Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar: A Non-essentialist Cognitive Approach to Language Instruction: Applications of Cognitive Construction Grammar, #2

By Sergio Torres-Martínez

The purpose of this volume is to dispel some potential misconceptions about the
status of Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar with regard to SLA and SLA
research. This is important because, as we will see, most of the applied cognitive
approaches on offer seek to align the insights of cognitive research with the essentialist SLA paradigm. SLA essentialism is the idea that observable or elicited performance reveals facts about non-observable mental representations. These facts are taken to be laws of sorts about the linguistic module and how L2 learners almost always fail to achieve a native-like proficiency. In point of fact, SLA has been criticized for propounding a view of L2 acquisition as a process of defective appropriation of the linguistic code among late learners. In this sense, SLA insiders like Ortega (2018) see in (psychological) essentialism the sole way toward the postulation of some truths about language learning and processing. As Ortega concedes, SLA researchers have been reluctant to ask questions about the nature of language or to provide a model of mind that supports their assertions about speakers' L2 use. In contrast to this reductionist view, I intend to show that applied cognitive approaches to language instruction do need to have a solid theoretical background that goes beyond performance to explain linguistic usage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sergio Torres-Martínez
• Release date: Jan 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393902829

Sergio Torres-Martínez

Sergio Torres–Martínez is professor of cognitive linguistics, semiotics and translation semiotics. Among his main interests are Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar, Cognitive Semantics, embodiment theory, phenomenology, Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, Peircean semiotics and the cognitive applications of construction grammar (Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar). Current research projects include the conceptualization of construction grammar as an interdisciplinary field of endeavor connecting embodiment theory, neuroscience semiotics and philosophy for the construction of a comprehensive and systematic description of constructional attachment patterns across languages. Central to this research is the need to provide linguistics with a model of the mind that complements linguistic description. 

Book preview

Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar

A Non-Essentialist Cognitive Approach to Language instruction

Sergio Torres-Martínez

2020

Copyright © 2021

by Sergio Torres-Martínez (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8823-1676)

ISBN: 9781393902829

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, translated or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or

other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar (and its translations: Gramática de Construcciones Cognitiva Aplicada (GxCCA), Angewandte

kognitive Konstruktionsgrammatik (AKK), etc.) is a term coined by the author and first utilized in an article published in 2016 in the European Journal of Applied Linguistics, De Gruyter Mouton.

Typesetting and artwork by Sergio Torres-Martínez

Cover by and © Sergio Torres-Martínez

Medellín, Colombia

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Applied Cognitive

Approaches

1.1. Introduction

1.2. Jumping the Gun: Theorizing Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar

References

Chapter 2

The SLA dictum and its consequences for applied cognitive approaches: Comments on Ortega

2.1. Introduction

2.2. The Monolingual Stance

2.3. Idealized Linguistic Personae

2.4. A Crisis of theoretical paradigms makes SLA research focus on facts

2.5. Where to look?

2.5.1 Embracing a non-essentialist form of cognition

2.6. Conclusion

References

Chapter 3

A noisy representation of speakers’ representations: Commentaries on

Tachihara and Goldberg

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Measuring Bayesian reasoning needs more refined experimental designs

3.3. Language judgement, concepts and consciousness

3.3. Constructions are triadic

3.4. Conclusion

References

Chapter 4

The role agency in the construction of meaning in non-English languages

4.1. The role agency in the construction of meaning in non-English languages

4.2. Agentive relations in the context of non-Englishes

4.2.1. Embodied cognition and verb typologies

4.2.2. Verb-ASC attachment patterns for object/path encoding in Spanish

4.2.3. ASC-verb attachment patterns for object/path encoding in German

4.3. Conclusion

Notes

References

Chapter 5

Theorizing

Applied Cognitive

Construction Grammar:

The case of conditional constructions and why the Mental Spaces Theory is unsuitable for the task

5.1. Designing the ACCxG input

5.2. Understanding the Mental Spaces Theory

5.3. Constructions and mental spaces

5.4. Conclusion

References

Chapter 6

Teaching conditional constructions

6.1. Introduction

6.2. Conditional constructions

6.3. Conditionals as constructional attachment patterns

6.3.1. The structure of conditional constructions

6.3.2. Types of conditional constructions

6.3.3. Literal conditional constructions

6.3.4. Present consequence

6.3.5. Anticipated future

6.3.6.  Assumed predictability

6.3.7. Hypothetical conditional constructions

6.3.8.  Future reference conditional constructions

6.3.9.  Present reference conditional constructions

6.3.10.  Past reference conditional constructions

6.3.11.  Pragmatic conditional constructions

6.4. Learning conditional constructions

6.4.1. Understanding constructional tasks

References

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Preface

The purpose of this volume is to dispel some potential misconceptions about the status of Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar with regard to SLA and SLA research. This is important because, as we will see, most of the applied cognitive approaches on offer seek to align the insights of cognitive research with the essentialist SLA paradigm. Admittedly, the tone of some parts of the book reveals, to use the words of Steven Pinker, an opinionated, obsessional researcher who dislikes insipid compromises that fuzz up the issues (1994: 8). Yet, in contrast to Pinker, I think that the controversy on essentialism is worth a book. The reason is, of course, ideological, since what we know, or seem to know about language acquisition has been in many ways shaped (and sometimes imposed on us) by a single, English-centered paradigm that needs to be contended. In this sense, Euro-American SLA essentialism has imposed the idea that observable or elicited performance reveals facts about non-observable mental representations among L2 speakers. These facts are taken to be laws of sorts about the linguistic module and how late L2 learners almost always fail to achieve a native-like proficiency. This form of essentialism has little to do with causal essentialism, that is, the fact that people tend to assign categories to natural kinds like TIGER or WATER on the basis of "the underlying cause of its various superficial features" (Newman & Knobe, 2018: 2; emphasis in original).  Certainly, as we will see, many SLA researchers rarely bother to go that far in their study of language. They simply engage in an inherence heuristic (Cimpian & Salomon, 2014, cited in Newman & Knobe, 2018: 16); thus, when people wonder why something is the way it is, they are likely to search for information that is salient and accessible to them. (Newman & Knobe, 2018: 16). However, the main difference between laypeople’s essentialism and that of SLA’s is that the latter provides an empirical coating to their essentialist beliefs. While this may sound as an unfair generalization, considering the range of theories and approaches affiliated in some way with the SLA camp, You say that SLA research needs more studies that ‘avoid starting and ending in the head’ - but it is not clear that you have purveyed the whole range of SLA theories and empirical work associated with them (Emma Marsden, 2020, personal communication), it is clear that published SLA research is increasingly shaped by essentialist editorial paradigms and interests in line with flagship journals. In point of fact, (published) SLA has been criticized for propounding a view of L2 acquisition as a process of defective appropriation of the linguistic code among late learners. Which is corroborated by SLA insiders like Ortega (2018) who sees in essentialism the sole way toward the postulation of some truths about language learning and processing. As Ortega concedes, SLA researchers have been reluctant to ask questions about the nature of language or to provide a model of mind that supports their assertions about speakers’ L2 use. In contrast to this reductionist view, I intend to show that applied cognitive approaches to language do need to have a solid theoretical background that goes beyond performance to explain linguistic usage. To that end, I first review the origins of applied cognitive rationales and question their proclivity to take SLA facts at face value. Then I analyze the form of SLA essentialism championed by Lourdes Ortega. As I will show, Ortega’s claims provide a very shaky (and by far interested) theoretical platform for SLA. In order to flesh out this view, I provide an analysis of the conceptual and methodological flaws of SLA research. In particular, I show that some psycholinguistic research is biased toward a nativist, monolingual conceptualization of L2 acquisition that sees in L2 reconstruction also a defective form of conceptualization. Then, I explore the role of agency in non-English languages as a means to contend the monolingual/nativespeakerist baseline propounded by SLA researchers in the Global North. Finally, I introduce the theoretical underpinnings of Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar (ACCxG), a non-essentialist, multilingual approach to language instruction. By non-essentialist, I mean "not tethered to a view of performance providing some facts about human cognition in toto." Seen through this lens, the form of essentialism, if any, favored by ACCxG has more to do with the need to explain the role of language as part of the architecture of the mind than the positing of some universal rules about how speakers’ processing of language reflects some deep-seated psychological deficit. 

With this in mind, I contend the adoption of the Mental Spaces Theory as a suitable framework for the analysis of conditionals from an applied cognitive perspective. Finally, I describe the ACCxG approach to L2 instruction in the context of a constructional, task-based learning environments.

Sergio Torres-Martínez

Medellín, September 7, 2020

References

Cimpian, A. & Salomon, E. (2014). The inherence heuristic: An intuitive means of making sense of the world, and a potential precursor to psychological        essentialism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(5), 461–480.

Newman, G.E., & Knobe, J. (2018). The essence of essentialism. Mind & Language, 1-21. DOI: 10.1111/mila.12226

Ortega, L. (2018). Ontologies of language, Second Language Acquisition, and world Englishes. World Englishes, 37, 64-79. DOI: 10.1111/weng.12303  Pinker, S. 1994. The language instinct. New York: HarperCollins.

Chapter 1

Applied Cognitive

Approaches

1.1. Introduction

The origins of the field of applied cognitive linguistics (ACL) can be traced to Pütz et al.’s work (2001) whose main purpose was to link cognitive linguistics and SLA theory and research. More recently, an applied construction grammar field (ACG; De Knop & Gilquin, 2016; Holme, 2012; Tyler, 2012) has taken heed, in an attempt to harvest on the empirical validation of psycholinguistic theory applied to the teaching of specific constructions. However, the promised applications of cognitive theory to L2 teaching have remained on the drawing board, which has resulted in a little impact of both applied theory and research on L2 instruction.

It is rather uncontroversial to say that, before setting out to postulate an applied second/foreign language learning agenda, it is most crucial to identify what a full-fledged field of applied construction grammar should look like. Of course, pursuing this trope should lead to the identification of parallel research interests between the applied field and the source discipline, as well as diverging goals and premises.

In this sense, before exploring the benefits of applied cognitive construction grammar, it is first necessary to ask important questions regarding the definition of, for example, the design of constructional input in L2 settings, the validity of positing some constructions instead of others, the influence of the L1 on the process of L2 reconstruction and, last but not least, the definition of the theoretical limitations of both cognitive linguistics and construction grammar to inform the teaching and learning of both second and foreign languages. In this light, the purpose of this chapter is less to trace a set of implications of cognitive theory for L1/L2 instruction and learning but to define, from a strictly instructional viewpoint, how pedagogical construction grammar should depart from a different ontology (the analysis and definition of the phenomenon to be studied), and epistemology (i.e., how this phenomenon should be studied). These include the design of a coherent theory informed by classroom practice, rather than by the source discipline only. It follows that in the construction of an Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar field, I have