Dissertations / Theses: 'English language – Prepositions'

1

Blom, Liane. "Swedish problems with English prepositions." Thesis, Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-779.

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English prepositions cause problems for learners of English. The way prepositions are taught has impact on how students learn. Using corpora in teaching makes it possible for teachers and pupils to explore language together and is a good alternative to filling in missing prepositions on worksheets. Sometimes linguistic errors are caused by mother tongue interference. Little research has been made earlier with a Swedish contrastive approach to prepositions but a great deal of literature concern language transfer and mother tongue interference. This essay is written on the assumption that Swedish as a first language interferes with English and causes prepositional mistakes.

Two classes of ninth graders participated in my investigation. I wanted to find out if students performed better when they had given answers to choose from or when they had to produce the preposition themselves. My study proved that pupils had a better knowledge of prepositions perceptively than productively. It also proved that learners resorted to Swedish when they did not know the correct answer. Many learners fail to recognise prepositions as parts of multiword expressions. By teaching students how to notice grammatical collocations and lexical chunks we can help them to achieve acceptable levels of language proficiency and accuracy.

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2

Jaworska, Ewa. "Aspects of the syntax of prepositions and prepositional phrases in English and Polish." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f5aaca25-2abc-412c-aa1e-a97f743d885b.

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The present thesis focusses on the structure of PP's in English and Polish, and the occurrence of PP's in subject and object positions. The main theoretical references are the X-bar Theory of syntactic categories and the Government Binding framework (GB). A consideration of English data corroborates Jackendoff's and Emonds' claim that apart from an NP, prepositions can take a PP and an S′ complement or no complement at all, though details of Jackendoff's analysis are revised. Polish prepositions allow the same range of complements, including no complement, although,with a greater variety of complex prepositions and with intransitive prepositions modified by relative and appositive clauses, the P-PP and the P-S′ structures are less common in Polish than in English. Subject and object PP's have so far received little attention. Like PP objects of prepositions, they are used if the intended meaning cannot be expressed by a suitable NP. The appearance of subject PP's in raising and passive sentences poses a problem for classical Transformational Grammar, though not for a slightly revised version of GB – another category-based framework. The analysis proposed here involves a particular view of the representation of Case, and a revised Case Filter. The Case Filter rules out not merely any lexical NP with no Case but any lexical XP which requires Case but has not been assigned Case. Thus, the properties of being an NP and requiring Case are independent of each other. It emerges from the investigation (i) that prepositions in English and Polish are more alike than one might expect, given the obvious differences between the two languages; (ii) that prepositions and PP's are like verbs and VP's – as Jackendoff emphasizes – but in some respects they show greater resemblance to other categories; and (iii) that syntactic categories are less important for the distribution of phrases than is commonly assumed, and that the meaning of phrases is of central importance for their distribution.

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3

Jansson, Hanna. "Native Swedish Speakers’ Problems with English Prepositions." Thesis, Örebro University, Department of Humanities, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-958.

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This essay investigates native Swedish speakers’ problems in the area of prepositions. A total of 19 compositions, including 678 prepositions, written by native Swedish senior high school students were analysed. All the prepositions in the material were judged as either basic, systematic or idiomatic. Then all the errors of substitution, addition and omission were counted and corrected. As hypothesised, least errors were found in the category of basic prepositions and most errors were found in the category of idiomatic prepositions. However, the small difference between the two categories of systematic and idiomatic prepositions suggests that the learners have greater problems with systematic prepositions than what was first thought to be the case. Basic prepositions cause little or no problems. Systematic prepositions, i.e. those that are rule governed or whose usage is somehow generalisable, seem to be quite problematic to native Swedish speakers. Idiomatic prepositions seem to be learnt as ‘chunks’, and the learners are either aware of the whole constructions or do not use them at all. They also cause some problems for Swedish speakers. Since prepositions are often perceived as rather arbitrary without rules to sufficiently describe them, these conclusions might not be surprising to teachers, students and language learners. The greatest error cause was found to be interference from Swedish, and a few errors could be explained as intralingual errors. It seems as if the learners’ knowledge of their mother tongue strongly influences the acquisition of English prepositions.

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4

Davy, Belinda. "A cognitive-semantic approach to the acquisition of English prepositions /." view abstract or download file of text, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p9998029.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 281-296). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p9998029.

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5

Nicholas, Katrina Elizabeth. "Children's Omission of Prepositions in English and Icelandic." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/145453.

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The purpose of this dissertation is to empirically test the hypothesis that children's omission of functional elements reflects performance factors (McKee, 1994; McKee & Iwasaki, 2001), rather than lack of knowledge (Felix, 1987; Radford, 1990, 1995; Tomasello, 2000). The multi-level production system treats content and function morphemes differently (Garrett, 1982). Further, a function morpheme's free or bound status and the independence of the content stem affect the likelihood that a function morpheme will be omitted. Four experiments each employed production and comprehension tasks testing English- and Icelandic-speaking children's and adults' production and comprehension of different prepositional phrases. The English experiments tested prepositional phrases with content prepositions and content/function preposition combinations. The Icelandic experiments tested prepositional phrases with prepositions and their associated case markings. Function prepositions in English and case markings in Icelandic both convey information about case, with the former being a free function morpheme, and the latter a bound function morpheme. Both English- and Icelandic-speaking children showed comprehension of prepositions that they do not produce. Further, Icelandic-speaking children produced case markings but English-speaking children did not produce function prepositions. These findings support a performance-based hypothesis with omission attributable to coordination issues among elements in the multi-level production system. These findings also show the importance of cross-modality and cross-linguistic research in studying the competence of children before, during, and after the telegraphic speech stage.

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6

Stephenson, Tamina C. "Towards a theory of subjective meaning." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41695.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-212).
This dissertation develops a form of relativism in which propositions are treated as sets of world-time-individual triples, in contrast to standard views that treat them as sets of worlds or world-time pairs. This builds on existing proposals for predicates of personal taste such as fun and tasty, and has ties to approaches to de se attitudes involving centered worlds. I develop an accompanying pragmatic view in which the context set is similarly construed as a set of world-time-individual triples. The semantic and pragmatic systems together are used to account for the behavior of predicates of personal taste, epistemic modals, indicative conditionals, and a variety of attitude reports, including control constructions. I also explore ways that this account can help solve puzzles related to Moore's paradox. To give one concrete example, I propose that the proposition expressed by the sentence it might be raining is the set of world-time-individual triples such that it's compatible with x's knowledge in w at t that it's raining. On the pragmatic side, a speaker is justified in asserting this sentence in a conversation if it is compatible with the speaker's own knowledge that it's raining; by asserting it, though, the speaker is making the stronger proposal to make it common ground that it is compatible with the knowledge of the entire group of conversational participants that it's raining. If this proposal is accepted by the other participants, then the group will have established that their knowledge states are aligned in a particular way. I introduce the core semantic and pragmatic proposals in Chapter 2, focusing on epistemic modals, predicates of personal taste, and belief reports.
(cont.) In Chapter 3, I extend the analysis to indicative conditionals, showing that this solves longstanding puzzles involving the relationship between conditionals and disjunction. In Chapter 4, I extend the approach to certain control constructions, with a special emphasis on capturing their de se interpretation. In Chapter 5, I look at two puzzles related to Moore's paradox, with special attention to the meaning of imagine.
by Tamina C. Stephenson.
Ph.D.

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7

Thibeau, Tully Jude. "English prepositions in phrasal verbs: A study in second language acquisition." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/284018.

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This study examines whether grammar instruction treatment, input processing, facilitates in learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) a distinction among sets of phrasal verbs containing prepositions. Input processing emphasizes difficult grammatical forms and provides a model for the behavior of the varying roles of phrasal verb prepositions. Such instruction follows three steps: (i) explaining the relation between a grammatical form and its meaning, (ii) informing learners of language processes that adversely influence the form-meaning relation, and (iii) implementing "structured input" activities that target the form in linguistic input, facilitating form-meaning relations. Prepositions in phrasal verbs perform specific roles for exclusive purposes, for instance in verb-particle constructions eat up, clean out, send on where prepositions mark aspectual properties for "completion-of-activity" (telicity) as well as "affectedness" of phrasal verb objects. ESL students were selected for the control and treatment groups. Each group participated in a pretest and posttest. Each test included three tasks: one comprehension (yes/no multiple choice) and two production (sentence completion and written narration). Time (pretest/posttest) and instruction (informal IP/formal explanation) were independent variables. Scores were the dependent variable. Preposition use is difficult for ESL learners, yet no generalizations explain learning difficulty nor has instruction addressed this difficulty. Input Processing furnishes needed instruction and is consonant with current linguistic theory (Minimalism): Word-order phenomena obey "frame alternations" that shift meaning by varying syntactic configuration (movement to alternate sites in phrase structure). Language acquisition centers on mapping functions linking semantics with syntax; thus, pedagogical practice and linguistic theory are united. Structured input activities are likened to natural input that children are exposed to when they acquire language. Acquisition processes link meaningful items in a mental lexicon to grammatical patterns constructed by a mental computer. Second language learners create links between meaning and form because they make decisions about meaning in input structured to highlight the form in which meaning is conveyed. Statistical analyses show treatment effect for input processing instruction on the comprehension task, so subjects' ability is improved through attention to mapping. Production task data were inconclusive yet revealed significance of frequency of prepositions' functions.

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8

Lindahl, Leonard. "Problematic Prepositions for Swedish Students of English." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-35086.

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This study investigates prepositional errors that Swedish 16-year-old students of English produce. The study attempts to understand why English L2 students in Sweden struggle with prepositions by looking at research within the SLA field regarding transfer, interlanguage transfer, implicit and explicit learning. The only extra-linguistic variable included in the study is the variable of gender. The method used to investigate students’ prepositional errors was to hand out a two-part test on prepositions to the students in one Grade 9 class in Sweden. The data was then analyzed and categorized to identify in what construction (PP as adjectival complements, PP as verb complements or PP as adverbials) Swedish students of English produce the most errors. The first part of the test was a fill-in-the-blanks test investigating the students’ productive knowledge. The second part of the test was a grammatical judgement test (GJT) assessing the students’ receptive knowledge. The test was divided into two different parts not to favor one particular test form. The test included a total of 22 students from one class, including 12 male and 10 female students. 8 out of the 22 students answered that they had another L1 than Swedish. A majority of these have lived in Sweden their whole lives, and only two answered that they arrived later in life. In contrast with earlier research and statistics, which show that female students perform academically better than male students, the test showed a clear advantage by the male students in the class. The male students performed better on both parts of the test. The most problematic PP construction for both genders was PP functioning as adjectives. The most common prepositional error that the students performed in the test was negative transfer from Swedish to English.

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9

Rahman, Zuheir A. Abdul. "An analytic study of errors made by Iraqi students in using English prepositions of place relation." Thesis, Connect to e-thesis, 1990. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1010/.

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10

Pocock, Simon James. "Prepositions, syntax and the acquisition of English as a foreign language." Thesis, University of London, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.243437.

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11

Cabuk, Sakine. "The Use Of Emglish Prepositions In Second Language Acquisition Process." Master's thesis, METU, 2009. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12611383/index.pdf.

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THE USE OF PREPOSITIONS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION PROCESS This thesis investigates the use of three most frequent prepositions by Turkish learners of English at intermediate level of proficiency. The aim of the present study is to find out which differences between prepositions and their corresponding postpositions or case suffixes constitute difficulty on the part of second language learners. This study also examines the possible reasons of the errors/ mistakes pertaining to &lsquo
in&rsquo
, &lsquo
on&rsquo
, &lsquo
at&rsquo
by native speakers of Turkish with intermediate level of proficiency in English. To fulfill the purpose of the study the participants of the study were recorded in natural classroom environment and the recorded data were transcribed. The compiled corpus was examined by two native speakers of English and the researcher. The data was classified under four main categories for each preposition inquired: (i) correct usage, (ii) misuse (i.e., instead of &lsquo
on&rsquo
, for instance, students use &lsquo
in&rsquo
or &lsquo
at&rsquo
e.g., in television ), (iii) overuse (i.e., no preposition is required in the context but the students use one, e.g., I am going at home now), (iv) omission (i.e., a preposition is needed but the students do not use one, e.g., We go holiday). At the end of these analyses, the problematic contexts related to the use of the prepositions &lsquo
in&rsquo
, &lsquo
on&rsquo
, &lsquo
at&rsquo
for TIME and PLACE were identified. For detailed analysis of each category two tools - the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPPS) and the Computerized Language Analysis Child Language Data Exchange System (CLAN CHILDES) were used. Results indicate that Turkish learners of English produce erroneous forms of prepositions in second language acquisition process and the underlying reasons of these errors/mistakes is the interference of native language.

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12

Ursini, Francesco-Alessio. "The Language Of Space : The Acquisition And Interpretation of Spatial Adpositions In English." Doctoral thesis, Macquarie University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-85019.

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This thesis by publication presents a study on English adpositions (e.g. to, in, at, from, in frontof, through). It attempts to offer a solution to the following three outstanding problems, whichare presented in each of the three parts making up the thesis, preceded by a general introduction(chapter 1) and followed by the general conclusions (chapter 7). The first part includes chapter2, and discusses the problem of What is the relation between adpositions and the non-linguistic,visual content they represent. The second part includes chapters 3 and 4, and discusses theproblem ofwhat is a proper compositional theory of the Syntax and Semantics of adpositions.The third part includes chapters 5 and 6, and discusses the problem of what is the psychologicalreality of this theory, regarding adults and children’s data.The following three solutions are suggested. First, the relation between adpositions and theircorresponding visual information is an isomorphism: adpositions capture how we “see” possiblespatio-temporal relations between objects, at a flexible level of fine-grainedness. Second, aproper compositional treatment of adpositions treats each syntactic unit (in front, of ) as offeringa distinct semantic contribution, hence spelling out a restricted instance of a spatio-temporalpart-of relation. Third, this compositional treatment of adpositions can also stand as a theory ofon-line interpretation in adults and a theory of their acquisition in children.These three answers are couched within a single theoretical approach, that of Discourse Representation Theory, and offer a unified solution to three apparently distinct problems regardingspatial adpositions and their linguistic properties.

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13

Enzinna, Naomi R. "The Processing of Preposition-Stranding Constructions in English." FIU Digital Commons, 2013. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/889.

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One of the prominent questions in modern psycholinguistics is the relationship between the grammar and the parser. Within the approach of Generative Grammar, this issue has been investigated in terms of the role that Principles of Universal Grammar may play in language processing. The aim of this research experiment is to investigate this topic. Specifically, this experiment aims to test whether the Minimal Structure Principle (MSP) plays a role in the processing of Preposition-Stranding versus Pied-Piped Constructions. This investigation is made with a self-paced reading task, an on-line processing test that measures participants’ unconscious reaction to language stimuli. Monolingual English speakers’ reading times of sentences with Preposition-Stranding and Pied-Piped Constructions are compared. Results indicate that neither construction has greater processing costs, suggesting that factors other than the MSP are active during language processing.

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14

Hokari, Tomohiro. "Null prepositions in A-and A'-constructions by French and Japanese second language learners of English." Thesis, University of Essex, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.701967.

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This thesis investigates the nature of optional preposition omission in L2 English extraction constructions known as null prepositions, e.g. *Who did you speak? (Klein, 1993b). Although null prepositions are found among learners with different LIs, their properties have not yet been fully understood, because many properties and possible sources have been left unexplored. To advance our understanding of null prepositions (and ultimately of L2 optionality), this study examined (a) null prepositions in different constructions (wh-questions, relative clauses, and passives), (b) the relation between null prepositions and the structure of L2 extraction constructions., ( c) the role of learners' LIs, and (d) task effects, by administering four experiments (an acceptability judgment task, an elicited imitation task, and two self-paced reading tasks) to French-speaking and Japanese-speaking learners of English as well as to native English controls. While the results of the four experiments corroborate the claim in existing studies that null prepositions are universal properties of the L2 grammars of learners from different LIs, it is also demonstrated that whether null prepositions are observed depends upon several factors such as the distinction between A- and A'-extractions, learners' Ll, and task differences. Specifically, the results of the four experiments consistently indicate that null prepositions in passives are particularly persistent for both L2 groups. By contrast, it is shown that null prepositions in wh-questions and relative clauses are subject to differences in learners' Ll and task. To explain these results, three sources for null prepositions are proposed: the difficulty in suppressing the Case feature from prepositions; covert pied-piping (Klein, 2001); influence from the syntax of Ll extraction constructions. It is also argued that these sources are not random but may be constrained by more general properties of L2 (null) prepositions: L2prepositions seem to be represented as Case markers without interpretative/semantic properties (Perpifian, 2010).

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15

Encinas, Arquero Pablo. "Literal and figurative meanings of Spanish spatial prepositions in Chinese students' acquisition of Spanish as a third language." Thesis, University of Plymouth, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/4873.

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This thesis investigates the acquisition of the spatial and figurative meanings of five Spanish spatial particles, namely sobre, encima, debajo, bajo and en, by a group of Chinese university students of Spanish as a foreign language at intermediate and upper-intermediate language levels. More specifically, this study aims to answer two questions. The first question considers the order of acquisition of prepositional meanings, that is, whether this is similar to a native language, with literal and more primary meanings acquired first and figurative ones later or, conversely, whether the pattern of acquisition is different to that found in a first language (Kemmerer, 2005; Lam, 2010). The second question of this research is to determine whether there are observable differences between the degree of acquisition and use of these prepositions in English compared to Spanish, and if so, what the characteristics of these differences are. To try to answer these questions, the performance of this group of participants in four behavioural tests is compared. The tests were a lexical identification task, a picture fill-in-the- blank task, a sentence generation task and a truth value judgment task. These tests were conducted both in Spanish, which the participants had begun to study at undergraduate level and English, which they had first been exposed to in school in a pre-puberty period. The results of this study indicate, first, that the acquisition of the literal and figurative meanings of the spatial particles in this study does not follow a pattern similar to that found in a native language. That is, meaning acquisition in a foreign language occurs in a parallel or simultaneous pattern. Furthermore, in a non-immersion context such as that of this study, the age at which students begin the study of a foreign language is not a decisive factor in determining the degree of mastery that students can obtain. The quantity and quality of the input students are exposed to; together with an appropriate methodology appear to be the most important factors in predicting the level of proficiency that can be reached.

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16

Versteeg, Kathleen Gray. "An investigation of the effect of using varying stimuli to assess normal children's comprehension of five locative prepositions." PDXScholar, 1988. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3849.

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The questions posed in this study were: Are there significant differences among various tasks for eliciting five locative prepositions, and, if so, do tasks vary in their effectiveness according to the age of the children? Sixty children, ten within each of six age groups, aged eighteen to forty-eight months, participated in the study. All the children had normal language and hearing abilities. An investigator-developed assessment, the Test for Comprehension of Five Locative Prepositions, was administered to each child by the investigator. The Test for Comprehension of Five Locative Prepositions involved picture contexts and object contexts of varying sizes, and required manipulation, pointing and self action response modes.

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17

Breaux, Brooke O. "On Grounding Metaphors in Space| The Role of Metaphorical Connections in Accessing the Abstract Meanings of English Prepositions." Thesis, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3589960.

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Indirect metaphors are pervasive in everyday language: People talk about long vacations, short tempers, and colorful language. But, why do we use concrete lexical items that are associated with the physical world when we talk about abstract, or non-physical, concepts? A potential answer is provided by proponents of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), who propose that only a small set of the concepts which make up our conceptual system emerge directly from physical experience, and it is this small number of concepts that serves to structure the ways in which we think and talk about abstract concepts (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). This key assumption in cognitive linguistics—that our understanding of concrete concepts serves to ground our understanding of abstract concepts—is the focus of my research. Although indirect metaphors are thought to be the result of grounded conceptual connections, motivated by experiential knowledge and flowing from the physical to the non-physical (Grady, 1999), it is unclear whether people access these grounded connections when processing the meanings of indirect metaphors.

The prepositions in and on are an interesting test case for grounded connections: Both lexical items are used frequently by speakers not only to identify the location of one object relative to another but also to refer to more abstract relationships. Therefore, I experimentally investigated the possibility that grounded connections are available for use in tasks requiring on-line processing of these prepositions: Would participants make use of conceptual connections, and if so, would the characteristics associated with these conceptual connections be consistent with the CMT grounding assumption? Although the results for in were consistent with the CMT grounding assumption, the results for on were not. In fact, differences between in and on were found throughout stimulus development, and these differences were used to help explain this discrepancy. The patterns observed throughout this dissertation suggest that in may be more metaphorically active than on , meaning that in's potential to participate in indirect metaphors is higher than on's, and that one consequence of this higher metaphorical activity is an increase in the availability of grounded connections during on-line processing.

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18

De, Felice Rachele. "Automatic error detection in non-native English." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5192f0cb-6e4d-4730-bb54-a97a73d603ed.

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This thesis describes the development of Dapper (`Determiner And PrePosition Error Recogniser'), a system designed to automatically acquire models of occurrence for English prepositions and determiners to allow for the detection and correction of errors in their usage, especially in the writing of non-native speakers of the language. Prepositions and determiners are focused on because they are parts of speech whose usage is particularly challenging to acquire, both for students of the language and for natural language processing tools. The work presented in this thesis proposes to address this problem by developing a system which can acquire models of correct preposition and determiner occurrence, and can use this knowledge to identify divergences from these models as errors. The contexts of these parts of speech are represented by a sophisticated feature set, incorporating a variety of semantic and syntactic elements. DAPPER is found to perform well on preposition and determiner selection tasks in correct native English text. Results on each preposition and determiner are discussed in detail to understand the possible reasons for variations in performance, and whether these are due to problems with the structure of DAPPER or to deeper linguistic reasons. An in-depth analysis of all features used is also offered, quantifying the contribution of each feature individually. This can help establish if the decision to include complex semantic and syntactic features is justified in the context of this task. Finally, the performance of DAPPER on non-native English text is assessed. The system is found to be robust when applied to text which does not contain any preposition or determiner errors. On an error correction task, results are mixed: DAPPER shows promising results on preposition selection and determiner confusion (definite vs. indefinite) errors, but is less successful in detecting errors involving missing or extraneous determiners. Several characteristics of learner writing are described, to gain a clearer understanding of what problems arise when natural language processing tools are used with this kind of text. It is concluded that the construction of contextual models is a viable approach to the task of preposition and determiner selection, despite outstanding issues pertaining to the domain of non-native writing.

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19

Elkafri, Linda. "The Effect of Transfer on Arab and Portuguese Learners' Use of the English Prepositions to and for." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-144651.

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The researcher has studied, in this paper, the effect of transfer on the Arabic and Portuguese learners’ using prepositions during their process of learning English as a second language. The prepositions that the study deals with are to and, for. The aim of the study is to show the influence of the learner’s first language on the target language. The study draws upon literary sources such as Littlewood’s book Foreign and Second Language Learning (Littlewood, 1984), as well as practical experiments which are divided into a multiple choice test and a translation test. Through the analysis of the results of these tests, the study shows the extent of influence of the first language on the process of learning a second language. The answers of the students are analyzed by comparing the rules of using prepositions in the learner’s first language and English. The participants in this study are students in ACS international school in Qatar. The study also includes interviews with two teachers. The interviews are done in order to provide additional information on the effect of the learner’s first language on learning a second language. The teachers express their views which was formed after many years of teaching experience.

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20

Abakumova, Olga. "The use of the prepositions to and with after the verb to talk in British and American English : A corpus-based study." Thesis, Växjö University, School of Humanities, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:vxu:diva-1376.

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This paper is a study of the use of the prepositions to/with after the verb to talk in British and American English. The research is based on the material from the COBUILDDirect corpus, Longman American Spoken Corpus and New York Times CD-ROM. The common and different features of the use of talk to/with in different genres of American and British English as well as in written and spoken English were studied; special attention was paid to the factors which influence the choice of the prepositions. The research has shown that generally talk with is used much less than talk to and probably is undergoing the process of narrowing of meaning. With after talk seems to be used most often to refer to two-way communication while talk to is used to refer to both one- and two-way communication and is, therefore, more universal than talk with.

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21

Edwards, Cathleen Pew. "A comparative analysis of the expressive acquisition of locative and directional prepositions between severely-to-profoundly hearing impaired children utilizing total communication and the oral/aural approach." PDXScholar, 1989. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3963.

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Prepositions are not only important in functional syntax; they also relate meanings associated with the concepts of place and time (Washington & Naremore, 1978). Furthermore, prepositions are critical in such everyday activities as producing and comprehending directions, using maps and diagrams, and in the fields of mathematics and music (Cox & Richardson, 1985). Inefficient use or misuse of prepositional spatial terms may hinder a child's progress in many areas. Expressive acquisition of function words, which include prepositions, has been described as significantly delayed in the hearing impaired populations (Cooper & Rosenstein, 1966). The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative preposition analysis between hearing impaired children using two different modes of communication. The question this researcher sought to answer was: Do 54 severely-to-profoundly hearing impaired children in this study using total communication differ in the expressive acquisition of 17 locative and directional prepositions from 35 hearing impaired children in a previous study (Warlick, 1983) using oral/aural communication?

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22

Johansson, Björn. "The Use of English Prepositions in Swedish Schools : A survey study on language transfer effects on Swedish EFL learners in a Swedish upper secondary school." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-144100.

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This empirical study investigates how English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Swedish upper secondary schools succeed in their use of English prepositions. EFL learners in Sweden today represent a multitude of nationalities and ethnic groups with many different first languages (L1); therefore, English teaching could be subject to change in order to adapt to the new situation. The study is based on an online survey given to pupils taking “English 7” at upper secondary schools in Stockholm. The study aims to find patterns in how pupils with Swedish as their L1 handle English prepositions and use a control group consisting of pupils with another L1 in a comparative analysis based on language transfer. A teacher of English at the respondents’ school was interviewed to elicit teaching methodology and how they use the language diversity in the classroom when teaching prepositions. Even though it was hypothesised that negative language transfer was a factor, the analysis of the focus group shows that negative language transfer from Swedish did not inhibit the focus group’s ability to choose prepositions compared to the control group in the given context. In contrast, positive transfer from Swedish as an L1 contributed to a substantial increase in success rate. However, no clear connection could be made to teaching methodology as the interviewed teacher did not have any specific method for dealing with prepositions and mainly treated teaching prepositions implicitly. Furthermore, the interviewed teacher did not use language diversity in classroom as a tool for learning.

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Portal, Fernanda Buratti. "Explorando o potencial da linguística cognitiva para o ensino-aprendizagem da preposição in em aulas de inglês como língua estrangeira." Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, 2014. http://www.repositorio.jesuita.org.br/handle/UNISINOS/3341.

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Como profissionais da área da educação, temos conhecimento sobre a importânca de uma boa metodologia de ensino para o ensino de línguas de uma forma geral e, talvez, especialmente, para o processo de ensino-aprendizagem das preposições da língua inglesa, elemento da língua que tende a ser considerado por abordagens tradicionais como idiossincráticos, arbitrários, de difícil caracterização semântica, cujos múltiplos sentidos não possuem qualquer relação uns com os outros. Assim, entendemos que os fundamentos teóricos que orientam a prática docente e a metodologia utilizada pelo professor para o ensino deste elemento da língua podem influenciar significativamente nos resultados alcançados com um grupo de alunos. Nesse contexto, esta dissertação teve por objetivo explorar o potencial da Linguística Cognitiva (LC) para o processo de ensino-aprendizagem da preposição in, em aulas de inglês como Língua Estrangeira (LE), buscando (i) realizar a descrição semântica da preposição in à luz da perspectiva teórica adotada, a LC, e (ii) propor atividades de ensino-aprendizagem desse item lexical para aprendizes adultos a partir da descrição feita. A metodologia deste trabalho baseou-se em reflexões que se voltam para dois domínios complementares: (i) Linguístico e (ii) Linguístico-Pedagógico. No domínio linguístico, realizamos a descrição e a análise da semântica das preposições à luz da LC, teoria escolhida para orientar esta pesquisa, visto que esta se demonstrou um aporte teórico mais apropriado ao cumprimento do objetivo desta dissertação. A LC oferece uma forma diferente de pensar e explicar as preposições, buscando mostrar que os múltiplos sentidos que uma preposição como o in possui são, na verdade, relacionados entre si e podem ser explicados de forma motivada e sistemática dentro do paradigma teórico. A partir da LC, torna-se possível descrever a polissemia de estruturas complexas como são as preposições por meio de estruturas de redes e, nesse sentido, a rede de polissemia sincrônica (BLANK, 2003; GEERAERTS, 2006), por ter um caráter mais livre, flexível e multidimensional, se mostrou ideal como forma de representação de uma categoria complexa como o in. No domínio linguístico-pedagógico deste trabalho, elaboramos propostas de atividades de ensino-aprendizagem da semântica da preposição in em aulas de inglês como LE para adultos com nível intermediário de proficiência na língua-alvo levando em consideração os pressupostos da LC tanto no que concerne ao modo como a teoria explica as preposições como às noções e princípios fundamentais que ela oferece para pensarmos o ensino de línguas, além da descrição e análise da preposição in realizada no domínio linguístico deste trabalho. A partir do nosso conhecimento de como as preposições são vistas e explicadas pela LC e dos benefícios que entendemos que este aporte teórico pode trazer para o ensino de inúmeros fenômenos de uma língua estrangeira, foi-nos possível perceber que aos aprendizes podem ser oportunizados estratégias e mecanismos facilitadores de sua aprendizagem das preposições, proporcionando-lhes um conhecimento dos sentidos das preposições que é mais lógico e relacionado, o qual se aproxima das suas vivências e experiências com esse item lexical da língua, além de experiências mais agradáveis e enriquecedoras com a língua inglesa.
As professionals in education, we acknowledge about the importance of a good teaching methodology for language teaching in general, and perhaps especially for the teaching-learning of English prepositions, the element of language that tends to be regarded by traditional approaches as idiosyncratic, arbitrary, of difficult semantic characterization, whose multiple meanings do not have any relationship with one another. Thus, we believe that the theoretical foundations that guide the teaching practice and the methodology used to the teaching of this element of the language can significantly influence the results achieved with a group of students. In this context, this work aimed at exploring the potential of Cognitive Linguistics (CL) to the teaching-learning process of preposition in, in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes, seeking (i) to make the semantic description of preposition in, in the light of the theoretical perspective adopted, the CL and (ii) to propose teaching-learning activities of this lexical item for adult learners from the given description. This study methodology was based on reflections that turn to two complementary areas: (i) Language and (ii) Language-Teaching. In the language domain, we made the description and analysis of the semantics of prepositions in the light of CL, theory chosen to guide this research, since it appears to be the most appropriate theoretical framework to achieve the objective of this thesis. The LC offers a different way of thinking and explaining the prepositions, seeking to show that the multiple meanings that a preposition like in has are actually interrelated and can be explained in a motivated and systematic way within the theoretical paradigm. From the CL perspective, it becomes possible to describe the polysemy of complex structures like prepositions through network structures and, accordingly, the synchronic polysemy network (BLANK, 2003; GEERAERTS, 2006), because it has freer characteristics, it is more flexible and multidimensional, proved ideal as a way of representing a complex category like in. In the language-teaching domain of this study, we elaborated proposals of activities for the teaching-learning of the semantics of the preposition in, in English as a foreign language classes for adults of an intermediate level of proficiency, taking into account the assumptions of the CL, both regarding to how the theory explains the prepositions and the essencial notions and principles that it offers for thinking language teaching, besides the description and analysis of the preposition in performed in the language domais of this work. From our knowledge of how prepositions are seen and 8 explained by the CL and the benefits that we believe that this theoretical framework can bring to the teaching of numerous phenomena in a foreign language, we realized that the learners can be given opportunities to develop strategies and mechanisms to facilitate their learning of prepositions, providing them with knowledge of the meanings of prepositions that is more logical and related, which approximates to their experiences with this lexical item of the language, besides providing more enjoyable and enriching experiences with the English language.

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Naser, Eddine Abeer. "La préposition dans l'interlangue : étude des productions en L2 anglais d'apprenants francophones." Phd thesis, Université de Grenoble, 2012. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01057881.

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Le principal objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier l'incidence des erreurs prépositionnelles sur l'intelligibilité de productions en L2 anglais par des apprenants francophones. Après un résumé des caractéristiques sémantiques et morpho-syntaxiques des prépositions en anglais et en français, nous abordons les questions liées à l'acquisition d'une langue seconde en général et à l'acquisition des prépositions en particulier, afin d' identifier les facteurs qui peuvent rendre leur acquisition problématique en L2. Nous proposons également des solutions pédagogiques pour améliorer l'apprentissage des prépositions en anglais. Afin de mesurer l'intelligibilité, nous analysons un corpus de productions orales et écrites contenant des emplois erronés, répartis entre erreurs lexciales et erreurs lexico- grammaticales (additions, omissions ou substitutions). Les résultats de cette analyse permettent de voir dans quelle mesure les erreurs prépositionnelles affectent l'intelligibilité du message.

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Tan, Melinda Mui Leng. "Prepositional clusters : investigative-oriented learning and English language teaching." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2000. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11299/.

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This thesis attempts to do three things. Firstly, it attempts to bring a new contribution to knowledge about fixed idiomatic expressions in English, by demonstrating that the overall meaning of such expressions need not always be conveyed by the presence of lexical words. Linguistic observation of natural and authentic language use has shown the existence of fixed idiomatic expressions consisting solely of grammatical words and possessing a particular overall meaning. Some of these expressions commonly found in everyday informal communication (written and spoken) are "this and/or that", "either or ", "round and round ", "ups and downs ", "on and off', etc. Secondly, the thesis will seek to illustrate through descriptive analysis that fixed expressions consisting solely of grammatical words can be called "units of meaning", using Sinclair's (1991a) position regarding form and meaning. Thus, a part of the thesis will be devoted to investigating the lexico-grammatical behaviour of such expressions. The analysis focuses solely on prepositional clusters, whose frequent usage in informal spoken and written communication makes them suitable for investigation. These prepositional clusters are composed of prepositions or words that can function as prepositions, and formed as a result of the common syntactic patterns in which they occur. Besides analysing cluster patterns that are composed solely of prepositions or words that can function as prepositions, other clusters which are composed of prepositions with adjectives/adverbs and nouns are included in the investigation, for purposes of comparison. Hence, the prepositional cluster patterns analysed in this study are: a) Prep+and+Prep (egs. ins and outs, up and down), b) Prep+Prep (egs. roundabout, upside down, inside out), c) Prep+Adv/Adj (egs. at most, at least), d) Adj/Adv+Prep (egs. excited about, worried about, angry about), e) Noun+ Prep (egs. Reason for, request for, excuse for) and f) Prep+Noun (egs. by mistake, by chance, by coincidence). In examining the lexico-grammatical behaviour of prepositional cluster patterns, I have applied linguistic principles from both Corpus Analysis and Cognitive Semantics. This approach, which combines two fields of linguistics, lends more depth to the analysis. While principles of Corpus Analysis are useful in determining common meaning usages and grammatical functions of prepositional clusters, principles of Cognitive Semantics are able to extend the interpretation of the meaning usages, with regard to metaphoricity. Consequently, I will utilise the principles in both fields to suggest a semantic representation of all the prepositional clusters analysed in the study, based on a superordinate classification rather than on a network one. The third and final part of the thesis seeks to apply the lexicogrammatical findings and the linguistic principles used in the study to pedagogy. More specifically, these findings, together with the linguistic principles of Corpus Analysis and Cognitive Semantics, have been utilised to construct activities which demonstrate a particular ELT methodology, which I have termed Investigative-Oriented Learning (IOL). IOL is meant to address the limitation of Communicative Teaching in developing investigative questioning in language learners. The aim of IOL thus is to empower learners with skills of Conscious Investigation which may enable them to be sensitive to patterns of language, and to their idiomatic and metaphorical meanings and grammatical functions. Prepositional clusters, which illustrate idiomaticity and metaphoricity in authentic language use, have been used as an example of language patterns to illustrate the methodology behind IOL.

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Hoffmann, Sebastian. "Grammaticalization and English complex prepositions : a corpus-based study /." London : Routledge, 2005. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb400409970.

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Granath, Solveig. "Verb complementation in English : omission of prepositions before that-clauses and to-infinitives /." Göteborg (Sweden) : Acta universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1997. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37619985f.

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Stalmaszczyk, Piotr. "Prepositional possessive constructions in Celtic Languages and Celtic Englishes." Universität Potsdam, 2007. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2008/1925/.

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Extract: [...] One of the often noted characteristic features of the Celtic languages is the absence of a singular verbal form with the meaning ‘to have’.1 The principal way of expressing possession is through periphrastic constructions with prepositions (such as Irish ag, Scottish Gaelic aig ‘at’; Welsh gan, Breton gant ‘at, with’) and appropriate forms of the substantive verb. Pronominal prepositions, another distinctive feature of the Celtic languages, consist of a preposition and a suffixed pronoun, or rather a pronominal personal ending. This construction may be analyzed as an instance of category fusion. Thus, the Irish and Welsh equivalents of English ‘I have money’ are Tá airgead agam or Mae arian gen i, respectively, both literally meaning ‘is money at-me/with-me’. This note discusses pronominal possessive constructions in Celtic languages (and some comparable examples from Celtic Englishes) and provides some background information on pronominal prepositions and comments on historical developments of these forms. It also discusses some terminological issues involved in labelling the construction in question. [...]

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Go, Gwang-Yoon. "The synchrony and diachrony of the English prepositional passive : form, meaning, and function /." The Ohio State University, 2000. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1488199501405655.

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Dimitriadis, Eva. "A preposition is something which you should never end a sentence with : A corpus-based study on preposition stranding." Thesis, Växjö University, School of Humanities, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:vxu:diva-1702.

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This study examines to what extent preposition stranding is used in connection with which, whom and who in three different UK papers. Also what factors influence the use of preposition stranding has been studied. The hypothesis that pied-piping is more common than preposition stranding has been confirmed.

A factor that has a certain influence on the use of preposition stranding is the style of the paper. The more formal of the papers studied, The Times, did not use preposition stranding to the same extent as the other two, The Sun and Today.

The subject domain of the texts has influence on the use of preposition stranding, with more informal domains such as sports and miscellaneous (e.g. gossip) using stranding to a higher extent than the other domains, e.g. business, politics and culture. The prepositions themselves also influence the use of preposition stranding with some prepositions, such as on, with, for and into, that are likely to appear stranded and others, such as in that are likely to appear pied-piped.

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Bang, Nguyen, and n/a. "Noun and prepositional phrases in English and Vietnamese : a contrastive analysis." University of Canberra. Education, 1985. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060606.154323.

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This study aims to discuss the noun and prepositional phrases in English and in Vietnamese and their impact upon teaching and learning English in the Vietnamese situation. Attempts have been made to state the similarities and differences in noun and prepositional phrases in the two languages and raise and solve some difficulties and problems arising particularly from differences between English and Vietnamese. In this study, Contrastive Linguistics is concerned with the comparison of the two languages with a view to determining the differences and similarities between them. With this practical aim the study tries to provide a model for comparison and determine how and which of the phrases are comparable. It is hoped to provide as much information as is possible in a limited study of this kind on English noun and prepositional phrases, then on Vietnamese noun phrases. The study draws attention to differences with examples. It analyses the heads of noun phrases in the two languages as well as the pre and postmodifications and their positions. It also analyses the uses of the prepositional phrases in the two languages. At the same time, it points out the kinds of errors made by Vietnamese learners in the above-mentioned areas and their causes. Finally, some suggestions are made for those who may be responsible for teaching English as a Foreign Language to younger pupils as well as adults, or to students at universities or colleges

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Kou, Meng Chu. "A consciousness-raising approach to error correction : a case study of the acquisition of the placement of prepositional phrases by Macao secondary school students." Thesis, University of Macau, 2010. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2456359.

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Jach, Daniel [Verfasser], Holger [Gutachter] Diessel, and Volker [Gutachter] Gast. "Preposition placement in English as a second language : a usage-based approach / Daniel Jach ; Gutachter: Holger Diessel, Volker Gast." Jena : Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 2019. http://d-nb.info/1205884734/34.

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Fernandes, Mariano Tais. "An Outline of the Semantic Network of the Preposition Up in American English : A Corpus Study." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-157999.

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In this study an outline is presented of the semantic network of the preposition up in American English in sentences extracted from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), which was done to determine what the most common uses and meanings of the preposition are, as well as to determine if most of its possible meanings are concrete or abstract. The results show that there is a salient use and also prototypical meaning of up, and that these are major factors that impact the semantic network of the preposition. This study was designed to be a source of information for EFL students who struggle to understand how prepositions function in the English language, and also what the prepositions can actually represent in a sentence. Concomitantly, the goal is to give information about the preposition up in a way that will allow students to analyze other prepositions and perhaps even other word classes.

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Almerfors, Håkan. "Preposition and article usage in learner English : An investigation of negative transfer." Thesis, Karlstads universitet, Institutionen för språk, litteratur och interkultur, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-65794.

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The ways in which someone’s first language (L1) influences his or her second language (L2) to create errors, that is negative transfer, is a topic that has received much attention in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Previous research has suggested that negative transfer is responsible for many errors. The primary aim of this study is to investigate article and preposition errors in the production of Swedish learners of English and to discuss these errors in relation to negative transfer. The secondary aim is to compare transfer errors by L1 Swedish and L1 Portuguese learners of English. The first and main part of the study is a corpus investigation of the written production of 80 students in upper secondary school (high school). The second part is a multiple-choice test constructed to provoke transfer errors. It was distributed to students in upper secondary school in Sweden and in Brazil. The results from the corpus analysis are largely in line with those of previous research, for example with regards to how definite article errors are more common than indefinite article errors, and how contexts with definite articles and generic noun phrases seem prone to create transfer errors. The corpus study also shows that substitution was the most common preposition error and that many transfer preposition errors supposedly were caused by direct translations. Through the multiple-choice test, the degree to which the first language had an impact on individual errors could be revealed. All in all, the study reveals several aspects of negative transfer that perhaps a single-language investigation could not, because it is in the comparison of English-learners with different L1s that the most interesting results occur.
De sätt som någons första språk påverkar hans eller hennes andra språk så att fel uppstår, det vill säga negativ språköverföring (negative transfer), är ett ämne som har fått mycket uppmärksamhet inom forskning kring språkinlärning. Tidigare studier har visat på hur negativ språköverföring orsakar många fel. Det primära syftet i denna uppsats är att undersöka artikel- och prepositionsfel i skrift hos svenska elever som lär sig engelska och att diskutera dessa fel i relation till negativ språköverföring. Det sekundära målet är att jämföra hur negativ språköverföring yttrar sig hos svenska och portugisiska elever som lär sig engelska. Den första delen av denna uppsats, som även är huvuddelen, är en korpusundersökning av 80 uppsatser skrivna av högstadieelever. Den andra delen är ett flervalstest som konstruerats för att provocera fram språköverföringsfel. Deltagarna var högstadie- och gymnasieelever från Sverige och Brasilien. Resultaten från korpusundersökningen stämmer i stor utsträckning överens med vad tidigare forskning visat, till exempel att det är vanligare att fel uppstår med bestämda artiklar än med obestämda artiklar och hur bestämda artiklar och tillsammans med generiska nominalfraser tenderar att generera negativ språköverföring. Korpusstudien visar också på hur felaktigt utbyte (substitution) var det vanligaste prepositionsfelet och att många språköverföringsfel förmodligen orsakats av direkta översättningar från svenska. I analysen av resultateten från flervalstestet kunde graden av inflytande från första språket på enskilda fel påvisas. Sammantaget avslöjar undersökningen i denna uppsats på flera aspekter av negativ språköverföring som troligen ej uppenbarats om enkom elever med ett förstaspråk inkluderats, detta eftersom det är i jämförelsen mellan engelska-elever med olika förstaspråk som de mest intressanta resultaten framkommer.

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Yang, Ya-ting, and 楊雅婷. "Second Language Acquisition of English Spatial Prepositions by Taiwanese Students." Thesis, 2013. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/17443260862721925563.

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碩士
國立臺灣師範大學
英語學系
101
English prepositions are considered notoriously difficult that even learners at a high proficiency level in English may still have to contend with them (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 1983, 1999). However, little research explored the issue in both comprehension and production of English spatial prepositions by Chinese EFL learners. Therefore, the present study aims to conduct an empirical study to investigate Chinese learners’ acquisition of four types of English spatial prepositions. A comprehension task (i.e., grammaticality judgment task) and a production task (i.e., sentence completion task) were designed, both of which were presented in conversations. Factors such as difficulty order, spatial information effects, context effects, task effects, and L2 proficiency effects were examined. The subjects were eighty college freshmen in Taiwan and they were further divided into four groups (low, mid-low, mid-high, and advanced) according to their English proficiency levels. In addition, twenty native speakers of English were recruited as a control group. The overall results showed that the four geometric types of English prepositions exhibited different degrees of difficulty. Surface and Volume were found the easiest while Point and Line were found the most difficult to acquire. Moreover, English prepositions with the Contact spatial information were found easier than those with the Non-contact spatial information for the subjects to acquire, due to L1 interference and L2 semantic complexity. Furthermore, it was found that our L2 learners performed better on literal contexts, whereas they had more difficulty in acquiring English prepositions in metaphorical contexts owing to the lack of transparency and a high degree of conventionality of some extended meanings. With regard to task effects, our subjects consistently performed better on the comprehension task than the production task, implying that comprehension preceded production in L2 acquisition. Finally, with regard to L2 proficiency effects, it was found that the subjects at higher proficiency levels performed better than the lower proficiency groups, and the subjects’ performances improved with the increase in their proficiency levels.

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Málek, Heather Leigh. "The acquisition of English prepositions in first language speakers of Northern Sotho and Afrikaans : a cognitive linguistic study." Thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/8649.

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M.A. (Applied Linguistics)
This study seeks to understand the acquisition of English prepositions by second language (L2) speakers of English. Prepositions are notoriously difficult linguistic items to acquire, and the reasons for this are manifold. This study looks into the relationship between the linguistic similarities between prepositions in the first language (L1) and the English prepositions in, on, to and into. The study focuses on two particular groups of L1 speakers: (i) Northern Sotho speakers and (ii) Afrikaans speakers. A group of monolingual English speakers acts as a control group according to which comparisons between L2 and L1 speakers are made. These three groups have been selected based on the manifestations of the selected English prepositions in each language. In Afrikaans, the four prepositions have similar linguistic features to their English counterparts, whereas in Northern Sotho, prepositions have a vastly different linguistic manifestation to English ones. This study therefore seeks to establish whether linguistic similarity in the L1 helps or hinders the acquisition of English prepositions in English as an L2. In order to achieve this aim, 120 participants between the ages of 5;3 (year;month) and 8;11 were selected from 23 primary schools in Gauteng that use English as a language of learning and teaching (LoLT). These participants were then tested in two stages. First, an oral English proficiency test (the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation) was performed. Second, the participants completed an elicited production procedure designed for the purposes of this research to test their understanding and ability to use the English prepositions under investigation. The process of development of this elicited production procedure involved a pilot study to which the Rasch measurement model was applied. The procedure was then adapted and improved. The Rasch measurement model was also applied to the English proficiency test in order to highlight areas or items within the test that may contain cultural bias in a South African context. The Rasch analysis identified various items within the test that were not appropriate within the South African context and these items were removed from the scoring procedure so as not to influence the results in a culturally-biased way. The results of the English proficiency test were then used to group the participants according to English ability (below average, average and above average). These ability groups form the basis upon which comparisons regarding the results of the preposition test are then made. The comparisons revealed some variance, but no significant differences between the Afrikaans and Northern Sotho speakers. There were, however, significant differences between the Afrikaans and Northern Sotho speakers in terms of their performance on the English proficiency test. The Northern Sotho speakers had more speakers in the below average group of English ability than the Afrikaans group, and fewer in the above average group. Another notable finding is the variation in difficulty when considering the type of preposition being acquired. Prepositions of motion (to and into) were more difficult to understand and produce for participants from both the Afrikaans and Northern Sotho groups. Although there was no significant difference between the groups, the Afrikaans speakers performed slightly better on the preposition test than the Northern Sotho group. Additionally, the errors made by the Afrikaans speakers were less varied than those made by the Northern Sotho speakers. The findings support the hypothesis that linguistic similarity between the L1 and L2 aids in learning English prepositions.

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"Applying cognitive linguistics to teaching English prepositions: an experimental-CALL study = 運用認知語言學到英語介詞教學 : 電腦導師." 2015. http://repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/item/cuhk-1291531.

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The complexity of English prepositions has always been a challenge for second language (L2) learners (Celce-Muricia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999). Cognitive linguists have made a substantial amount of effort of analyzing the semantic representations of the prepositions (Lakoff, 1987; Talmy, 2000; Tyler & Evans, 2003; Lindstromberg, 2010). Schematic drawings, with variation among studies, are proposed to visualize the conceptual representations and to connect the basic spatial senses (e.g., in a box) with the more abstract, metaphorical senses (e.g., in love) of prepositions. Some empirical studies (Tyler, 2012; Tyler, Mueller & Ho, 2010) found positive learning outcomes when L2 learners were taught prepositions with cognitive linguistics methods. Yet, few studies provided step-by-step descriptions of their instructional procedures. Inadequate information of exactly what was going on in these classrooms makes it difficult to replicate or to compare across studies.
The current study is an experimental study that investigates the effects of teaching English prepositions with cognitive linguistics methods in a computer-based tutorial system. Our main research question is to see whether cognitive linguistic approach outperforms traditional explicit instruction. The participants of the present study were 64 Cantonese learners of English, at Secondary 4 level, from a Hong Kong secondary school with English as the medium of instruction. They were randomly assigned to one of the four groups: 1) schema feedback (SF); 2) rule feedback (RF); 3) corrective feedback (CF); and 4) control group (receiving training on English articles). The first three groups received training on three prepositions (in, at, over) through the online interface shown in Figure 1. On each screen they were presented with a picture stimulus and two minimal-pair sentences that only differed on the prepositions (e.g., Ben jumped over the ditch vs. Ben jumped towards the ditch). They were asked to choose the sentence that matched the picture. They were provided with immediate feedback. The SF group (Figure 1) was given the schematic drawing mapped with the sentence as well as a verbal explanation of the mapping. The RF group was given a metalinguistic explanation of the preposition usage with three example sentences. The CF group was informed of whether their choice was correct or wrong. All the four groups went through the same procedure with three sessions: a pretest, training (balanced time across groups), and a posttest. The tests were composed of two parts: a cloze test and a translation test, both at the sentential level.
The findings showed no significant difference in terms of accuracy of performance among the four groups at the pretest. But at the posttest, there was a significant difference between the three preposition training groups and the control group. This finding suggests positive instructional effects of the tutor. Regarding the distinction of feedback, a marginal significant difference was observed among the SF, RF, and CF groups at the posttests and such difference only came from the translation test. That indicates that the amount and the type of information that were provided to the participants did not matter for cloze test but did create superiority effect in the production test, when they were instructed with a minimal-pair paradigm and also with the help of the picture stimuli.[with diagram]
英語介詞，因其複雜性，對於第二語言（L2）學習者一直是學習上的一個挑戰（Celce-Muricia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999）。認知語言學家一直努力分析介詞的語義表述（Lakoff, 1987; Talmy, 2000; Tyler & Evans, 2003; Lindstromberg, 2010）。有研究提出以不同的圖像模組將概念表述形像化及連接基本的空間意義（例如，in a box）及較抽象的隱喻意義（例如，in love）。一些實證研究（Tyler, 2012; Tyler, Mueller & Ho, 2010）中，發現第二語言學習者以認知語言學的方法學習介詞時，學習成果會較好。然而，很少有研究詳細地描述自己的教學過程，因此資訊的不足令它其難以模仿或比較不同的研究。
目前的研究是一個實驗性的研究以探討在電腦系統上以認知語言學的方法教導介詞的效果。主要研究的問題是，究竟認知語言學的方法（圖像模組）能否超越傳統教學方法（給予明確指引）。研究的參加者是64位以廣東話作為母語，在香港中學就讀中四的英語學習者。他們被隨機分配到四個組別中的其中一個組別：1）圖像模組的反饋（SF）;2）規則和例子的反饋（RF）;3）糾正反饋（CF）和4）對照組（接受英語冠詞的訓練）。前三組會透過線上練習（圖1）接受3個介詞（in, at, over）的訓練。每個練習上會有一幅圖片及一組對比句子（兩句句子不同之處只在於介詞，例如Ben jumped over the ditch vs. Ben jumped towards the ditch）。他們需要選擇其中一句句子用以正確描述練習中的圖片而系統亦會即時向他們提供反饋。SF組（圖1）的反饋包括匹配練習中的圖片的圖像模組及對該模組的文字解釋。。RF組的反饋是提供該介詞在文法上的用法及一般規則並同時給予三個相關例句。CF組則只會獲告知他們在練習中的選擇是正確或錯誤。四個組別都會經歷前期測驗，訓練（各組的訓練時間相約）和後期測驗。測驗由兩個部份組成：句子層級上的填充選擇測驗及翻譯測驗。
調查結果顯示，四個組別在前期測驗中的表現並沒有顯著的差異。但在後期測驗中，三個有接受介詞訓練的組別和對照組之間有著的顯著的差異。這一發現表明了研究中的電腦導師對教導介詞有正面的影響。而不同反饋組別（SF，RF和CF組）在後期測驗中則有著邊緣顯著差異，而這差異僅來自翻譯測驗。這結果顯示當研究參加者接受對比教學及圖像刺激時，提供予他們的信息數量及種類對理解型的測驗並沒有太大影響；相反，對運用型的測驗則非常顯著的效果。，當他們被指示具有最小配對模式，也與畫面刺激的幫助。[附圖]
Wong, Man Ho Ivy.
Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-160).
Abstracts also in Chinese.
Title from PDF title page (viewed on 18, October, 2016).
Wong, Man Ho Ivy.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.

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39

Sarnecki, Mateusz. "Complement variation in English communication verbs." Doctoral thesis, 2017. https://depotuw.ceon.pl/handle/item/2165.

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Complementation patterns might be defined as ways in which a phrase can be completed with another phrase. This dissertation focuses on one such specific pattern: the combination of English verbs which refer to communication, for example “talk”, with prepositional phrases which express a topic, as in “talk about something”. In these contexts, speakers can often choose between two or more topic-introducing prepositions. The main goal of the monograph is to explore what factors make speakers select one of the two major “topic markers” in English: “about” and “of”. The dissertation consists of six chapters. The first one introduces the key concepts employed in the monograph. Chapter Two contains an analysis of the investigated variation couched within a theory of language known as “construction grammar”. Chapter Three discusses the role of quantitative analysis in linguistics and describes the statistical techniques used in three corpus-based studies reported in Chapters Four to Six. These investigations reveal several factors which influence the choice between “about” and “of”. The dissertation additionally offers possible interpretations of the results.
Wzorce dopełnieniowe można zdefiniować jako sposoby, w jakie dana fraza może zostać dopełniona inną frazą. Niniejsza rozprawa skupia się na jednym takim wzorcu: połączeniu angielskich czasowników odnoszących się do komunikacji, na przykład „talk”, z frazami przyimkowymi wyrażającymi temat, jak w wyrażeniu „talk about something”. W kontekstach tych, użytkownicy języka mogą często wybierać pomiędzy dwoma przyimkami lub większą ich liczbą. Celem monografii jest zbadanie jakie czynniki sprawiają, że użytkownicy języka angielskiego decydują się na jeden z dwóch podstawowych „znaczników tematu”: „about” oraz „of”. Rozprawa składa się z sześciu rozdziałów. Pierwszy definiuje główne pojęcia stosowane w monografii. Rozdział drugi zawiera analizę badanej wariantywności, osadzoną w ramach teorii języka zwanej „gramatyką konstrukcji”. Rozdział trzeci omawia rolę analizy ilościowej w językoznawstwie, a także opisuje techniki statystyczne wykorzystane w trzech badaniach korpusowych zreferowanych w rozdziałach od czwartego do szóstego. Badania te odsłaniają czynniki wpływające na konkretne wybory użytkowników języka, dokonujące się między „about” i „of”. Rozprawa dodatkowo oferuje możliwe interpretacje uzyskanych rezultatów.

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40

Mungungu, Saara Sirkka. "Error analysis: investigating the writing of ESL Namibian learners." Diss., 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/4893.

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This study investigated common English language errors made by Oshiwambo, Afrikaans and Silozi First Language speakers. The study examined errors in a corpus of 360 essays written by 180 participants. Errors were identified and classified into various categories. The four most common errors committed by the participants were tenses, prepositions, articles and spelling. The study is important to educators and study material developers who should become aware of the kind of errors that their target learners make, so that they are in a better position to put appropriate intervention strategies into place. For learners, error analysis is important as it shows the areas of difficulty in their writing. The limitations and some pedagogical implications for future study are included at the end of this research paper.
English Studies
M. A. (TESOL)

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41

Nemekhbayar, Altanjargal, and Altanjargal Nemekhbayar. "Recognition of Prepositional Errors by Mongolian and Taiwanese English Language Learners." Thesis, 2014. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/80029898351161478063.

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Abstract:

碩士
銘傳大學
應用英語學系碩士班
102
This study aimed to recognize and compare the errors in the use of English prepositions by conveniently chosen sophomore Mongolian (n=92) and Taiwanese (n=109) EFL students of similar proficiency levels. The main research question was: What kinds of errors do Mongolian and Taiwanese learners have in using English prepositions? As per suggestion of Leech (2006) and Weber (2012), six commonly used kinds of prepositions (time, place, one word, complex, after adjectives and with adverbs) were investigated. A self-made 50-item multiple choice test (KR21=.796) was administered to Mongolian and Taiwanese EFL learners from August to October, 2013. Item analyses (jMetric3), descriptive and t-tests were used to compare the results. The research results reported the following conclusions: 1. Item analyses showed the following prepositional groups were the most difficult to learn and use than others: one-word (Item difficulty, p value .30, X=3.31, s=1.38), complex (p value, .40, X=2.87, s=1.43), with adverbs (p value, .29, X=2.78, s= 1.23) and after adjectives types (p value, .46, X=2.69, s= 1.42). 2. Descriptive statistics showed that Mongolian learners have difficulty with one-word prepositions (X=3.091, s=1.3), complex (X=2.84, s=1.49), after adjectives (X=2.82, s=1.45) and with adverbs (X=2.78, s=1.26). Meanwhile, Taiwanese learners have difficulty with oneword prepositions (X=3.49, s=1.28), complex (X=2.89, s=1.33) and with adverbs (X=2.78, s=1.17). However, t- test results showed (t=-0.122, sig =.23, p<.05) that there is no statistically significant difference between Mongolian and Taiwanese EFL learners’ prepositional error. 3 Therefore, it was concluded that, although there was no statistical difference between the errors in prepositional use among both Mongolian and Taiwanese EFL students, some common errors lie in using one-word prepositions and variably between the two groups, in the use of complex prepositions, after adjectives and with adverbs.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'English language – Prepositions'

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