Exploring culturally conceptualized meaning in the Indonesian spatial prepositions “di dalam” and “di atas” and the English “in” and” on”

Abstract

If meaning of words conceptually evolves in relation to how the speakers of a particular language view the world and preposition is no exception; hence, preposition hypothetically also carries culturally motivated meaning. This paper explores how speakers’ worldview culturally conceptualized in spatial preposition and it is barely conducted in Indonesia. The spatial prepositions being explored are the Indonesian prepositions “di dalam” and “di atas” and respectively the English preposition “in” and “on”. The comparative method was applied to facilitate unveiling the cultural conceptualization embedded in the spatial preposition. The result of the study descriptively shows that the Indonesian spatial prepositions “di dalam” and “di atas” cannot always be translated into the English “in” and “on” respectively and vice versa. This reveals that (i) the spatial preposition “di dalam” and “”di atas” evolves in different cultural conceptualization from the spatial preposition “in” and “on”, (ii) the culturally conceptualized meaning of the spatial prepositions is much richer than what appears to be their superficial meaning, and (iii) that the so-called lexical meaning of preposition is absurd. In conclusion, the study strongly indicates that spatial preposition carries a significant cultural conceptualization of spatial relations more than just merely a grammatical function.

Keywords

• Cognitive semantics
• spatial relation
• Indonesian prepositions
• cultural meaning

Exploring culturally conceptualized meaning in the Indonesian spatial prepositions “di dalam” and “di atas” and the English “in” and” on”

Abstract

Kelime anlamları kavramsal olarak, özellikle belirli bir dilin konuşucularının dünyayı nasıl gördüğüyle ilişkili olarak evrimleşiyorsa ve prepozisyon da istisna değilse; dolayısıyla, prepozisyon hipotetik olarak kültürel olarak motive edilmiş anlam taşıyor. Bu makale, konuşucuların dünya görüşünün kültürel olarak mekânsal bir ön konumda nasıl kavramsallaştığını keşfeder ve bu genellikle Endonezya'da gerçekleştirilmemiştir. İncelenen mekânsal prepozisyonlar, Endonezya prepozisyonları "di dalam" ve "di atas" ile sırasıyla İngilizce prepozisyonları "in" ve "on" dur. Kültürel kavramsallaşmanın ortaya çıkarılmasına yardımcı olmak için karşılaştırmalı bir yöntem uygulandı. Çalışmanın sonucu, Endonezya mekânsal prepozisyonlarının "di dalam" ve "di atas"ın her zaman İngilizce "in" ve "on" ile çevrilemeyeceğini ve tam tersi olduğunu betimleyici olarak gösteriyor. Bu, (i) mekânsal prepozisyon "di dalam" ve "di atas"ın, mekânsal prepozisyon "in" ve "on"dan farklı kültürel kavramsallaşmadan evrildiğini, (ii) mekânsal prepozisyonların kültürel olarak kavramsallaştırılmış anlamının, yüzeysel anlamının göründüğünden çok daha zengin olduğunu ve (iii) prepozisyonun sözlü anlamının anlamsız olduğunu gösterir. Sonuç olarak, çalışma, mekânsal prepozisyonun sadece gramatik bir işlevden daha fazlasını taşıyan önemli bir kültürel kavramsallaşma taşıdığını güçlü bir şekilde göstermektedir.

Keywords

• Bilişsel semantik
• mekânsal ilişki
• Endonezya prepozisyonları
• kültürel anlam

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