Sense of direction: a corpus-assisted comparative study of the English prepositions to and towards

This study investigates the functional distinctions between the synonymous English prepositions to and towards as directional prepositions, focusing on challenges faced by Thai EFL learners in vocabulary acquisition and how that affects their performance in proficiency tests. Utilising a corpus database in addition to online learner’s dictionaries, the study reveals conflicting indications of interchangeability. Contrary to the suggested interchangeability from the online learner’s dictionaries, directional to and directional towards hold different connotations and interact differently with the other word items within messages. The review of literature and extensive corpus data show nuanced differences that the limited spaces of dictionaries failed to. To directly engages with the landmarks by signaling them as the stop points of its action, while towards interacts more vaguely and treats them as reference points of direction or a topic and distinctively lacks in signalling any stop of the accompanying action.