COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS

Abstract

The paper first shortly presents the basic postulates of cognitive linguistics, including A. Goldberg's construction grammar, as an important theory developing within the cognitive linguistic approach to the grammatical level of language structure.Then it moves on to examine the ways the various theoretical insights of cognitive linguistics can practically be applied to language teaching at English departments, with the focus being primarily on the syntactic and the lexical levels. Apart from the relevanttheoretical literature, the paper also builds on the works of various authors who have explored the actual relation between cognitive linguistics and foreign language teaching, and lists and evaluates various ELT books in which cognitive linguistic insights have been put to practice.

Keywords

• cognitive linguistics
• construction grammar
• ELT at English departments
• the syntactic level
• the lexical level