Tài liệu Meanings of english prepositions over, above, under and below and their equivalent expressions in vietnamese a study in the light of principled polysemy

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ TUẤN LONG MEANINGS OF ENGLISH PREPOSITIONS “OVER, ABOVE, UNDER, AND BELOW” AND THEIR EQUIVALENT EXPRESSIONS IN VIETNAMESE: A STUDY IN THE LIGHT OF PRINCIPLED POLYSEMY NGỮ NGHĨA GIỚI TỪ TIẾNG ANH “OVER, UNDER, ABOVE, BELOW” VÀ PHƯƠNG TIỆN BIỂU ĐẠT TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT M.A Major Thesis Major: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HA NOI – 2016 iii VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ TUẤN LONG MEANINGS OF ENGLISH PREPOSITIONS “OVER, ABOVE, UNDER AND BELOW” AND THEIR EQUIVALENT EXPRESSIONS IN VIETNAMESE: A STUDY IN THE LIGHT OF PRINCIPLED POLYSEMY NGỮ NGHĨA GIỚI TỪ TIẾNG ANH “OVER, UNDER, ABOVE, BELOW” VÀ PHƯƠNG TIỆN BIỂU ĐẠT TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT M.A Major Thesis Major: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Thesis Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. LÂM QUANG ĐÔNG HA NOI – 2016 iv DECLARATION I declare that this MA thesis, entitled Meanings of English prepositions “over, above, under and below” and their equivalent expressions in Vietnamese: A study in the light of Principled Polysemy, is entirely the result of my own work. The thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or tertiary institution, and to the best of my knowledge, neither does it contain material previously published or written by another person, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text. Signature Đỗ Tuấn Long v ABSTRACT Meanings of English prepositions over, above, under and below and their equivalent expressions in Vietnamese: A study in the light of Principled Polysemy Linguists have known that prepositions, especially spatial markers, develop their meanings in semantic networks in which the prototypical meaning is the core from which other extended senses develop. One framework offering such kind of semantic network is Principled Polysemy introduced by Tyler and Evans in 2003. This study focuses on providing additional information for the meanings of the four English prepositions over, above, under, below beside works presented by Tyler and Evans. Comparative and contrastive methods were exploited to analyze data from three sources namely “Gone with the Wind”, “Vanity Fair” and 721 articles of contemporary topics on BBC and CNN. The results show that over has two online meanings, under possesses one meaning not analyzed by two framework founders. Particularly, over in certain cases means because of (reason) and by (a means to do something), under is used to denote a situation or state that someone or something is experiencing. Additionally, graphic illustrations for extended senses of three prepositions above, under, below were added, which facilitates learners to better construe the semantics of the prepositions. The Vietnamese equivalents for those prepositions are presented systematically in the order of their appearances in the semantic networks, which makes learners‟ reference to those spatial markers more conveniently. vi ACKNOWLEGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof.Dr Lâm Quang Đông for transferring me his specialized knowledge, his inspiring me the love in linguistics as well as his valuable suggestions, advice and correction during my the thesis throughout. I also take this opportunity to thank all my lecturers in the Department of Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for many of their interesting lectures, which have surely contributed to the foundation of my thesis. Finally, I would like to show my deep gratitude to my family, especially my wife for her support, encouragement and understanding, without which my theis would not have been accomplished. Hanoi, November 2016 Do Tuan Long vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study 1 2. Objectives of the study 3. Research questions 3 3 4. Structure of the thesis 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW & THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1. Literature Review 5 1.1.1. Full-specification Approach 5 1.1.2. Principled Polysemy Framework 8 1.2. Theoretical Background 12 1.2.1. Important tenets of Principled Polysemy Framework in the light of cognitive linguistics 12 1.2.2. Principles of contrasting English and Vietnamese 1.2.3. Principles of semantic extension from spatial to non-spatial 1.3. Chapter summary 17 18 20 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1. Data description 2.2. Research methods 21 22 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1. Research question 1 3.1.1. New findings for the meanings of over 3.1.2. New findings for the meanings of under 25 25 31 3.2. Research question 2 32 viii 3.2.1. Graphic illustrations for extended senses of above 32 3.2.2. Graphic illustrations for extended senses of under 38 3.2.3. Graphic illustrations for extended senses of below 43 3.3. Research question 3 3.3.1. Potential Vietnamese equivalents of over 3.3.2 Potential Vietnamese equivalents of above 3.3.3. Vietnamese equivalents of under 3.3.4. Vietnamese equivalents of below 3.4. Chapter summary 48 49 58 60 65 67 PART C: CONCLUSION 1. Recapitulation 2. Challenges and limitations 3. Orientations to further research 68 68 69 REFERENCES APPENDIX 71 76 ix List of Abbreviations CA Contrastive Analysis CL Cognitive Linguistics IELTS: International English Language Testing System, co-owned by University of Cambridge ESOL, British Council and IDP Education. L2 Second language LM: Landmark ESL English second language learners TR: Trajector ULIS-VNU: University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi x List of tables Table 1.1: Schemas proposed by Lakoff (1987) for over besides the central schema Table 1.2: Analysis of “British Ambassador in hot water over joke” Table 3.1: Paraphrases of (3.1) and (3.2) Table 3.2: Summarized information of over Table 3.3: Summarized information of above Table 3.4: Summarized information of under Table 3.5: Summarized information of below xi List of figures Figure 1.1: Central image schema Figure 1.2: The semantic network for over Figure 1.3: The semantic network for under Figure 1.4: The Rubin‟s vase Figure 1.5: The proto-scene of over Figure 3.1: The semantic network for above Figure 3.2: The More Sense of above Figure 3.3: The Superior Sense of above Figure 3.4: The Next-one-up Sense of above Figure 3.5: The Topographical-distance Sense of above Figure 3.6: The Less Sense of under Figure 3.7: The Control Sense of under Figure 3.8: The Covering Sense of under Figure 3.9: The Non-Existence Sense of under Figure 3.10: Semantic network for below Figure 3.11: The accurate semantic network for below Figure 3.12: The Less Sense of below Figure 3.13: The Inferior Sense of below Figure 3.14: The Next-one-down Sense of below Figure 3.15: The Topographical-distance Sense of below xii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study English prepositions are not easy for learners to acquire, and this is an obstacle for those who want to learn English successfully. Perhaps, one reason is that it is difficult to characterize the semantics of prepositions. Take the two following sentences as an example (Tyler and Evans, 2003:65) (1.1) The picture is over the mantle. (1.2) The picture is above the mantle. In fact, both sentences denote a configuration in which the Trajector (TR - the picture) is higher than the Landmark (LM - the mantle), and it is impossible to decide if there is a contact between the LM and the TR. However, another example posed by Tyler and Evans (2003) indicates something different. The sentence (1.3) “Mary hung her jacket over the back of the chair.” is interpreted differently from the sentence (1.4) “Mary hung her jacket above the back of the chair”. It is universally known that when humans put a cloth or anything else on the back of the chair, that thing should be higher and in contact with the back of the chair. In the sentence (1.3), the preposition over denotes what humans often perceptualize, the jacket is higher and in contact with the back of the chair. Yet, the meaning of sentence (1.4) is different; the jacket is higher and in no contact with the back of the chair. Furthermore, prepositions tend to develop a complex set of extended meanings, for example, under has developed at least 9 meanings 1, many of which do not appear to be systematically related. Tyler et al (2011) reviewed that although linguists have long been aware that prepositions develop complex polysemy networks, the meaning networks surrounding spatial markers (and the systematic processes of meaning extension from which they result) have only become the 1 Oxford Dictionary (8th Edition, Cambridge University Press) 1 foci of linguistic inquiry in the last 20 years. The best descriptive grammars and dictionaries present the multiple meanings of prepositions as largely arbitrary. Three traditional linguists (Bloomfield, 1933; Frank, 1972; Chomsky, 1995) represented the semantics of English prepositions as arbitrary. As a result, memorization has been often suggested as the best strategy. However cognitive linguistics (CL) offers an alternative perspective, suggesting that the many distinct meanings associated with a particular preposition are related in systematic, principled ways (e.g., Brugman, 1988; Dewell, 1994; Dirven, 1993; Lakoff, 1987; Linder, 1982; Hawkins, 1988; Herskovits, 1986, 1988; Vandeloise, 1991, 1994). In fact, after criticizing previous approaches to the semantics of English prepositions (i.e. monosemy and homonymy) and Lakoff‟s account to over, Tyler and Evans developed Principled Polysemy framework, which was described to fill the gaps that other scholars leave. Though the framework could explain clearly and (for the most part) convincingly how new meanings developed from established ones on the basis of experiential correlations, three weak points of the framework still exist. First, local and online construction of meaning (e.g. over and under’s) was not fully analyzed as stated by Tyler and Evans. Additionally, graphic illustrations for extended senses of the other prepositions were not provided, which to some extent makes it difficult for readers to construe the semantic extension from spatial to non-spatial. Last but not least, Thora (2004) pointed out that the research results introduced by Tyler and Evans (2003) were somewhat vague as they claimed to use their native sense of language to investigate English prepositions‟ semantics. Scopus linguistics was not in use to collect data; hence, it needs revising to confirm the results. The context discussed above inspired me to conduct a study for my M.A thesis entitled Meanings of English prepositions "over, above, under and below" and 2 their equivalent expressions in Vietnamese: A study in the light of Principled Polysemy. 2. Objectives of the study As mentioned in the previous part, this thesis aims at filling out the gaps that Tyler and Evans left in analyzing the semantics of the four prepositions. First, we wish to find out the local and online construction meaning of over and under in the light of Principled Polysemy beside works done by Tyler and Evans. In addition, basing on the analysis of the data collected with reference to the theoretical framework Principled Polysemy, we will provide graphic illustrations for extended senses of above, under and below. The third objective is to discover potential Vietnamese equivalents for those spatial particles, which to some extent may facilitate the acquisition of those spatial languages. Those objectives are realized via the following research questions. 3. Research questions This study is conducted to provide answers to three research questions: 1. What are the new findings for the meanings of the four prepositions besides those presented by Tyler and Evans in the light of Principled Polysemy? 2. What are graphic illustrations for each extended sense of the four prepositions in the light of Principled Polysemy? 3. What are potential Vietnamese equivalents of those prepositions? 4. Structure of the thesis The thesis consists of three main parts. In the first part - Introduction – the rationale, objectives of the thesis and three research questions are presented. The second part is Thesis Development which consists of three chapters: (1) Literature Review and Theoretical Background, (2) Research Methodology and 3 (3) Findings and Discussion. In the first part, I will carry out a literature review on different approaches to the semantics of English prepositions and then provide theoretical background for the study. The second part presents the methods to conduct the study and then research results will be presented in the third chapter. The last part is Conclusion in which I summarize the research results and point out the research‟s limitations and orientations to further study. 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW & THEORETICAL BACKGROUND In this part, I will first conduct a literature review on different approaches (i.e. Full-specification and Principled Polysemy) to the semantics of English prepositions, and then analyze the theoretical background for my research study. 1.1. Literature Review Bloomfield, Frank and Chomsky advocated different ways to construe spatial markers in English. However, what the three authors supported is different from that advocated by cognitive linguists. Numerous studies (Brugman and Lakoff (1988); Dewell (1994); Coventry and Garrod (2004); Herskovits (1986); Kreitzer (1997); Lindner (1981); Lindstromberg (1997); Sinha and Kuteva (1995), Tran Quang Hai (2001)) have been conducted more or less in light of Lakoff‟s theory, so it is appropriate to review his approach to the semantics of English prepositions. Tran Quang Hai (2001) compared and contrasted the semantics and pragmatics of locative prepositions in both English and Vietnamese to find out the similarities and differences. In this study, only prototypical meanings of locative prepositions were analyzed, extended senses were neglected. 1.1.1. Full-specification Approach Lakoff took over as a case study in English prepositions and his analysis is sometimes described as the full-specification approach to lexical semantics. The core point in his theory is that the senses associated with prepositions like over, which are grounded in spatial experience, are structured in terms of imageschemas. Lakoff supposed that an image schema combining elements of both ABOVE and ACROSS prototypical sense of over. The distinct senses associated with over are structured with respect to this image - schema which provides the category with its prototype structure. In sum, Lakoff claims that the schemas 5 which are different from the central schema are considered to represent distinct senses associated with over. According to this model of word meaning, the central schema for over has at least six distinct and closely related variants (see Figure 1.1), each of which is stored in semantic memory. Figure 1.1: Central image schema (adopted from Lakoff, 1987:423) Given the range of senses over is associated with in addition to the ABOVEACROSS sense (summarised in Table 1.1), this model results in a potentially vast proliferation of senses for each lexical item. Table 1.1 Schemas proposed by Lakoff (1987) for over besides the central schema 6 According to Lakoff, over has, at the very least, several dozen distinct senses. Although the number of senses is not problematic per se, the absence of clear methodological principles for establishing the distinct senses is problematic. There are two main problems: (1) a failure to distinguish between polysemy and vagueness, and (2) unconstrained methodology. Tyler and Evans indicated that Lakoff denied the role of context in meaning altogether. Particularly, Tyler and Evans (2003) argue that the examples in (1) do not represent distinct senses of over (one specifying contact and one specifying lack of contact): 1a. The bird flew over the wall. b. Sam climbed over the wall. Instead, Tyler and Evans suppose that the interpretation of over with respect to contact or lack of contact derives from the integration of over with the other elements in the sentence. Our knowledge about birds (they can fly) and people (they cannot), provides us with the inference that birds do not come into contact with walls when crossing over them while people do. In other words, the linguistic context together with encyclopedic knowledge provides the details relating to the presence or absence of contact. According to Tyler and Evans, over here is vague with respect to contact. Tyler and Evans argue that while Lakoff‟s position on polysemy as a conceptual phenomenon is correct, it is also important to take into account the crucial role of context in word meaning. Lakoff‟s approach has also been blamed on a lack of methodological constraints. In other words, Lakoff provides no principled criteria for determining what counts as a distinct sense. This means that the polysemy account presented for over (or whatever lexical item we might apply the approach to) results purely from the intuitions (and perhaps also the imagination) of the analyst rather than actually representing the way a particular category is represented in the mind of the language user. This problem has been discussed in some detail by Sandra and Rice (1995) and by Sandra (1998) [cited in Evans, 2006:342] 7 1.1.2. Principled Polysemy Framework The framework Principled Polysemy first introduced in the book "The Semantics of English Prepositions" in 2003 is used to analyze the meanings of certain English prepositions and present them in semantic networks. In fact, the framework is built upon works by Lakoff and Claudia Brugman and as part of cognitive lexical semantics; it is based on the following premises or assumptions (cited in Evans, 2006): (1) Words and their senses represent conceptual categories, which have much in common with non-linguistic conceptual categories. It follows that linguistic categories have prototype structure. (2) Word meanings are typically polysemous, being structured with respect to a central prototype (or prototypes). Lexical categories therefore form radial categories which can be modelled as a radiating lattice structure. (3) Radial categories, particularly meaning extensions from the prototype, are motivated by general cognitive mechanisms including metaphor and image schema transformation. (4) The senses that constitute radial categories are stored rather than generated. By analyzing the semantics of English prepositions, Tyler and Evans mean that a preposition (or a word) has prototypical meaning and then from this meaning other extensions occur. So, it is necessary first to identify the prototypical meaning of a preposition and present other meaning extensions in a semantic network for that preposition. According to Tyler and Evans, prototypical meaning of a word needs to have four following characteristics: (1) earliest attested meaning; (2) predominance in the semantic network; (3) relations to other prepositions; and (4) ease of predicting sense extensions. After finding the prototypical meaning of a preposition, it is crucial to decide whether a particular sense of a preposition counts as a distinct sense and can therefore be established as a case of polysemy. Founders of the framework 8 provided two criteria: (1) for a sense to count as distinct, it must involve a meaning that is not purely spatial in nature, and/or a spatial configuration holding between the TR and LM that is distinct from the other senses conventionally associated with that preposition; and (2) there must also be instances of the sense that are context-independent: instances in which the distinct sense could not be inferred from another sense and the context in which it occurs. The framework Principled Polysemy is the fundamental basement in this study because it could successfully explain … how new meanings develop from established ones on the basis of experiential correlations. Accounting for such processes in language without simply relying on the often too vague concept of "metaphorical extension" which has frequently been claimed to be responsible for the usage of similar forms in different domains is a major achievement. Furthermore, the notion of "contrast set" is very useful in accounting for the relationships of prepositions to each other, which are often not sufficiently explained by opposing features. Thus, the basic approach is both innovative and convincing. (From Thora, T (2004, para. 11). Review of The Semantics of English Prepositions [Retrieved from http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?SubID=18309 on 20 June 2015] In the following part, we will present and then comment on works done by Tyler and Evans. To the best of our knowledge, Tyler and Evans left two gaps in analyzing the semantics of over, above, under, below in the light of Principled Polysemy. The first one is the semantic gap in the meanings of over and under. Tyler and Evans (2003:80) took over as a case study to shed light on the analysis of other prepositions. They provided a semantic network for over with one central meaning and fifteen extended meanings. 9 Figure 1.2: The semantic network for Over (Tyler and Evans, 2003:80) After analyzing data collected, we realize that over in the following sentence could not be categorized in any of the senses. 1.2. British Ambassador in hot water over joke. The above example is a headline on BBC, and there is no verb. The complete sentence, as understood by readers, is “British Ambassador is in hot water over joke”. We can analyze the structure of the sentence like in the following table. “Over joke” is treated as something new because it needs analyzing to understand the meaning of the whole sentence. 10