Polysemy of Temporal Preposition “In” in English Journalism

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing polysemy of the English preposition ‘in’ for time from the cognitive linguistic approach called ‘image schemas’ that is used in this study. English prepositions are used to deal with issues collected from digital English newspapers in the field of sport in both football and basketball, such as The Washington Post and The Times. The study aims at identifying polysemy of prepositions in English journalism, analyzing the meanings and the function of polysemy of the preposition, and finding out differences in the frequencies of various polysemy of the temporal preposition ‘in’ .The data is analyzed to determine the most common types of image schemas that can reflect the identification of polysemy of temporal preposition ‘in’ in English from the above-mentioned sources. Finally, the study shows the most common and effective types of image schemas like: container, part-whole, blockage, source-path-goal, support, and as well as collections of image schemas and merging of image schemas to show that polysemy of the temporal preposition ‘in’ has two or more distinct related meanings. It is concluded that a preposition's core sense is determined in part by its picture schema. Additionally, it has been discovered that several picture schemata may all play a role in the extension and/or construction of meaning for this particular preposition.