Bibliografía - Review of Cognitive Linguistics

This review study focuses on the challenges faced when conducting effects-of-instruction research in Applied Cognitive Linguistics. It offers an overview of relevant research that has sought to demonstrate the effectiveness of a cognitive-based approach to second language (L2) pedagogy and provides illustrations from previous work in L2 Spanish by the author and colleagues of some of the factors that can influence findings in quasi-experimental research. More specifically, the study addresses some of the difficulties encountered in the design of materials and assessment tests, during the pedagogical intervention and the data collection and data analysis phases. These include choice of assessment, test effects, sample size, withdrawal, and time-on-task, among others. Along with these methodological issues, a discussion of possible solutions as well as pedagogical and methodological implications are discussed.

Applied Cognitive Linguistics (ACL, henceforth) offers a vision of language closely tied to our experiences and views of the world, showing great promise for foreign language teaching and learning. Building upon this meaning-centered perspective, this paper discusses an interventional, quasi-experimental study assessing the effectiveness of incorporating animated images into materials for teaching comparative constructions in L2 Spanish. Conducted in three phases with varying participation rates (69 students in the first, 18 in the second, and 27 in the third), the study faced numerous factors that hindered data collection process and thereby influenced the results. Although the findings were not statistically significant, they suggest a slight improvement in post-test performance in both the experimental and comparison groups. While the potential of ACL in second language teaching and learning is undeniable, so are the challenges faced in L2 classrooms. This underscores the need for further empirical research to bridge the gap between theoretical principles and their practical implementation in real classroom settings.

Second/foreign language grammar studies usually focus on the validation of grammatical conceptualizations with learners, sometimes overlooking the paramount need to test these conceptualizations against users’ judgements and corpus searches as a way of verifying the relevance, frequency and suitability of the items, examples or explanations before the experimental phases. This paper deals with three pre-experimental validation criteria employed to measure the pedagogical potential of Cognitive Grammar descriptions for the Spanish pluperfect: (1) learner corpus searches based on caes – Corpus de Aprendices de Español –, (2) native-speaker corpus searches by means of EsTenTen-18-subcorpus from Sketch Engine, and (3) language users’ judgements. This tense rarely receives enough attention in learning materials due to its apparent simplicity in terms of both morphology and functional import. However, learner corpus searches show certain instability in its use. This paper explores the steps taken within the research project imagine in relation to this tense, including grammatical descriptions developed within the Cognitive Grammar framework and from a temporal-epistemic perspective in an attempt to account for the variety of uses of this tense.

This paper aims to explore the shortcomings and challenges of Applied Cognitive Linguistics (ACL) in L2 classrooms and research. It examines the main issues and presents a case study with three quasi-experimental classroom studies. These experiments taught the Spanish past simple tenses using approaches informed by Cognitive Linguistics and Communicative Language Teaching, plus a control group, through a pretest/posttest design. Results favored cognitive-pedagogical instruction, but only in one production task (Alonso-Aparicio & Llopis-García, 2019). Subsequent studies replicated and extended the first, with further changes in instruction and assessment design, but found no significant differences between experimental groups in the posttest. The discussion highlights the steps taken to ensure study success, pointing out shortcomings in traditional assessment tests that favor notional-functional instruction. We suggest alternative testing tasks that consider cognitive-based approaches and new avenues for future research, aligning with Martín-Gascón et al. (2023).

This paper aims to explore the shortcomings and challenges of Applied Cognitive Linguistics (ACL) in L2 classrooms and research. It examines the main issues and presents a case study with three quasi-experimental classroom studies. These experiments taught the Spanish past simple tenses using approaches informed by Cognitive Linguistics and Communicative Language Teaching, plus a control group, through a pretest/posttest design. Results favored cognitive-pedagogical instruction, but only in one production task (Alonso-Aparicio & Llopis-García, 2019). Subsequent studies replicated and extended the first, with further changes in instruction and assessment design, but found no significant differences between experimental groups in the posttest. The discussion highlights the steps taken to ensure study success, pointing out shortcomings in traditional assessment tests that favor notional-functional instruction. We suggest alternative testing tasks that consider cognitive-based approaches and new avenues for future research, aligning with Martín-Gascón et al. (2023).

The paper offers a cognitively oriented approach to the Spanish subjunctive. This verb form is examined in light of Langacker’s grounding theory. In my understanding, the ground is defined as the communication situation with three inherently interrelated components: temporality, modality and evidentiality. The subjunctive is then analysed in relation to these three categories. Particular attention is paid to the evidential component of the ground and its relationship to the Spanish subjunctive. I define the contexts in which the subjunctive appears as grounding inhibitors. Consequently, the subjunctive is understood as a verb form lacking temporal, modal and evidential grounding (in opposition to the indicative, which denotes fully grounded processes).

Revistas