COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Organizer: Peter Robinson
Aoyama Gakuin University
peterr@cl.aoyama.ac.jp

Monday, March 24, 2003, 2:00-5:00 PM invited colloquium
Room: Commonwealth South

Colloquium Summary: Cognitive linguistics is concerned with how language structures conceptual content, and the psychological processes that give rise to that structure. This symposium describes two current approaches to describing the interaction of structure, concepts and process - Cognitive Semantics, and Word Grammar- and the implications of cognitive linguistics for instructed second language acquisition and SLA research.

How language structures concepts
Leonard Talmy (University at Buffalo, State University of New York, talmy@buffalo.edu)
As a fundamental design feature, language has two subsystems, the open-class (lexical) and the closed-class (grammatical), which perform complementary functions. This talk examines some of the main conceptual categories and member concepts represented by closed-class forms; the properties that distinguish such closed-class representations from open-class representations; and the conceptual structuring function performed by this organization of language.

Language is part of the network of knowledge
Richard Hudson (University College London, dick@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk)
One of the main ideas of cognitive linguistics is that language cannot be separated from the rest of knowledge, in contrast with the view that language is a 'module' of the mind. I review some empirical evidence for this more integrated view of language, suggesting why the choice between the two views is important for theories of SLA.

Applying cognitive linguistics to instructed L2 learning: An experimental investigation
Andrea Tyler (Georgetown University, tyleran@georgetown.edu)
This paper describes research into applying cognitive linguistics to instructed L2 learning of the semantics of English prepositions. A basic challenge was to create experimental materials which drew on key tenets of cognitive linguistics and which were consistent with recent work in SLA. The design of such materials will be an important focus of the talk.

Cognitive pedagogical grammar
Michel Achard (Rice University, achard@ruf.rice.edu)
The place of grammatical instruction in communicative methodologies has long been at the core of the pedagogical literature. The Cognitive Grammar tenet that “a language is described as a structured inventory of conventional linguistic units” enables teachers to approach lexical and grammatical instruction in surprisingly similar ways, congruent with communicative principles defended by most current pedagogy.

Attention and SLA: Empirical and theoretical issues
Russell S. Tomlin (University of Oregon, tomlin@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU)
Taking a cognitive linguistic perspective, this paper examines the role of attention detection, one of three fundamental attentional mechanisms in SLA. I consider both theoretical issues of situating attention detection among an array of attentional processes, and empirical issues associated with investigating attention detection in SLA, including problems of separating detection from other attentional mechanisms.