A study on meanings of the english preposition in and its vietnamese equivalents from a cognitive semantic perspective

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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


v

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 ……………………………………………………………..
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES ……………………..

5
5

1.1. A Brief Overview of Cognitive Linguistics ……………………………...
1.2.

A Brief Overview of Cognitive Semantics ………………………

1.3.

Spatial Prepositions ……………………………………………

1.3.1. Definition of Spatial Prepositions …………………………………...
1.3.2 Syntactic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions ....................................
1.3.3. Semantic Perspectives on Spatial Prepositions ……………………...
1.4.

Cognitive Semantics Approach to Spatial Prepositions …………

1.4.1. Experiential Realism, Image Schemas and Spatial Prepositions…….
1.4.2. Metaphor and Spatial Prepositions …………………………………..
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


vi

2.3. Data ………………………………………………………………………
2.4. Analytical Framework ……………………………………………………
2.5. Data Analysis, Findings and Discussion …………………………………
2.5.1. Meanings of the English Preposition “in” …………………………..
2.5.1.1. Prototypical Schema for “in”…………………………………..
2.5.1.2. Non-prototypical Meanings of ‘in’…………………………….
2.5.1.3. Metaphorical Extensions ………………………………………
2.4.1.3.1. Metaphorical extension of the enclosure prototype ………

2.4.1.3.2. Metaphorical extension of the inclusion sense ……………
2.4.1.3.3. Metaphorical extension of the medium sense …………….
2.5.1.4. Radial Category of “in” ………………………………………..
2.5.1.5. Summary ………………………………………………………
2.5.2. The English Preposition “in” and its Vietnamese Equivalents ……...
2.5.2.1. “in” in English corresponds to “trong” in Vietnamese …….
2.5.2.2. “in” in English corresponds to “ngoài” in Vietnamese …...
2.5.2.3. “in” in English corresponds to “trên” in Vietnamese..........
2.5.2.4. “in” in English corresponds to “dưới” in Vietnamese …….
2.5.2.5. “in” in English corresponds to “ở” in Vietnamese ………..
2.5.2.6. “in” in English corresponds to “trước” in Vietnamese …...
2.5.2.7. “in” in English corresponds to “sau” in Vietnamese ……..
2.5.2.8. “in” in English corresponds to “bên” in Vietnamese ……..
2.5.2.9. “in” in English corresponds to “bằng” in Vietnamese ……
2.5.2.10. “in” in English corresponds to “về” in Vietnamese ……..
2.4.2.11. “in” in English corresponds to “vào” in Vietnamese ……
2.5.2.12. “in” in English corresponds to other Vietnamese
Non-prepositional Expressions………………………………...
2.5.2.3. Summary ………………………………………………………
2.5.3. Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese
Spatial Cognition …………………………………………………………..
2.5.3.1. Similarities …………………………………………………….
2.5.3.2. Differences …………………………………………………….

37


vii

CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………..

42

1.
Conclusions
………………………………………………………………... 42
2.
Pedagogical Implications
………………………………………………….. 43
3.
Limitations of the Research and Suggestions for Further Research
………. 45
REFERENCES …………………………………………………………........ 46
APPENDIX …………………………………………………………………..

I


iv

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
ESL: English as a Second Language
L2: Second Language
LM: Landmark
LMs: Landmarks
MSA: Military Science Academy
NP: Noun Phrase
TR: Trajector
TRs: Trajectors

V: Verb


1

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 protoscene (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)


2

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 ongoing 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 crosscultural awareness.


3

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


4

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.


5

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


6

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 speciesspecific 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

7

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


8

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 whclause, 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


9

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


10

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


11

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 abovementioned 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


12

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


13

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


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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


15

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.


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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.


17

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


18

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