A study on conceptual transfer in the use of prepositions in English writing by Chinese secondary school students

This study addresses the issue of conceptual transfer in Chinese EFL learners’ use of prepositions under the guidance of Image Schema Theory, aiming to explore the cognitive underpinnings of conceptual transfer. By observing linguistic data from the learner corpus WCEL (Writing Corpus of English Learners), part of ICCI (The International Corpus of Crosslinguistic Interlanguage), this study summarises types and manifestations of conceptual transfer in the use of prepositions in English writing by Chinese secondary school students, and analyses corresponding cognitive causes of conceptual transfer. Data processing software, AntConc, is used for observation of concordance lines according to the minimum assumption proposed by Sinclair (2004) in corpus-based studies. It is found that errors made by students in their use of English prepositions are mainly caused by negative conceptual transfer of the Chinese language; positive conceptual transfer also exists. Conceptual transfer is mainly caused by cognitive similarities and differences between English and Chinese, represented by image schemas.