Prepositions “in, on, at” in English and Vietnamese from a cognitive semantic perspective = Các giới từ "in, on,at" trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt dưới góc độ ngữ nghĩa học tri nhận. M.A. Thesis Linguistics: 602202

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE STUDIES HÀ THỊ TUYẾT PREPOSITIONS “IN, ON, AT” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FROM A COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE CÁC GIỚI TỪ “IN, ON, AT” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC 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 GRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE STUDIES HÀ THỊ TUYẾT PREPOSITIONS “IN, ON, AT” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FROM A COGNITIVE SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE CÁC GIỚI TỪ “IN, ON, AT” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm HANOI – 2017 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis, entitled “Prepositions “in, on, at” in English and Vietnamese from a cognitive semantic perspective” has been carried out in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art at the University of Languages and International Studies This work is original and all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references Hanoi – 2017 Hà Thị Tuyết i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the period of completing the Master thesis, the author has received the support of a great number of people First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Ha Cam Tam, my supervisor, who has generously given me insightful guidance and valuable feedback during the process of carrying out the thesis, without which this thesis would be far from completed I would also like to give my sincere gratitude to all of the lecturers at ULIS –VNU, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge and enthusiasm in their lectures My profound thanks are also to all my friends and classmates in the cohort 23, who have always stayed by my side, given me constructive comments and perked me up every time I need Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family, especially my husband and my daughter, for their immeasurable support and continual encouragement The Master thesis could not have been fulfilled without them ii ABSTRACT In light of reference frames used in spatial location coined by cognitive linguist Talmy in 2000, this thesis is intended to investigate the semantic features of English prepositions of place in, at, on with reference to Vietnamese The reason for this choice of topic is that spatial conceptualization is basic in a human being‘s development and it reveals meaningful insights into the patterns of thinking and viewing the world in cross-linguistics This paper compiles a set of typical cases using prepositions ―in‖, ―on‖ and ―at‖ in the two languages, pointing out the ways they are conceptualized and making a comparison from the data collected The final aim is to give valid construals about spatial conceptualization processes that native speakers employ in the language The results show that these prepositions in both languages have some similarities and differences in term of semantics iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS NP Noun phrase LM Landmark LMs Landmarks TR Trajector TRs Trajectors iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Statement of the Problem Aims of the Study Scope of the study Research question Organization of the study PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics 1.2 Spatial Prepositions and Semantic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions 1.3 Spatial domain and dimensionality 1.4 Spatial characteristics of Trajectors and Landmarks 10 1.5 Metaphor and spatial preposition 11 1.6 Overview of related studies 14 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17 2.1 Data collection 17 2.2 Analytical framework 17 2.3 Research methods 21 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 22 3.1 Conceptualization of ―in‖, ―on‖, ―at‖ in English 22 v 3.1.1 In 22 3.1.2 On 27 3.1.3 At 30 3.2 Conceptualization of ―in‖, ―on‖, ―at‖ in Vietnamese 32 3.3 Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese Spatial Cognition 39 3.3.1 Similarities 39 3.3.2 Differences 39 PART 3: CONCLUSION 42 3.1 A summary of the findings 42 3.2 Limitation and recommendation for further studies 43 REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX: A sample of a page in the novel The Great Gasby vi I PART 1: INTRODUCTION In this part, the author presents the statement of the problem, aims of the study, the research question, and organization of the study Statement of the Problem Nowadays, English has been widely used all over the world The language is currently considered as a second language in many countries However, learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) have a lot of difficulties in conceptualize and perceive the language Beside essential notional categories namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, such functional categories as prepositions are also challenging to learners of this language EFL leaners often try to relate the use of English prepositions to their mother tongue prepositional system It is 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) As far 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 The linguistic encoding of spatial concepts in different language is different (Choi & Bowerman, 1991) The preposition ―in, on, at‖ are very popular spatial prepositions in English It is essential to grasp the related meanings of these English prepositions within the framework of cognitive semantics and this way immensely understand what native speakers conceptualize spatial relations of the physical world objects and how they map from these spatial domains to nonspatial domains How these prepositions can be understood in different collocations have so far not been thoroughly investigated The thesis hopes to contribute to the research into how different language express the various spatial relations that hold between entities in the world Aims of the Study This study investigates the prepositions ―in, on, at‖ in English and Vietnamese from cognitive perspectives Therefore, it is aimed at: - Finding the ways the prepositions ―in, on, at‖ are conceptualized in English and in Vietnamese and their differences, if any Scope of the study The study is limited to investigating the ways the prepositions ―in, on, at‖ are conceptualized in English and in Vietnamese and identifying the differences between the spatial conceptualization in these two languages, if any Research question The following question is proposed in the current research: - To what extend English and Vietnamese differ in the conceptualization of prepositions ―in, on, at‖ regarding the cognitive semantic perspective? Organization 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 three chapters: CHAPTER As in case (21), because the surface of the table belongs to the upper part ―trên‖ of the neutral viewer, it is enough to say ―con chó bàn.‖ without any more specification (21) Con chó ngồi (mặt) bàn (22.1) Có chim bãi cỏ (22.2) Có chim bãi cỏ The The figure to neutral be viewer Con chim bãi cỏ Trên located Dưới Vietnamese people have two different modes of viewing the world in order to talk about the spatial relations, so both (3.1) and (3.2) are acceptable and similar in conceptualization, which can be interpreted in these ways: (23.1) The speaker uses the geometrical conceptualization of real physical contact between the two entities He conceptualizes that the door has a side (a surface) and the name is located ―on‖ (trên) that surface In other words, he uses the ground-based reference frame as in English 35 (23.2) The speaker applies the neutral viewer system into his conceptualization The neutral viewer has this geometrical conceptualization: 23 Chiếc vòng hoa cánh cửa 23.2 Chiếc vòng hoa trước cửa The speaker regards the conceptualization of the door as an embodied experience It means that just like a human being, now the door has two sides ―mặt trước‖ and ―mặt sau‖ That‘s why Vietnamese says ―treo (ở mặt) trước (của cánh) cửa‖ (24) “making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.” In this case, we may explain that the Vietnamese people use the same way of conceptualization as English people, which focus on the real physical contact between the TR ―wind‖ and the LM ―sea‖ However, there is a slight difference in this case between two language‘s conceptualization English speakers immediately conceptualize ―the sea‖ in the sentence as a stretch surface It means that ―the sea‖ in the sentence conceptually understand as ―the surface of water‖ However, Vietnamese people conceptualize the case due to the positions of each TR and LM The TR ―wind‖ is considered to have the higher position compared to the lower position of the LM ―the sea‖ With the word ―biển (nước)‖, they usually conceptualize it into the categogy of ―dưới‖ due to the fact that they are influenced by the neutral viewer system Thus, they find it more logical and natural to say ―dưới nước‖ rather than ―trên nước‖ That‘s why Vietnamese people tend to specify the part on which the figure has the impact in such cases They must say ―gió biển.‖ 36 Vietnamese people have two different modes of viewing to talk about the spatial relations, so both (25.1) and (25.2) are acceptable and can be interpreted in these ways: (25.1) người cuối lại (toa) tàu (25.2) người cuối lại tàu (25.1) The speaker uses the geometrical conceptualization He observes the train as a closed space, in which the figure is contained Thus, he chooses the preposition ―trong‖ (25.2) The speaker compares his position or the neutral viewer position with the platform of the bus The speaker conceptualizes that to get on the train, a person must climb some steps up It means that the level of the platform compared to the level of the ground where the speaker stands is higher Thus, the speaker categorizes any figure belongs to the bus into ―trên‖ reference frame Thus, he chooses the preposition ―trên‖ (26) “bức tranh nữ thần Presbyterian trần nhà” In (26), Vietnamese conceptualizes ―trần nhà‖ as the upper part of the neutral viewer, not as a surface for ―the Presbyterian nymphs‖ to be ―on‖ as in English Considering the explanation, we see that the neutral view can also be used to apply into these cases In case number (3), the speaker observes that the swimming pool ―bể bơi‖ belongs to the lower part ―dưới‖ of the neutral viewer In case number (8), the speaker observes that the air belongs to the upper part ―trên‖ of the neutral viewer, which is opposite to the lower part ―dưới‖ Thus, the 37 speaker categorizes the figure ―chúng tôi‖ relating to the ground ―sông‖ into ―dưới‖ reference frame and ―khói‖ (the smoke) relating to the ground ―the air‖ into ―trên‖ reference frame (3) “chúng tơi bơi bể bơi” (4) “chỉ cịn gió thổi dây” (5) “tiếng chim cây” (8) “làn khói xanh khơng trung” Trên The Chúng bơi Dưới neutral bể bơi viewer That‘s why even when the speaker is swimming in the swimming pool, he can still say: ―Tôi bể bơi.‖ The position of the bird in the conceptualization of Vietnamese speakers is ―Chim cành (cây).‖ 38 3.3 Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese Spatial Cognition 3.3.1 Similarities As far as my findings are concerned, both English and Vietnamese people use prepositions as major means of expressing spatial conceptualization Specifically, the preposition ―in, on, at” were found to be have equivalents to prepositions in Vietnamese Besides, the biggest percentage of in-occurences in my data corresponds to trong, hightlighting that the prototypical use of the English in and the Vietnamese designates the relation of the TR and the LM in which the LM is a container-like object and the TR is a contained object located in the interior of the three dimensional LM Moreover, the biggest percentage of on-occurences in my data corresponds to and the biggest percentage of at-occurences in my data corresponds to The reason for these lies in 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 Due to universals of the physical world (e.g., the force of gravity) and of the human perceptual system, we might expect the same kinds of configurations to be described across cultures, perhaps leading to universals in spatial language 3.3.2 Differences Besides the above-mentioned similarities, there appear to be several distinct differences between English and Vietnamese spatial cognitive structuring The first and foremost difference lies in locative strategies Specifically, the conceptualization of the English in, on, at depends on objective and physical relationship inherent between the TR and the LM In other words, English 39 language encodes the motivation of the prepositions with respect to topological configuration of entities in the world out there In Vietnamese, however, besides objective conceptualization, it is widely assumed that the speaker‘s subjective perception, his vantage point as well as his own occupation of the perceptual field play a crucial role in determining the choice of appropriate prepositions The findings show that in, on, at can be interpreted into many other Vietnamese prepositions The second difference is the highly significant influence of socio-cultural factors exerted on encoding the use of language It is worth noticing that Vietnamese people tend to concretize spatial attributes of physical objects Put another way, they specify whether the TR is situated in the same or different perceptual space from theirs The difference is the perspective on the event or situation being reported play a vital role in their ways of using language English language conceptualizes the world, specifically the things in the world, by using the image schema basing on the relationship between them (TR and LM) It can be said that the things are central in their relation when they are conceptualized However, Vietnamese language conceptualizes the world by the position of things compared with the position of speaker or in another word, people are the central in the relationship of things For example, “the kite in the sky” is the relationship between the TR ―the kite” and the LM ―the sky” as the sky is the container and the kite is the object in that container In Vietnamese, ―cánh diều trời‖ is not describing the relationship between ―cánh diều” and “trời” but the relationship between the speaker and ―cánh diều” which ―cánh diều” is in a higher position compared 40 with that of the speaker Therefore, “the kite in the sky” cannot be translated in a word-by-word way into ―cánh diều trời” in Vietnamese The third difference lies in that different conceptualisation of LMs can lead to different cognition of spatial relations between English and Vietnamese The English in requires LMs to be not only three-dimensional but also two- and even one- dimensional This, in fact, gives rise to a number of meaning transformations and extensions The Vietnamese, however, are accustomed to perceive that two-dimensional surface of LMs provides support for TRs Another difference is that Vietnamese language tends to use the ―neutral viewer‖ when conceptualize the spatial relation between things Therefore, the reference frames are different Those are considered belonging to the upper part of the ―neutral viewer‖ are used with the meaning “trên” and the ones belonging to the lower part of the ―neutral viewer‖ are regarded as “dưới” like “trên trần nhà‖ or “dưới sàn nhà” In English, the reference frame is the same as as ―on the ceiling” and “on the floor” Last but not least, quite a few Vietnamese non-prepositional equivalents to the English in, on, at were uncovered, which proposes that spatial conceptualization of the Vietnamese is variable in comparison to that of the English Evidently, these Vietnamese equivalents bear no relation to each other, while meanings conveyed by the English in, on, at are systematically related 41 PART 3: CONCLUSION This part provides a general view of the whole study: summaries and major findings in accordance with the research questions The limitations of the study will be acknowledged as well as some suggestions for further studies will also be recommended 3.1 A summary of the findings Within cognitive semantic theoretical framework, the current thesis has so far been carried out to answer the research question Such cognitive semantic notions as image schemas, prototype theory and radial category, and metaphorical meaning extension have been exploited to immensely account for not only prototypical meaning of the preposition but also its variations by means of image schema transformations and metaphorical extensions This brief examination of the comparison between English and Vietnamese prepositions of position ―in‖, ―on‖ and ―at‖ reveals that the way prepositions apply depends on: 1) native speaker‘s embodied experience ( the way people interact with the world and perceive the spatial relation between two people or between people and objects) 2) different vantages on the scene of different linguistics (the privileged points native speakers choose to perceive) 3) different notion of reference frames of the point of viewing that native speakers use 42 In English, in most cases the real physical relationship of two entities is concentrated to decide the prepositions to express the position of the figure Thus, the ground-based reference frame is applied to explain the use of ―in‖, ―on‖ and ―at‖ in some spatio-physical relations Another common way of viewing and interpreting such spatial scenes is using geometrical figuration The English native speakers categorize the spatial relations basing on the state of the figure They focus their attention on whether the figure is being placed in a container, on a surface Whereas, Vietnamese native speakers put such spatial scenes into different and more complicated categories The most noticeable thing is to put the position of a conceptual human-being into the conceptualization process That‘s why in English ―on the ceiling‖ and ―on the floor‖ have the same reference frame whereas in Vietnamese, they belong to different categories ―On the ceiling‖ is conceptualized as ―trên trần nhà‖, which employs ―trên‖ reference frame while ―on the floor‖ is conceptualized as ―dưới bãi cỏ‖, which employs ―dưới‖ reference frame Another thing is because influenced by that way of perceiving spatial relations between two entities, Vietnamese people in some cases must point out the specific part on which the two entities have some contact 3.2 Limitation and recommendation for further studies The present thesis is just a small contribution to the study of a group of English prepositions in, on, and at In other words, it can never give a complete account of all the meanings designated by these prepositions due to some reasons The first is the limitation of time The second is the scope of the thesis that only occurrences of ―in, on, at‖ in form of in + NP, on + NP, and at + NP, 43 where these words play the role of a preposition are used under analysis One more reason is that the data were collected from the novel Great Gasby only It is, therefore, better for further research to - investigate the meanings of the whole lexical units of in, on and at where they function as a preposition, an adverb and prefix to propose a clearer and more profound radial network of the prepositions - investigate native speakers‘ intuitions about the meanings of in, on and at - investigate the Vietnamese equivalents of these prepositions, especially preposition at 44 REFERENCES Barcelona, A (2003), Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads: A Cognitive Perspective, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Bennett, D (1975), Spatial and temporal uses of English prepositions: An essay in stratificational semantics Longman Linguistic Library, Vol 17 London: Longman Boers, F (1996), Spatial Prepositions and Metaphor: A Cognitive Semantic journey along the Up-Down and the Front-Back Dimensions, Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag Brugman, C M (1980), Story of OVER, University of California at Berkeley, M.A thesis Choi, S & M Bowerman (1991), 'Learning to Express Motion Events in English and Korean: The Influence of Language-specific Lexicalization Patterns' in Cognition Cienki, A (1989), Spatial Cognition and the Semantics of Prepositions in 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In Search of an Explanation', Studies in Language 48 APPENDIX: A sample of a page in the novel The Great Gasby The Great Gasby Chapter In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men Most of the confidences were unsought frequently I have feigned sleep by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction Gatsby, who everything for which I have an unaffected scorn If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away I