The USAL-UVA Linguistics Research Seminars (3)

About the event

04/22/2021 16:30

EDIFICIO PLACENTINOS

Organized by Javier Ruano-García (USAL), Laura Filardo-Llamas (UVA)

Categories:: English; Humanities and sociocultural

Keywords:: classroom activities; classroom materials; Cognitive Linguistics; language foreign instruction

Cognitive Linguistics and its applications to foreign language instruction

 Ana María Piquer Píriz (Universidad de Extremadura)

 There is a growing consensus among applied linguists that foreign language learning benefits from activities that raise learners’ awareness of the properties of language. The question now is what activities might be particularly fruitful in this regard. This presentation turns to Cognitive Linguistics (CL) as a source of inspiration. Cognitive linguists consider language and its use as a reflection of general cognitive processes, mediated by culture. Instead of treating language as arbitrary, they seek plausible explanations for its characteristics. When applied to language pedagogy, the very question of why the target language packages a particular message in a certain way has the potential to stimulate learners’ cognitive engagement and to enhance their awareness of an array of linguistic phenomena.

 In this talk, I will first focus on two theoretical postulates from CL that have important implications for foreign language instruction: the reappraisal of the role of figurative language in communicative exchanges and the notion of linguistic motivation. I will, then, review some of the proposals that have been put forward to introduce insights from Cognitive Linguistics to foreign language teaching, and the body of classroom research in which those proposals have been put to the test.

 A major part of the presentation will be devoted to the discussion of the design of materials and classroom activities that incorporate insights from CL, but that at the same time need to take on board insights from mainstream research in the field of foreign language teaching. After all, a CL-informed approach to language teaching is not meant to replace already well-established teaching methods, but rather to complement those. Finally, some recommendations for further explorations of the potential and merits of Cognitive Linguistics for language pedagogy will be discussed.

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