ERRORS COMMITTED BY STUDENTS OF HAI DUONG UNIVERSITY IN USING PREPOSITIONS OF PLACE FROM COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES KIỀU THỊ HỒNG ERRORS COMMITTED BY STUDENTS OF HAI DUONG UNIVERSITY IN USING PREPOSITIONS OF PLACE: FROM COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE (Lỗi dùng giới từ địa điểm sinh viên Trường Đại học Hải Dương: từ góc độ tri nhận) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES KIỀU THỊ HỒNG ERRORS COMMITTED BY STUDENTS OF HAI DUONG UNIVERSITY IN USING PREPOSITIONS OF PLACE: FROM COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE (Lỗi dùng giới từ địa điểm sinh viên Trường Đại học Hải Dương: từ góc độ tri nhận) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Văn Độ Hanoi, 2017 DECLARATION I, Kieu Thi Hong, certify that this thesis is the result of my own research and the substance of the research has not been submitted for degree to any other university or institution Hanoi, April 2017 Signature Kieu Thi Hong i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this study would not have been possible without the assistance of special and wonderful people First of all, I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness and gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Đo, for his unfailing encouragement, constant support and supervision during all stages of the study His enthusiastic assistance, guidance, support, and his wisdom greatly contributed to the fulfillment of my thesis I would also like to thank my supervisor for his patience in reading and editing my draft It must be an excruciating experience My heartfelt gratitude is also to Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, The Head of Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies and all his staff members who have been of great help Last but not least, I would like to give my deepest gratitude to my parents, and my friends for their moral support and encouragement throughout my course The study still has limitations, therefore all the suggestions and recommendations would be warmly welcomed ii ABSTRACT Prepositions are known as a small but notoriously difficult lexical unit in English because it is the differences in the linguistic cognition among cultures that prevent language users from mastering and using prepositions properly In order to help language learners overcome these difficulties, this study aims at exploring the frequencies and causes of the errors in using prepositions of place “in, on, at” from cognitive perspective The theory of cognitive linguistics and error analysis are used to carry out this study 120 students at Hai Duong University took part in two types of tests including multiple choice tests and written test to analyze based on qualitative and quantitative methods in order to find out the types of errors and their causes The results show that the students at Hai Duong University often misuse between prepositions “in” and “on” there exist many differences in applying locative strategies TR and LM to encode languages due to the distinguishing features in perception regarding space, the living habits, topography and sky orientation Moreover, they also have difficulty using prepositions of place “in” because of the difference of cognition It is hoped that the findings can be a small contribution to the stock of prepositional research iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TR Trajector TRs Trajectors LM Landmark LMs Landmarks E.A Error Analysis iv LIST OF FIRGURES AND TABLES Figure1 CONTAINMENT schema for in (Herskovits, 1986) Figure Schematic representation of in indicating the final inclusive status of a process (Lindner, 1982) Figure General image schema of on (Ming, 2011) Figure PATH schema for on (Ming, 2011) Figure CONTAINMENT schema for at (Yang, 2008) Figure ADJACENCY schema for at (Yang, 2008) Figure LINEAR-RELATION schema for at (Yang, 2008) Figure DYNAMIC-RELATION schema for at (Yang, 2008) Table Image schemas of prepositions in, on and at with their application of the present study Table Results of section 1- test Table The incorrect answer section 1- test Table Results of the section 2-test Table 5: The incorrect answer section 2- test Table Results of the section 3-test Table 7: The incorrect answer section 2- test Table Results of the test Table Results of the test Table 10 The general understanding of in, on and at Table 11 The examples of in and how the CONTAINMENT schema is applied Table 12 The examples of on and how the CONTACT schema is applied Table 13 The examples of at and how ADJACENCY schema is applied v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF FIRGURES AND TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims and objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methodology Significance of the study Organization of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT .5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Introduction of cognitive linguistics 1.2 Error in language learning process .11 1.2.1 Notions of error .11 1.2.2 Errors and Mistakes .12 1.2.3 Error Analysis 13 1.2.4 The Source of Error 14 1.3 Preposition 14 1.3.1 Prepositions in English 14 1.3.2 Vietnamese Prepositions 16 1.3.3 Some comments about prepositions of place “in, on, at” from cognitive perspective 17 1.4 Review of previous studies 18 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 21 Restatement of research questions 21 2 The fitness of the research approach 21 2.3 Context of the study 21 2.3.1 Setting of the study 21 vi 2.3.2 Participants 23 2.4 Research instruments 23 2.5 Data collection and analysis procedure 25 2.6 Summary 26 CHAPTER DATA ANALYSIS .28 3.1 Errors in section 1- Test 28 3.2 Errors in section 2-Test 31 3.3 Errors in section 3-Test 32 3.4 General tendencies .34 3.5 Written Test 35 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS 38 4.1 Findings 38 4.2 Implications 40 PART C: CONCLUSION 46 Summary of the study 46 Limitations of the research and suggestions for further studies 47 REFERENCES 49 APPENDIX I APPENDIX II vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Firstly, after reading numerous previous researches and journals, the researcher has realized that it is prepositional error is one of the major grammar errors According to Corder (cited in James, 1998), he defines errors as the result of some failure of performance This is not surprising as prepositions comprise a significant portion of the words contained in completing English language sentence Collins (1991) said that it was observed that most of the English language sentences produced contained at least one preposition and that three out of ten most frequent words of the English language are prepositions The researcher has had the experience of witnessing the difficulties among her students in attempting to use the correct prepositions It is the intention of the researcher to discover the causes behind the difficulties experienced by these students in employing acceptable prepositions of place Secondly, the majority of studies which discuss the teaching of prepositions from a cognitive perspective focus on the extended uses of prepositions However, in fact, the students at Hai Duong University cannot distinguish the core meaning of the prepositions of place IN, ON, AT Moreover, there is not any study to focus on studying the errors in using prepositions of place at Hai Duong University In relation to this, the researcher chooses the prepositions of place as the main subject matters as these are among one of the main problems faced by the students at Hai Duong University Thirdly, language teachers and researchers have long recognized that the acquisition of English prepositions poses major challenges for second language learners Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman (1998) note several reasons for this difficulty They observe that “in their spatial meanings, prepositions not match up well from language to language”, even in relatively closely related languages For instance, the English sentence: There is a bird in the sky, would be "translated" in The peasants were resting at the river bank, drinking water Table 13 The examples of at and how ADJACENCY schema is applied (Xin Song (2013)) In this sentence When you leave the hotel, please leave your key at reception, the reception is the object (the TR) and you is close to the reception but not contact with the reception Meanwhile, comparing with the hotel, reception can be regarded as a point In the second example, you know the man standing at the door? here, the door is the object (the TR) and the man is close to the door (the LM), not touch Comparing with the house, where the man is standing can be regarded as a point The third one The peasants who are drinking water is the event (theTR) and the river bank is the object (the LM) Compared with the whole river bank, the peasants just stand at a point of it So we can use preposition at and the abstract image schema to express 45 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the study The present study aims at investigating errors of prepositions of place “in, on, at” made by the students at Hai Duong University and the causes of these errors The cognitive perspective, the notions such as image schemas, prototypical meaning and the framework of error analysis are employed to find out the errors The thesis starts with an overview of error analysis and cognitive linguistics Afterwards, much effort has been put into the concepts of preposition in English and in Vietnamese Moreover, these concepts are seen from cognitive perspective In addition, the distinction of prepositions of place between Vietnamese and English has been carefully looked into These basic information serves as the basis for data analysis in the succeeding part The data analysis has been carried out with an emphasis on three issues The first one is finding out the misuse of prepositions “in- on”, “on- at” and “at-in” The second one focuses on the types of errors the last one is causes of the errors Based on the analysis of the data, some conclusions on the errors commited by the students at Hai Duong University were drawn Most the students at Hai Duong University have difficulty in the uses of prepositions of place AT, ON, IN due to differences in strategies of spatial conceptualization In addition, the students get confused with the usages of AT and IN; ON and IN and ON and AT since their uses are relatively similar to each other Moreover, the differences between IN and ON are quite obvious, but a large number of the students still make wrong choices Instead of using IN, most of the students used ON to complete the task because they applied the way of cognition in Vietnamese to these exercises Last but not least, the students at Hai Duong University committed the errors in using preposition “in” most because they don‟t understand the usage of this preposition in English The students tends to translate prepositions “in” into “ trong” and vice versa Moreover, there are many differences in perceiving prepositions “on, in” 46 In terms of error causes, most of errors collected belong to Interlingual category and are traced to the two important causes: mother tongue interference and culture difference Actually, English spatial preposition tend to state objective locative strategies regardless of the position of the speaker while in Vietnamese the positions are more relational than objective In other words, the different cognition of positioning relationship; different positioning strategy: direct- indirect or subjective- objective are key factors to explain the errors in using prepositions of place Sky orientation also pays an important role in perceiving spatial space in both Vietnamese and English The causes of errors were affected by the following factors: the students haven‟t studies how to position; the students were affected by positioning system in their language; there is difference in expressing positioning between two languages; there are differences in spatial cognition Secondly, poor language knowledge is also a significant cause leading to errors Based on the conclusions drawn, some pedagogical implications have been put forward in the hope of assisting Vietnamese teacher of English to be well aware of the differences between prepositions of place “in, on, at” in English and in Vietnamese when teaching English writing and translation for students Limitations of the research and suggestions for further studies Due to the small scale of this study which is carried out for the purpose of error analysis when using prepositions of place “in, on, at” of the students at Hai Duong University from cognitive perspective, there exist a number of limitations Firstly, the subjects of the study which are only 120 students at Hai Duong University should be bigger in quantity so that more reliable data can be collected Secondly, the focus of the study which is only on three basic prepositions of place “in, on, at” should be made wider Thirdly, in addition to being seen from cognitive perspective, error analysis should be compared from other perspectives in order to have a more overall view between the two languages The present thesis is a small contribution to the study of errors of using English prepositions of place “on, at, in”- one of the most popular prepositions in 47 English from cognitive perspective The data collected from 120 students at Hai Duong University Despite the author based on the theories to find out the findings, this work is partly affected by the subjective factors Therefore, it is advisable to: - Widen the scope of the study to other works so as to avoid subjectivity; - Study the misuse the prepositions of place “in, on, at” with other prepositions - Explore the data in a different way, for example: interview students, interview teacher, and observation 48 REFERENCES In English Bennett, D C (1975) Spatial and temporal uses of English prepositions: An essay in stratificational semantics, London: Longman Bricki, N & Green, J (2007) A guide to using qualitative research methodology London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine British National Corpus (BNC) Retrieved February 9, 2011, from www.bnc.bl.uk Carter, R., & McCarthy, M (2006) Cambridge Grammar of English, A comprehensive guide Spoken and Written English Grammar and Usage Cambridge University Press Celce-Murcia, M and Larsen-Freeman, D (1983) The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teacher‟s Course Rowley: Newbury House 251-263 Cienki, A (1997) Some Properties and Groupings of Image Schemas In Verspoor, Marjolijn, Cienki, A (1998) STRAIGHT: An image schema and its metaphorical extensions Cognitive Linguistics, 9(2), 107-149 Clark, H.H (1973) “Space, time, semantics and the child” Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language Ed.T.E Moore London: Academic Press 27-64 Cienki, A (1989) Spatial cognition and the semantics of prepositions in English, Polish, and Russian, 237 Munich: Verlag O Sagner Choong Kim Foo (2013), An analysis of the prepositional errors of time, place and direction among Chinese Secondary schools students, MA thesis, Language faculty, Unversity of Pendikidan Sultanidris Corder, S P (1967) The significance of learner‟s errors International Review of Applied Linguistics, 5, 161-170 Corder, S P (1994) A role for the mother tongue In S M Gass & L Selinker (Ed.), Language transfer in language learning (pp 18-31) Philadelphia, USA: John Benjamins B V 49 Draper, A.K (2004) The Principles and application of qualitative research Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 63, 641-646 doi:10.1079/PNS2004397 Dai, P P (2007) A study of the spatial meanings and metaphorical extensions of prepositions In and Out Master‟s thesis, Jilin Univerisity, Changchun,China Evans, V (2006) „Lexical concepts, cognitive models and meaning –construction‟, Cognitive Linguistics, 17:4, 491-534 Evans, V., & Green, M (2006) Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction Edinburgh: Edinburg University Express Ellis, R (1997) The Study of Second Language Acquisition Oxford: Oxford Unveristy of Press Fillmore, C (1975) An alternative to checklist theories of meaning Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/bls.v1i0.2315 Frawley, W (1992) Linguistic semantics Hillsdale, Hove, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Johnson, M (1992) Philosophical Implications of Cognitive Semantics Cognitive Linguistic, 3.4: 345-366 Johnson, M (1987) The Body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, reason and imagination, Chicago: Chicago University Press Tran Quang Hai (2010) Major differences in the use of English and Vietnamese locative prepositions describing spacial relations, Magazine of Science and Technology , Da Nang University, 5(40), 71-78 Hoang Thi Dieu Huyen (2011) Prepositions in English and Vietnamese Languages, MA thesis, University of Education, Ho Chi Minh city Herskovits, A (1986) Language and spatial cognition- an interdisciplinary study for the prepositions in English Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press Ignasi, N.F (1999) Metaphorical use of on, Journal of English Studies, 145-164 Nguyen Thi Van Khanh (2009) A study on meanings of the English preposition "in" and its Vietnamese equivalents from a cognitive semantic perspective, 50 MA thesis, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi Lam, Y (2009) Applying cognitive linguistics to teaching the Spanish prepositions por and para Language Awareness, 18 (1), 2-18 Retrieved from: doi: 10.1080/09658410802147345 Lakoff, G & Thompson, H (1975) Introduction to cognitive grammar Proceedings of the 1st Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp 295–313), Berkeley, CA.: Berkeley Linguistics Society Lakoff, G., Johnson, M (1980) Metaphors We Live by, Chicago and London: Chicago University Press Lakoff, G (1987).Women, Fire and Dangerous Things What Categories Reveal about the Mind Chicago and London: Chicago University Press Lakoff, G., & Turner, M (1989) More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Lakoff, G (1990) The invariance hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on image schemas? Cognitive Linguistics, 1(1), 39–74 Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, New York: Basic Books Levinson, S (2001) Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive diversity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Leech, Geoffrey and Jan Sartvik 1973.A Communicative Grammar of English London: Longman Group Ltd Lindstromberg, S (1998) English prepositions explained Amsterdam: Benjamins Lorincz, K & Gordon, R (2012), Difficulties in learning prepositions and possible solutions, Linguistic Folio, (14) Retrieved from: http://repository stcloudstate.edu/ stcloud_ling/ vol1 /iss1/14 Ming, H (2011) A cognitive semantic study of preposition on-Based on a comparison with Chinese prepositional phrase Zai Shang Doctoral dissertation, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China Nguyen Thi Yen Nhung (2010) English and Vietnamese prepositions: A 51 contrastive analysis, MA thesis, University of Pedagogy, Ho Chi Minh city Quirk, R., & Greenbaum, S (1989) A university grammar of contemporary English, London: Longman Richards, J.C (1974), Error Analysis: Perspective and Second Language Acquisition, Longman, London Saeed, J I (1997) Semantics Oxford: Blackwell Sanal, Fahretin 2007 A Learner Based Study on Second Language Lexicology of Turkish Students of English, Doctoral Thesis, Cukurova University.Retrivied on March, 2012 From http://www.sosyalbil.selcuk.edu.tr/sos- mak/articles/.pdf Talmy, L (1985) Lexicalization patterns, semantic structure in lexical forms In: Shopen (ed.) Language typology and semantic description description iii, grammatical categories and the lexicon Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 57-149 Talmy, L (2000) Toward a cognitive semantics Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press Taylor, J.R (1989) Linguistic categorization Prototypes in linguistic theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press Tran, M.T., Tran, T.C (2007) Chào bạn!: an introduction to Vietnamese The U.S.A: University Press of America Tran, Q.H (2010) Major differences in the use of English and Vietnamese locative prepositions describing spacial relations Retrieved Dec.27, 2010 from http://www.kh-sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so40quyen3/10-tranquanghai.pdf Tyler, A., & Evans, V (2001) Reconsidering prepositional polysemy networks: the case of over Language, 77 (4), 724 765 Linguistic Society of America Retrieved May 30, 2016, from Project MUSE database Varela, F J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E (1993) The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press Vo Thi Cam Thuy (2011) A study of "up"-"down" in English and "lên" - "xuống" in Vietnamese: A cognitive semantics perspective, MA Thesis, Da Nang 52 University Yang, Q H (2008) The corpus-based esm analysis of the “at-on-in” microsystem, MA thesis, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China Xin Song (2013) A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to Teaching English Prepositions PhD thesis Department of Psychology, University of KoblenzLandau In Vietnamese Lý Tồn Thắng (1994) Ngơn ngữ tri nhận khơng gian Ngơn ngữ (4) Lý Tồn Thắng (2005) Ngôn ngữ học tri nhận, từ lý thuyết đại cương đến thực tiễn tiếng Việt, NXB Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội Lê văn Thanh & Lý Toàn Thắng (2002) Ba giới từ: at, on, in (thử nhìn từ góc độ chế tri nhận không gian tron g so sánh đối chiếu Tiếng Việt NN.No9/2002 Lê Văn Thanh (2002) Khảo sát thực nghiệm sử dụng giới từ không gian at, in,on học viên người Việt Ngữ học trẻ 2002 Hà Nội Nguyễn Quang (2001), „Chủ quan tính khách quan tính định vị khơng gian‟ số vấn đề giao tiếp giao thoa văn hóa, “Quyển 1”, 13-16 53 APPENDIX English test Instruments for Error Analysis Student's full name: Class: School: Section : Fill one preposition IN, On or AT in the gaps in the following sentences: The hole (IN/ON/AT) the wall There is a truck(IN/ON/AT) the road The apples are (IN/ON/AT) the branch The fly is (IN/ON/AT) the ceiling The plane is (IN/ON/AT) the sky The boy is (IN/ON/AT) the bus My parents are (IN/ON/AT) the car The bird is (IN/ON/AT) the tree Section 2: Fill one preposition IN, On or AT in the gaps in the following sentences: The boy is (AT/ ON/IN) the beach 10 Her photo is (AT/ ON/IN) page 11 We had a ball (AT/ ON/IN) sea 12 She owns a cabin (AT/ ON/IN) the mountain Section 3: Fill one preposition IN, On or AT in the gaps in the following sentences: 13 My son is (AT/IN/ON) the University 14 The bus is (AT/IN/ON) the 3rd street stop 15 The mine is (AT/IN/ON) a depth of 300 feet 16 There is no supermarket (AT/IN/ON) the neighborhood 17 There are points (AT/IN/ON) the line I APPENDIX Writing test Student's full name: School: Class: Describe the following pictures by using the clues Expected answer 18 The plane/ be/ the sky 19 She/ be/ bed 20 They/ be/ farm 21 There / a bird / my hand II 22 The man / flying/ a plane 23 Andy / standing/ the goalmouth 24 She /swimming / the sea 25 The peasants/ were/ resting //the river bank, /drinking water III Keys APPENDIX English test Instruments for Error Analysis Student's full name: Class: School: Section : Fill one preposition IN or On in the gaps in the following sentences: The hole is IN the wall There is a truck IN the road The apples are ON the branch The fly is ON the ceiling The plane is IN the sky The boy is ON the bus My parents are IN the car The bird is IN the tree Section 2: Fill one preposition AT or On in the gaps in the following sentences: The boy is AT the beach 10 Her photo is ON page 11 We had a ball AT sea 12 She owns a cabin AT the mountain Section 3: Fill one preposition AT or IN in the gaps in the following sentences: 13 My son is (AT the University 14 The bus is (AT the 3rd street stop 15 The mine is (AT a depth of 300 feet 16 There is no supermarket IN the neighborhood 17 There are points IN the line IV APPENDIX Writing test Student's full name: School: Class: Describe the following pictures by using the clues Expected answer 18 The plane is in the sky 19 She is in bed 20 They are cutting in the field 21 There is a bird in my hand V 22 The man is flying on a plane 23 Andy is standing at the goalmouth 24 She is swimming in the sea 25 The peasants were resting at the river bank, drinking water VI ... study proceeds from three main reasons, the first lies in the decisive role of finding the difficulties in using prepositions of place Then the cause of error in using prepositions of place is found... kinds of errors students at Hai Duong University often have in using prepositions of place AT, ON, IN? What might be the sources of the errors? What suggestion can be made in order to help students. .. investigating the students in using prepositions of place including in, on, at” from cognitive perspective Actually, the cognitive perspective has two trends including cognitive semantics and cognitive