Representation of Prepositions in ESL Textbooks of Lower Primary Classes: A Study of NCERT Textbooks in India

Abstract

Prepositions are among the most difficult parts of speech for ESL learners owing to their polysemous nature and how they behave in different languages. The present study aims to determine how English prepositions are represented in English Language textbooks designed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for Classes I and II in India. For a comparison of the frequency of prepositions in English, we have selected the British National Corpus. The study revealed that though the choice of prepositions in the textbooks is as par with their occurrences in the standard English corpus, their senses are not always primary, i.e., spatial. We found instances of temporal and metaphorical senses as well. One significant finding of this study is the relatively very low frequency of temporal use of prepositions as compared to the proto-typical spatial sense in these textbooks. The metaphorical uses of some common prepositions, which are more abstract and complex, are higher in frequency, especially in the exercises for giving instructions.