Approaching collocations from a usage-based perspective, this study investigates how the development of collocational proficiency in first and second language attainment could be explained. Against the background of recent approaches in cognitive linguistics such as construction grammar and Complex Adaptive Systems it argues that collocations should not be regarded as idiosyncratic phraseological items, which, depending on their degree of fixedness and semantic opaqueness, can be classified along a gradient of idiomaticity. Thus, this study regards collocations as dynamic linguistic phenomena, which could be seen as subject to constant change rather than more or less static combinations with an additional level of syntagmatic and paradigmatic restrictions. Furthermore it explores how creative changes and alternations of collocations can be used to learn more about a speakers cognitive processing of these phraseological phenomena and how this process might be influenced by language external factors such as age, education or context.
This volume, which has textbook character, is intended to provide an in-depth introduction to different theoretical and methodological research frameworks concerned with the role of item-specific grammatical and lexical behaviour.
How can insights from Construction Grammar (CxG) be applied to foreign language learning (FLL) and foreign language teaching (FLT)? This volume explores several aspects of Pedagogical Construction Grammar, with a specific look at issues relevant to second language acquisition, FLL, and FLT. The contributions in this volume discuss a wide range of constructions, as well as different resources, methodologies, and data used to learn constructions in the language classroom. More specifically, they seek to provide answers to the following questions: What do new constructional approaches to teaching and learning foreign language look like that take the insights of CxG seriously? What should electronic resources using constructions and semantic frames for foreign language instruction look like? How should constructions (pairings of form with meaning/function) in the foreign language classroom be introduced? What role does frequency play in learning constructions in the language classroom? What types of strategies does CxG offer to facilitate the acquisition of a second language? This volume is relevant for anyone interested in second language acquisition, foreign language pedagogy, Construction Grammar, and Cognitive Linguistics. Endorsements: If first language learning flows forth from language use, teaching language should be based on relevant usage-patterns, modified in accordance with the advanced cognitive and linguistic knowledge of older learners. The current volume shows how insights from first and second language learning and usage-based Construction Grammar can be turned into evidence-based teaching strategies. Heike Behrens, University of Basel Usage-based Construction Grammar has changed our view of language learning, but it is only recently that researchers have begun to apply the insights of the constructionist approach to language pedagogy. This volume brings together a collection of articles in which experts of Construction Grammar and Usage-based Linguistics make concrete proposals for teaching constructions by using corpora and other resources. A must read for everybody interested in grammar teaching. Holger Diessel, University of Jena With Directions for Pedagogical Construction Grammar, Boas has produced an impressive and much-needed volume which excels at illustrating the immense potential of constructionist approaches to improve language pedagogy. The contributions to this volume, all authored by leading cognitive and corpus linguists, convincingly describe what a successful future of language teaching could look like—one that is founded in usage-based linguistics and takes language patterns seriously. I consider this volume essential reading for any applied linguist. Ute Römer, Georgia State University
This volume examines interactions between second/foreign language acquisition and the development of cognitive abilities in learners who acquire an additional language in preschools, primary or secondary schools. The chapters explore possible links between cognitive and linguistic skills displayed by multilingual learners. This book should appeal to different kinds of readers such as linguists, psychologists and language teachers.
Approaching collocations from a usage-based perspective, this study investigates how the development of collocational proficiency in first and second language attainment could be explained. Against the background of recent approaches in cognitive linguistics such as construction grammar and Complex Adaptive Systems it argues that collocations should not be regarded as idiosyncratic phraseological items, which, depending on their degree of fixedness and semantic opaqueness, can be classified along a gradient of idiomaticity. Thus, this study regards collocations as dynamic linguistic phenomena, which could be seen as subject to constant change rather than more or less static combinations with an additional level of syntagmatic and paradigmatic restrictions. Furthermore it explores how creative changes and alternations of collocations can be used to learn more about a speakers cognitive processing of these phraseological phenomena and how this process might be influenced by language external factors such as age, education or context.
In this volume, which simultaneously honors the career contributions of Jean Berko Gleason and provides an overview of a broad and increasingly important research area, a panel of highly productive language researchers share and evaluate methods of eliciting and analyzing language production across the life span and in varying populations. Chapters address a wide variety of historical and evolving approaches to data collection for the study of morphosyntax, the lexicon, and pragmatics, both laboratory-based and naturalistic. Special concerns that arise in the study of atypical child development, aging, and second language acquisition are a focus of the discussion.
Collocations are both pervasive in language and difficult for language learners, even at an advanced level. In this book, these difficulties are for the first time comprehensively investigated. On the basis of a learner corpus, idiosyncratic collocation use by learners is uncovered, the building material of learner collocations examined, and the factors that contribute to the difficulty of certain groups of collocations identified. An extensive discussion of the implications of the results for the foreign language classroom is also presented, and the contentious issue of the relation of corpus linguistic research and language teaching is thus extended to learner corpus analysis.
How do speakers vary established patterns of language use and adapt them to novel contexts of application? This study presents a usage-based approach to linguistic creativity: combining detailed qualitative with large-scale quantitative analyses of corpus data, it traces the emergence of partial productivity in clusters of conventional collocations. Focusing on English and German intensification constructions, it proceeds in three steps: having first inventoried the lexical means (of a given semantic type) that are recruited for signalling intensity in both languages, collostructional analysis is then used to identify entrenched intensity collocations involving these formatives in three different syntactic constructions. Third, multi-rater manual classification methods as well as distribution-based automatic classification methods are employed to uncover semantic generalisations over the attested types on different levels of abstraction. Collocational expansion is shown to proceed through local analogies within sets of semantically similar stored instances of a construction. Synthesising insights from research on language acquisition, variation and change, it is thus argued that creative extensions of linguistic conventions are intrinsically bound up with aspects of memory and repetition.
This new, corpus-driven approach to the study of language and style of literary texts makes use of the Dickens' 4.6 million-word corpus for a detailed examination of patterns of lexical collocations. It offers new insights into Dickens' linguistic innovation, together with a nuanced understanding of his use of language to achieve stylistic ends. At the centre of the study is a close analysis of the two narratives in Bleak House , read as a focal point for consideration of Dickens' stylistic development through his whole writing life.
