Cognitive Linguistics and Language Teaching

Splat

📚Holme's (2012) article on cognitive linguistics and its classroom applications, offers some fascinating insights. ✨Here are some takeaways and suggestions for teaching.

1️⃣ Embodied Learning

🏃‍♂️Lexis & grammar possess category meanings derived from embodied experiences. Therefore, to help students understand conceptual meaning of vocabulary and grammar, we can use more images and movement in teaching.

2️⃣ The Role of Gesture & Movement

In fact, language may have originated in gestures. Associating gesture 🤲, locomotion 🚶, and articulation 🗣️ with meaning enriches language learning 📖✨.

Example: To illustrate "stopped to eat," have students jump 🏃‍♂️ from the action "stopped" ➡️ to the action "eat" 🍽️ in two separate movements.

3️⃣ Language & Physical Experience

🌧️🔊Mưa tí tách (rain drizzling sound in Vietnamese) and onomatopoeia (splash, bang, splat, tick, squeak) are great examples of how language captures physical experiences. Connect these words and expressions with students' experience.

4️⃣Conceptualization & Meaning

🎭Language is motivated by conceptual representations.

Idioms and expressions like "keep a balanced view," "stand up to scrutiny," and "have good grounds" connect to physical experiences of standing up 🚶‍♂️ and keeping balance!

5️⃣The Lexico-Grammatical Continuum

🔄Grammar and vocabulary are not separate but exist on a continuum.

Vocabulary can determine grammar, and grammar has conceptual meaning.

For example, you can say:

Birds of a feather flock together.

The public have been flocking into the cinemas to see Avatar

But you can't say:

Birds flock.

The verb "flock" requires a complement to describe the goal of the motion.

So when we teach lexis and grammar, we can highlight both the idiomatic nature (fixed phrases) and compositional nature of expressions. For example, "kick the bucket" is an idiom with a specific meaning, but it's also a transitive structure of Verb + Object.

On the other hand, when you teach structures like "flock into the cinemas," you can highlight the metaphoric meaning of "Birds of a feather flock together" to indicate the gathering for a common goal.

Eduling's application: One lesson in the course Pronunciation for English Learners on the Eduling app uses onomatopoeia to illustrate different vowel sounds in English: bang, splat, squeak, click, tick, zoom, thud ...