Cognitive Linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary: Assessment and integration

Abstract

The pace at which new L2 words or expressions are acquired is influenced by the degree of engagement with them on the part of the learner. Several researchers with a Cognitive-Linguistics (CL) background have, since the 1990s, proposed ways of exploiting non-arbitrary aspects of vocabulary as stimuli for such engagement. Their proposals have been backed up by the results of several quasi-experimental studies. It must be acknowledged, however, that many of these are small-scale, some show only small effect sizes, and some are hard to interpret due to confounding variables. Taken collectively, the reported experiments are nevertheless beginning to constitute a body of evidence in favour of CL-informed instruction that is hard to dismiss, so there is reason to believe that this kind of instruction deserves a niche in second language programmes. However, a judicious implementation of CL ideas stands to gain considerably from a closer alignment with ‘mainstream’ second language vocabulary research. Insights to be taken on board from the mainstream concern issues of selection, the desirability of distributed learning, and the need to cater for complementary types of knowledge.

Could a multimodal dictionary serve as a learning tool? An examination of the impact of technologically enhanced visual glosses on L2 text comprehension

“…Boers (2004) suggests that metaphorical awareness facilitates L2 learning and information tends to be easily elicited once it is linked with a semantic network. As some studies recognize the positive impact of L2 vocabulary learning from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics (Boers, 2013;Cho, 2010;Morimoto & Loewen, 2007;Yasuda, 2010), the advantage this study hypothesizes would be seen in L2 vocabulary learning within a multimodal environment.…”

“…This study would like to focus on explicit learning to increase students' language-depth and not language-breadth. Boers (2013) acknowledges incidental L2 vocabulary learning is ideal, but claims explicit learning should be utilized under the condition that time for learning is limited. Groot (2000) also states that explicit instruction is effective especially in a short period of learning time.…”

“…Our study posits three limitations that previous studies did not discuss. The first challenge is the substantial focus on incidental learning, even though explicit instruction can have beneficial effects (Ellis, 1995;Groot, 2000;Boers, 2013). In that respect, the effects of visual glosses should be examined for explicit L2 vocabulary learning.…”

The Role of Cognitive Linguistics in the English Language Vocabulary Acquisition

“…Дру-гими словами, происходит стимулирование процесса «глубокой» обработки информации, который способ-ствует запоминанию и пониманию того или иного явления в языке (в том числе и запоминанию лексики) и подразумевает семантическое уточнение значений слов и выражений в родном и изучаемом языках [4].…”

The influence of humanities on the teaching of technical vocabulary = La influencia de las humanidades en la enseñanza del vocabulario técnico

“…The field of metaphors is object of study of a lot of authors [10,11,12,13] and also the teaching of its acquisition [14,15,16,17,18] since it is the focus of cognitivism. Nobody may doubt about the conceptual force of metaphors, so they must be exploited in the classroom as a tool to optimize both linguistic and conceptual knowledge.…”