Integrating Cognitive Linguistics and foreign language teaching· historical background and new developments

Abstract

Recently foreign language teaching (FLT) research has been able to benefit enormously from advances in Cognitive Linguistics (CL) (e.g. Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1991, Taylor, 2002). As a consequence, CL has become more and more interested in turning its rich, specialised, and emerging body of research into a practical guide for language teachers, course designers, and materials writers. To that end, CL-based classroom instruction in a second or foreign language needs to show that (i) it can move beyond the largely unmotivated rules, examples, and lists typical of the traditional paradigm; (ii) that it can produce results-driven grammar instruction and practice; and (iii) that it can ultimately balance all of this properly with new insights gained from second-language acquisition (SLA) research (e.g. Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). ln this paper, we will first look at CL in a broader historical context of applied linguistics, and more particularly, FLT, discussing how it builds on, and differs from, such linguistic theories as transformational-generative grammar and pragmatics. Then, we will show how the theoretical assumptions, basic units, and constructs used in CL offer a better understanding of the true nature of language and grammar, and how CL can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of current FLT methods (e.g. Robinson & Ellis, 2008; De Knop & De Rycker, 2008, Boers & Lindstromberg, 2008).