Cognitive linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary and phraseology

More about the book

Mastering vocabulary in a foreign language poses significant challenges for learners, as it involves not just individual words but also various standardized phrases like idioms and collocations. This highlights the need for effective instructional methods, yet most proposals have remained limited to rote-learning techniques. Traditionally, vocabulary and phraseology have been viewed as arbitrary, but this volume presents a much-needed alternative by examining the concept of linguistic 'motivation'—the systematic non-arbitrariness in the lexicon. The first half of the volume provides empirical evidence supporting the pedagogical effectiveness of teaching vocabulary as non-arbitrary, suggesting that instructional methods can be enhanced by considering both the nature of the target lexis and learners' cognitive orientations. It primarily focuses on lexis previously studied by Cognitive Linguists, such as phrasal verbs and figurative idioms. The second half expands the discussion to include various lexical patterns, such as collocations and word partnerships, by highlighting often-overlooked aspects of linguistic motivation, particularly etymological and phonological factors. The book offers practical suggestions for leveraging the non-arbitrary nature of words and phrases in language instruction, making it relevant for applied linguists, researchers in Second Language Acquisition, and language teaching professionals.