Role of First Language in the Selection and Application of Spatial Prepositions in Second Language

Role of First Language in the Selection and Application of Spatial Preposition s in Second Language

Introduction

Ziyi Zhu  Ruizhi Qu Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, 210018

Spatial concept is applied to and reflected in perse academic fields, such as linguistics, physical geography, architectural art and so on. Meanwhile, it is also extremely significant in almost every aspect in our life, and is actually put in use on a daily basis. For example, we extract the spatial concept in our mind when we show people the way, describe the position of a person or an object, and find our lost stuffs, which all closely tie to the use of language and our mental thought, our cognition. In fact, language and thought closely parallel one another, thus language and cognition interacting with each other (Levinson, 2003). Further more, the mental thoughts and models in our mind could mediate the use of spatial prepositions (Coventry, Carmichael & Garrod, 1994). For example, the experience stored in our minds could influence our perspectives of viewing the interactions between objects, and hence influence our spatial prepositions chosen. Actually, as an essential part of the lexicon for a speaker to acquire, spatial prepositions have the function of indicating where one object is located with reference to another object(s), including the interaction between those objects (Coventry & Frias-Lindqvist, 2005). So our research here also involves the spatial location and interaction between objects. Levinson (2003) also made a comparison concerning spatial adposition between different languages, but mainly focused on various native speakers.

After thorough reading a quantity of references, we discovered that the researches about spatial prepositions from the perspective of second language is relatively less, especially in Mandarin-English aspect. But nowadays the college English majors whose second language is English, do have more or less difficulties in expressing spatial concepts using spatial prepositions. Besides, as Ellis illustrated, there existed an assumption that the difficulties encountered by L2 learners largely stem from “interference” from the first language. First language possesses language transfer, which could be either positive or negative, in the acquisition of second language (Ellis, 2015). So in our study, we extend the application of spatial prepositions to the second language field from the Cognitive Linguistics angle with the means of experiment, exploring whether first language has an impact on the second language learners' expression of spatial concepts, and figuring out the role that first language plays in the selection and application of spatial prepositions in second language. We choose this theme because it could help English majors better master the usage of spatial prepositions and put in use efficiently. Meanwhile, it's important to promote the spatial thinking ability, as Casasola prove that the facilitative effects of spatial language on spatial cognition are not restricted to the context in which the spatial language is provided (Casasola, Wei, Suh, Donskoy & Ransom, 2020).

1. Metaphorical Projection Theory

Considering the need of applying Cognitive Linguistics, we briefly introduce Metaphorical Projection Theory which will assist us in analyzing our empirical data. According to Lakoff & Johnson, the nature of the human conceptual system is central to Cognitive Science. This system is fundamentally metaphorical in character (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Metaphorical projection comes from personal experience, and is not random. The formation process of the verbal meaning of spatial prepositions is a metaphorical process in which abstract concepts are understood and expressed by using concrete spatial concepts. (Wang Yin, 2001)

2. Experiment

We assume that first language has an influence on the selection and application of spatial prepositions in second language.

1. 1. Subject

We invite 15 college English majors whose first language is Chinese and second language is English. All the subjects pass CET-6, and maintain a relatively good knowledge of English. ( In view of the total amount of students in School of Foreign Studies in NJUST, we first suppose 30 is a reasonable number for our subjects. But when practicing this experiment, we found that possessing too many subjects is pretty tough to analyze data. So in order to acquire precise answers, we cut down the number.)

1. 2. Material

Select 15 spatial prepositions. ( Reason：We choose different categories of spatial prepositions, including containment, contiguity, proximity, and support. Within each category, we select several prepositions. So the total amount is 15.)

Make a booklet with 15 pictures corresponding to 15 prepositions borrowing from Levinson’s booklet of 71 line-drawings or pictures.

Prepare answer sheets for the subjects.

1. 3. Procedure

Invite the subjects to a specific test room one by one in order to cut down the factors of companions’ influence and reminding.

Hand out the booklet to the subjects and ask them to write down their proper preposition for each picture on the answer sheet. The time limit for each question is 10 seconds because we need the intrinsic reaction instead of the transformation of Chinese and English thinking modes which will affect the accuracy of our experiment.

Hand in the answer sheet.

Take a brief interview with 3 questions--What do you think of the difficulty of the questions? Facing uncertain questions, what do you rely on to answer and why？Do you think your first language give you a hand in the test？Record their answers.

Booklet

1. 4. Result

Methodology: Analyze the written experimental data and present the data in a graph, focusing on the number of correct and wrong questions, including the questions that most subjects do it right and wrong.

Conclude the main reasons that cause them to answer the questions wrong and the reasons that help them answer the questions right.

Finally summarize and discuss about the results.

Data and Data Analysis:

Figure1

Figure 1 shows the number of right and wrong answers of each question, indicating that there’s no question that everybody’ s right and no one answers all the questions right.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 2 and Figure3 list the 2 questions that most subjects answer them wrong and the exact prepositions they have choosen.

Lack of precise master of the spatial prepositions. From the perspective of the number of right and wrong answers, many subjects are not precise enough in their master of English spatial prepositions. For example, the preposition “above” is used when the two objects are away from each other while “on” is used when they’re attached. But the preposition “over” is used when one object is vertically above the other, while “above” is not necessarily vertical (booklet, picture2). There’s another case that the preposition “ on” is applied when an apple grows on the tree, while “in” is applied when a bird is in the tree because it does not grow on the tree. (booklet, picture3) Besides, their storage of English prepositions is also limited. The interview suggest that some subjects even can not think of accurate prepositions other than “on” and “in”.

Unfamiliar with the concept of space, especially those don't commonly encounter. It can be seen from Figure 1 that the most wrong questions are 6 and 10. The relationships between the 2 objects in those 2 pictures are not what we usually pay attention to in our everyday life. Thus, they are not that familiar with them.

First language interference. Negative: From analyzing Figure 2, Figure 3, and the interview, we recognize that some subjects rely heavenly on Chinese thinking pattern, only from the Chinese thinking pattern angle to analyze the spatial relationships without even further examining the questions through English thinking pattern. Therefore, there appear many extremely inappropriate prepositions.

Positive: According to the interview, we gain the information that many subjects turn to their mother tongue because some Chinese spatial concepts are similar to the English ones, which gives them a hand to get the right answers.

Projection of past experience. The interview suggest that many subjects rely on feeling, intuition, and experience in life to select and apply prepositions. With means of the Metaphorical Projection Theory, what they do is to project their past experience onto the abstract spatial concept, and thus make a decision.

3. Conclusion

First Language does have both positive and negative influences on the selection and application of spatial prepositions in second language. But there also exist other less important factors, including the impact of past experience.

References

1. Casasola, M., Wei, W. S., Suh, D. D., Donskoy, P., & Ransom, A. (2020). Children’s exposure to spatial language promotes their spatial thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000699

2. Coventry, K. R., Carmichael, R., & Garrod, S. C. (1994). Spatial prepositions, object-specific function, and task requirements. Journal of Semantics, 11(4), 289-309. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/11.4.289

3. Coventry, K. R., & Frias-Lindqvist, A. M. (2005). The influence of movement, alignment and orientation on the comprehension of spatial adpositions in English and Finnish. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 5(4), 357-375. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15427633scc0504_4

4. Ellis, R. (2015). Understanding second language acquisition 2nd Edition-Oxford applied linguistics. Oxford university press. Retrieved from http://www.ox.ac.uk

5. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). The metaphorical structure of the human conceptual system. Cognitive Science, 4(2), 195-208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0402_4

6. Levinson, S. C., & Levinson, S. C. (2003). Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive persity (Vol. 5). Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613609

7. Levinson, S., Meira, S., & The Language and Cognition Group. (2003). 'Natural concepts' in the spatial topological domain-Adpositional meanings in crosslinguistic perspective: An exercise in semantic typology. Language, 485-516. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.2003.0174

8. Wang, Y. (2001). Cognitive Linguistics in Lakoff & Johnson's Writings. Journal of Foreign Languages (Journal of Shanghai International Studies University), (04), 15-21. Retrieved from http://jfl.shisu.edu.cn/CN/1004-5139/home.shtml