English prepositions: Corpus linguistic methods and pedagogy for Nigerian students

Abstract

This paper investigated five most frequently used prepositions in Nigerian English as presented in the ICE-Nigeria (International Corpus of English, Nigeria) database – of, in, for, on and at. Prepositions are a delicate linguistic category whose complex nature can be difficult for an L2 user of English partly because of their polysemous nature and the general lack of one-on-one equivalents or renditions in indigenous languages. Evidence from the analyses in this paper reveals that English prepositions when translated into Nigerian languages (Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo) are rendered as prepositions, adverbials, particles and sometimes a null category. Teachers of English language and communication experts are saddled with the responsibility of being linguistic models who must make deliberate efforts to master the appropriate us of prepositions. An eclectic approach of using strategies and methods in Corpus Linguistics (maximising concordance and collocation patterns), Cognitive Linguistic theory (using pictures, proto-type approach), has been suggested for ameliorating the enigma of mastering and explaining prepositions in an English as Second Language or Foreign language learning context.