COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS IN SECOND LANGUAGE AQUISITION

Abstract

The paper sets out to prove that the influence of the learner’s first/second language on the acquisition and use of other languages may be minimized, and ultimately eliminated, if the process of language teaching and language learning centers on the conceptual structures underlying the semantics of language units. Such conceptual structures (the conceptual inner form) shaping the peculiarities of the mode of expression characteristic of the given language community determine the choice of words in the process of communication and word combinability; if applied in second language teaching and learning they help avoid subconscious translation from the learner’s first language into a second/third, thus bringing down the interfering effects.

Keywords

• cognitive linguistics
• second language teaching
• english as a second language
• native tongue negative transfer
• minimizing negative transfer
• modeling
• conceptual structures underlying semantics
• conceptual inner form
• lexemes
• second language text construal