Contents List of Activities xxiii List of Figures and Tables xxv 1 Introduction 1 The linguistics applied approach: generative linguistics and second language learning 2 The applied linguistics of second language learning 4 Language as a social semiotic 5 The emergence of cognitive linguistics 6 Ending the LA-AL divide 10 The purpose of the book 12 Part I Embodied Experience 2 The Problem of Linguistic Meaning 17 Introduction 17 The problem of meaning 17 Language learning as category learning 21 Conclusions 27 3 Conceptualisation, Embodiment and the Origins of Meaning 29 Introduction 29 Proprioception: how the body remains aware of its own position in space 31 Not seeing but conceptualizing 32 Cognitive development and infant movement 33 Aplasic phantoms 34 Mirror neurons 35 The nature of language: image schemas and embodied cognition 36 Education and embodiment 39 Language teaching and embodiment: language as rhythm and movement 41 Language teaching and embodiment: mime, enactment and movement 44 Language teaching and embodiment: rethinking TPR 48 Conclusions 52 4 Gesture 54 Introduction 54 The importance of gesture in communication 54 Gesture in education 56 Gesture and teaching prepositions 58 Gesture and English articles 60 Conclusions 62 Part II Conceptualisation 5 Language, Culture and Linguistic Relativity 65 Introduction 65 The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 67 Meaning and conceptualization 69 Linguistic relativity: how different is different? 75 Experimental evidence for linguistic relativity 77 To learn new meanings, do we have to conceptualise the world differently? 80 Second language errors and linguistic relativity 81 Errors that use first language forms and meanings within the second language 84 Errors that over-generalise some acquired formal or semantic feature of the second language 86 False friends 88 The problem of separating meaning from conceptualization 89 Can one change a conceptualisation? 90 Language, culture and conceptualisation in the classroom 92 Language, culture and learning 95 Different meanings for different languages 100 Conclusions 108 6 Conceptualisation and Construal 111 Introduction 111 Construal operations 112 Attention and salience 113 Attention, salience and enactive SLA 113 Metonymy: attention and salience 117 Scope of attention 120 Scalar adjustment 123 Dynamic attention 125 Judgment and comparison 129 Category formation 129 Category formation and language teaching 130 Metaphor 134 Metaphor and language teaching 134 Metaphor analysis 135 Metaphor and target language differentiation 136 The explanatory power of metaphor and analogy 136 Using metaphor to learn second language lexis and grammar 138 Figure-ground conceptual operations, force dynamics and action chains 142 Perspectives and situatedness 147 Deixis 150 Constitution/gestalt 152 Geometry 155 Conclusions 157 Part III Meaning and Usage 7 Teaching Encyclopaedic Meaning 161 Introduction 161 Word networks: hyponymy and schematicity 163 Word networks: meronymy 165 Crossing category borders 167 Knowledge types and encyclopaedic meaning 168 Finding the frame 169 Phonological sense relations 171 Conclusions 174 8 Usage and Grammatical Meaning 177 Introduction 177 Constructions 178 Type and token 179 Usage 181 Language learning as construction learning 183 Recognising constructions 183 Teaching constructions 184 Teaching filled constructions: idioms 185 Teaching partially filled constructions: lexis, meaning and conceptualization 186 Teaching partially filled constructions: bound morphemes, inflections and lexis 187 Teaching partially filled constructions: bound morphemes 188 Teaching partially filled constructions: lexis and morphemes 192 Teaching partially filled constructions: lexis 197 Teaching unfilled constructions 201 Routines for more advanced students: lexis, meaning and conceptualization 205 Encountering constructions 205 Finding useful forms 206 Conclusions 212 Part IV Conclusions 9 Towards a Cognitive Linguistics Syllabus 217 Introduction 217 Product and process 217 Language teaching implications 218 Re-embedding linguistic form in the imagery and movement from which it emerged 219 Engage the learners in the explicit analysis of form and meaning 220 A forum for usage 226 Sequencing 227 Bibliography 231 Index 244