Idioms and fixed expressions - Implications of cognitive linguistics for the selection of web-based teaching exercises


Book Description

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar), course: Idioms - Cognitive and Didactic Aspect, language: English, abstract: Idioms are an important factor in native-like discourse by an English as a foreign language (EFL) speaker. According to Fernando (1996) “the sheer number of idioms and their high frequency in discourse make them an important aspect of vocabulary acquisition and language learning in general”. Many linguists claim that idioms require special attention in language programs and should not be relegated to a position of secondary importance in the curriculum. However, classroom learning of EFL is - at least in Germany - not very concerned with the teaching of idioms and fixed expressions, as analyses from current and historical textbooks have shown. This results in the necessity for the teacher to make up own exercises or series of lessons to put the teaching of fixed expressions into the curriculum. The cognitive approach to language learning provides useful aspects and implications on how to organize idiom learning in a classroom context. The aim of our paper is to use the cognitive linguistics approach towards idioms and other fixed expressions in English to analyse different homepages on the World Wide Web. In order to do this we will first present a short survey of different cognitive approaches to idioms and their didactic implications for teaching exercises. We will then go on with an analysis of six websites with respect to how the content, structure and exercises follow the implications given by the presented cognitive approaches. After a discussion of the positive and negative aspects we found on the web, we try to give a proposition on how an idiom learning website could be structured and how exercises could look like, when they try to follow a cognitive approach.




Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Teaching Vocabulary and Phraseology


Book Description

Mastering the vocabulary of a foreign language is one of the most daunting tasks that language learners face. The immensity of the task is underscored by the realisation that it is not only single words but also numerous standardised phrases (idioms, collocations, etc.) that need to be acquired. There is thus a clear need for instructional methods that help learners tackle this task, and yet few proposals for vocabulary instruction have so far gone beyond techniques for rote-learning and familiar means of promoting of noticing. The reason for this is that vocabulary and phraseology have long been assumed arbitrary. The volumeoffers a long-overdue alternative by exploring and exploiting the presence of linguistic 'motivation' - or, systematic non-arbitrariness - in the lexicon. The first half of the volume reports ample empirical evidence of the pedagogical effectiveness of presenting vocabulary to learners as non-arbitrary. The data reported indicate that the proposed instructional methods can benefit when both the nature of the target lexis and the basic cognitive orientations of particular learners are taken into account. The first half of the book mostly targets lexis that has already attracted a fair amount of attention from Cognitive Linguists in the past (e.g. phrasal verbs and figurative idioms). The second half broadens the scope considerably by revealing the non-arbitrariness of diverse other lexical patterns, including collocations and word partnerships generally. This is achieved by recognising some long-neglected dimensions of linguistic motivation - etymological and phonological motivation, in particular. Concrete suggestions are made for putting the non-arbitrary nature of words and phrases to good use in instructed language learning. The volumeis therefore of interest not only to applied linguists and researchers in Second Language Acquisition/Foreign Language Teaching, but also to second and foreign language teaching professionals.




Idiomatic Creativity


Book Description

This book revisits the theoretical and psycholinguistic controversies centred around the intriguing nature of idioms and proposes a more systematic cognitive-linguistic model of their grammatical status and use. Whenever speakers vary idioms in actual discourse, they open a linguistic window into idiomatic creativity – the complex cognitive processing and representation of these heterogeneous linguistic constructions. Idiomatic creativity therefore raises two challenging questions: What are the cognitive mechanisms that underlie and shape idiom-representation? How do these mechanisms define the scope and limits of systematic idiom-variation in actual discourse? The book approaches these problems by means of a comprehensive cognitive-linguistic architecture of meaning and language and analyses them on the basis of corpus-data from the British National Corpus (BNC). Therefore, Idiomatic Creativity should be of great interest to cognitive linguists, phraseologists, corpus linguists, advanced students of linguistics, and all readers who are interested in the fascinating interplay of language and cognitive processing.This book has a companion website: www.idiomatic-creativity.ch.




Task-Based Teaching of Reported Speech


Book Description

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2,3, University of Koblenz-Landau (Anglistik), course: Didactic Perspectives on Linguistics, language: English, abstract: In this paper, it is argued that task-based language teaching is a suitable teaching method for explaining the English grammar of reported speech to foreign learners. Reported Speech is used when a sentence is reconstructed. However, the reported sentence has some differences from the original sentence, for example the tense and the pronouns. Cognitive Grammar aspects, integrated into TBLT, help learners understand the meaning behind the tense backshift and the other differences and allows them to apply this form correctly.




Cognitive Linguistics


Book Description

A general introduction to the area of theoretical linguistics known as cognitive linguistics, this textbook provides up-to-date coverage of all areas of the field, including recent developments within cognitive semantics (such as Primary Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Blending Theory, and Principled Polysemy), and cognitive approaches to grammar (such as Radical Construction Grammar and Embodied Construction Grammar). The authors offer clear, critical evaluations of competing formal approaches within theoretical linguistics. For example, cognitive linguistics is compared to Generative Grammar and Relevance Theory. In the selection of material and in the presentations, the authors have aimed for a balanced perspective. Part II, Cognitive Semantics, and Part III, Cognitive Approaches to Grammar, have been created to be read independently. The authors have kept in mind that different instructors and readers will need to use the book in different ways tailored to their own goals. The coverage is suitable for a number of courses. While all topics are presented in terms accessible to both undergraduate and graduate students of linguistics, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive science, and modern languages, this work is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed to serve as a reference work for scholars who wish to gain a better understanding of cognitive linguistics.




The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor


Book Description

This volume aims to contribute to the theory of metaphor from the viewpoint of Chinese, in order to help place the theory into a wider cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. It focuses on metaphors of emotion, the "time as space" metaphor and the Event Structure Metaphor.




How Learning Works


Book Description

Praise for How Learning Works "How Learning Works is the perfect title for this excellent book. Drawing upon new research in psychology, education, and cognitive science, the authors have demystified a complex topic into clear explanations of seven powerful learning principles. Full of great ideas and practical suggestions, all based on solid research evidence, this book is essential reading for instructors at all levels who wish to improve their students' learning." —Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice chancellor for educational development, University of California, Berkeley, and author, Tools for Teaching "This book is a must-read for every instructor, new or experienced. Although I have been teaching for almost thirty years, as I read this book I found myself resonating with many of its ideas, and I discovered new ways of thinking about teaching." —Eugenia T. Paulus, professor of chemistry, North Hennepin Community College, and 2008 U.S. Community Colleges Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education "Thank you Carnegie Mellon for making accessible what has previously been inaccessible to those of us who are not learning scientists. Your focus on the essence of learning combined with concrete examples of the daily challenges of teaching and clear tactical strategies for faculty to consider is a welcome work. I will recommend this book to all my colleagues." —Catherine M. Casserly, senior partner, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching "As you read about each of the seven basic learning principles in this book, you will find advice that is grounded in learning theory, based on research evidence, relevant to college teaching, and easy to understand. The authors have extensive knowledge and experience in applying the science of learning to college teaching, and they graciously share it with you in this organized and readable book." —From the Foreword by Richard E. Mayer, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; coauthor, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction; and author, Multimedia Learning




Applying Cognitive Linguistics


Book Description

In recent years, Cognitive Linguistics (CL) has established itself not only as a solid theoretical approach but also as an important source from which different applications to other fields have emerged. In this volume we identify some of the current, most relevant topics in applied CL-oriented studies – analyses of figurative language (both metaphor and metonymy) in use, constructions and typology –, and present high-quality research papers that illustrate best practices in the research foci identified and their application to different fields including intercultural communication, the psychology of emotions, second and first language acquisition, discourse analysis and translation studies. It is also shown how different methodologies –the use of linguistic corpora, psycholinguistic experiments or discourse analytic procedures– can shed some light on the basic premises of CL as well as providing insights into how CL can be applied in real world contexts. Finally, all the studies included in the volume are based on empirical data and there are some analyses of languages other than English (Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Danish, German and Polish), thus overcoming the contentions that CL-theoretically-based research is often based on linguistic intuition and focused only on the English language. We hope that the present volume will not only contribute to a better understanding of how CL can be applied but that it will also help to encourage, even further, more robust empirical research in this field. Originally published as a special issue of Review of Cognitive Linguistics 14:1 (2016).




Idioms and Idiomaticity


Book Description

The series will provide much-needed descriptions of modern English which take the revelations of recent research into account. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of idioms and idiomaticity from a functional perspective. It examines the use of idioms in discourse to combine the novel and the conventional, to convey representations of the world, evaluate people and situations, signal conviviality or conflict, andcreate coherent, cohesive texts. The book goes on to consider implications for language learning and development.




The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics


Book Description

The best survey of cognitive linguistics available, this Handbook provides a thorough explanation of its rich methodology, key results, and interdisciplinary context. With in-depth coverage of the research questions, basic concepts, and various theoretical approaches, the Handbook addresses newly emerging subfields and shows their contribution to the discipline. The Handbook introduces fields of study that have become central to cognitive linguistics, such as conceptual mappings and construction grammar. It explains all the main areas of linguistic analysis traditionally expected in a full linguistics framework, and includes fields of study such as language acquisition, sociolinguistics, diachronic studies, and corpus linguistics. Setting linguistic facts within the context of many other disciplines, the Handbook will be welcomed by researchers and students in a broad range of disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, gesture studies, computational linguistics, and multimodal studies.