

evidence that our corpus has 46 occurrences of in designating this meaning Take a look at

the following:

(16) …, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; (Brontë, 2001: 291)

(17) … waited it in silence…(Brontë, 2001: 42)