Since the 1970s, more and more scholars have approached metaphor from a cognitive perspective. While stressing their conceptual nature, these researchers, in one way or another, neglect other aspects of metaphors. In recent years, many researchers investigating metaphor have started to adopt a discourse-based method, emphasizing the essential role of social and conversational context in processing, interpreting, recognizing, and appreciating metaphors. However, so far few have built a model which gives due attention to the workings of metaphoric language. Aiming to fill this gap, Karen Sullivan 'integrates insights from Construction Grammar with those of Cognitive Grammar, Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Frame semantics, bringing these together into a new account of metaphoric language' (4).

The primary intent of this study was to examine the effects of a brief positive mood induction on a learning task that stimulates beginning reading acquisition. A secondary intent was to examine the durability of this effect across a period of two weeks. Sixty students, half average-achieving and half with learning disabilities, were randomly assigned to either a positive or a neutral mood induction condition. In an effort to control for the effects of prior knowledge, all students received instruction in elementary Hindi language on a series of five tasks. After two weeks, the instruction and tasks were readministered. The results of a MANCOVA indicated that both groups of students in the positive mood condition performed better than those in the neutral condition, although not statistically so. However, gain scores indicated that across a two-week period, students with learning disabilities in the positive condition performed significantly better than students with learning disabilities in the neutral condition.

A systematic literature review was conducted to examine whether mother's smoking influences girls' smoking more than boys' smoking. Fifty-seven studies, published between 1989 and 2009, were analyzed using a sex and gender lens. Results indicate that mother's prenatal and postnatal smoking influences girls' smoking more than boys' smoking. Despite evidence that sex and gender are important determinants of smoking among adolescents when examined in relation to mother's smoking, the theoretical understanding of why girls are more likely to smoke if prenatally and postnatally exposed to mother's smoking remains unclear. Implications for future research are discussed.

Vietnamese speakers can describe the future as behind them and gesture forwards to indicate the past, which suggests they use a conceptual model of Time in which the future is behind and the past is in front. This type of model has previously been shown to be pervasive only among older speakers of Aymara in the Andes (Núñez and Sweetser 2006. With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science 30. 401–450). Whereas Time in the Aymara model does not “move”, the present data show that Time in Vietnamese can “approach” from behind the Ego and “continue forward” into the past. To our knowledge, no other language has been identified with a model where Time moves from behind Ego to in front. Recognition of this model in Vietnamese will open up new research opportunities, particularly since the model does not seem to be endangered in Vietnamese.