Second Language Learning and Teaching

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Series Editor

Mirosław Pawlak

About the Series

The series brings together volumes dealing with different aspects of learning and teaching second and foreign languages. The titles included are both monographs and edited collections focusing on a variety of topics ranging from the processes under-lying second language acquisition, through various aspects of language learning in instructed and non-instructed settings, to different facets of the teaching process, including syllabus choice, materials design, classroom practices and evaluation. The publications reflect state-of-the-art developments in those areas, they adopt a wide range of theoretical perspectives and follow diverse research paradigms. The intended audience are all those who are interested in naturalistic and classroom second language acquisition, including researchers, methodologists, curriculum and materials designers, teachers and undergraduate and graduate students undertaking empirical investigations of how second languages are learnt and taught.

Jakub Bielak · Mirosław Pawlak

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Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom

Teaching English Tense and Aspect

Jakub Bielak Mirosław PawlakFaculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts Department of English Studies Adam Mickiewicz University Kalisz Poland

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

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ISSN 2193-7648 ISSN 2193-7656 (electronic)ISBN 978-3-642-27454-1 ISBN 978-3-642-27455-8 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948291

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The authors would like to cordially thank the authorities, teachers, and stu-dents of Zespół Szkół Ekonomicznych w Kaliszu [Kalisz Vocational Schools of Economics] for enabling and helping them to carry out the research necessary to write this book. For their invaluable assistance, kindness, and patience, the authors direct special thanks to two of the school’s teachers, Klaudia Klamka and Magdalena Sztandera.

Autorzy serdecznie dziekuja dyrekcji, nauczycielom oraz uczniom Zespołu Szkół Ekonomicznych w Kaliszu za umozliwienie i pomoc w przeprowadzeniu badan niezbednych do napisania niniejszej ksiazki. Za ich nieoceniona pomoc, życzliwość i cierpliwość im okazaną, autorzy kierują szczególne podziękowania do dwóch nauczycielek tej szkoły, Klaudii Klamki i Magdaleny Sztandery.

Acknowledgments

vii

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2 Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.3 Symbolic Nature of Conventional Linguistic Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.3.1 The Symbolic Thesis and Symbolic Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.3.2 Linguistic and Unit Status of Language Elements

and their Conventionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172.4 Grammar as a Structured Inventory of Conventional

Linguistic Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192.4.1 Symbolization: Semantic and Phonological Space . . . . . . . . 192.4.2 Categorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.5 Grammar as an Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432.6 Cognitive Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

2.6.1 Correspondences and Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452.6.2 Construal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

2.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573.2 Traditional Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

3.2.1 General Characteristics of the English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs . . . . . . . 63

3.2.2 The English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs in Descriptive/Reference Grammars and Practical/Pedagogical Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

3.3 Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Contents

Contentsviii

3.4 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions in Comparison and Contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894.2 Implicit and Explicit Knowledge, Learning and Instruction . . . . . . . 914.3 Current Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Grammar . . . . . . . . 92

4.3.1 Non-Interventionist Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934.3.2 Pro-Intervention Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

4.4 Some Options in Pedagogical Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1204.4.1 Cognitive Grammar and Traditional Grammar as Bases

of Pedagogical Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1224.4.2 Cognitive Grammar and Grammar Teaching: Pedagogical

Proposals and Research Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1314.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

5 Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom: Teaching English Tense and Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1395.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1395.2 Research Questions and Experimental Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1405.3 Pilot Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1425.4 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1455.5 Choice of Target Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1475.6 Instructional Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

5.6.1 Traditional Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1545.6.2 Cognitive Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

5.7 Instruments and Procedures of Data Collection and Analysis . . . . . . 1655.8 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

5.8.1 Participants’ Performance on the Explicit Knowledge Test . . . 1735.8.2 Results and Discussion of the Implicit Knowledge Test . . . . 1975.8.3 The Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

5.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

6 Conclusions and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Appendix A: Cognitive Treatment Handout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Appendix B: Traditional Treatment Handout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation . . . . . . . . . . 229

Appendix D: Traditional Treatment Power Point Presentation. . . . . . . . . 247

Appendix E: The Written Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Contents ix

Appendix F: The Oral Elicited Imitation Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Appendix G: Questionnaire for COG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Appendix H: Questionnaire for TRAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

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ANOVA Analysis of varianceCG Cognitive GrammarCL Cognitive linguisticsCTRL The control groupCOG The cognitive groupL1 First languageL2 Second languagePPP Presentation, practice, productionSLA Second language acquisitionTRAD The traditional group

Abbreviations

1

In the last several decades, vast amounts of effort have been devoted to both theorizing and empirical research concerning various aspects of the teaching and learning of second or foreign language grammar. These endeavors have been undertaken not only in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA) and foreign language teaching, but also in related research areas such as linguistics, cognitive science, or psychology. A few examples of the issues which have been investigated are the sequences and orders of acquisition of different grammati-cal elements (e.g. Dulay and Burt 1974b; Meisel et al. 1981; Klein and Perdue 1992), the processing and storage of the grammatical component in the mind/brain, including explicit and implicit representation of grammatical knowledge (e.g. Levelt 1989; Paradis 2004; Loewen et al. 2009), and the nature and effec-tiveness of various techniques and procedures aimed at developing the mastery of diverse grammatical features (e.g. Smith 1970; VanPatten and Cadierno 1993; Erlam 2003; Nassaji and Fotos 2011). Naturally, all of these issues, and many more, feature to varying degrees in this book, the general interest of which is in the teaching of grammar. Equally relevant to this work, however, is linguistic the-ory. This is because the teaching of grammar cannot do without descriptions of the grammatical elements of the language being taught, which may only be pro-duced with any degree of systematicity with the help of some theoretical assump-tions, if not within the confines of some linguistic theory or theories. In fact, Taylor ([1993] 2008, p. 37) observes that “[a]ny major innovation in linguistic theory is bound, sooner or later, to have an impact on the language teaching profession.”

One such innovation which has been developing quickly over the last two dec-ades or so is cognitive linguistics. This relatively diverse theoretical area is one of the most rapidly expanding currents of contemporary linguistic thought. What tes-tifies to this, in addition to the multitude of various sorts of publications and con-ferences which mark themselves with the label of cognitive linguistics, is the fact that different theoretical developments which have arisen within this field have been applied in a diverse range of other research areas, one of which is foreign

IntroductionChapter 1

J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8_1, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

2 1 Introduction

language teaching.1 The potential suitability of cognitive linguistics for language teaching has been premised mainly on its insistence on the meaningfulness of all areas of language, and on the comprehensiveness of its semantic analyses. In fact, the number and breadth of both theoretical proposals and empirical studies con-cerning the application of cognitive linguistics to language teaching has been con-stantly growing for quite a long time now. One symptom of this state of affairs is the appearance and recognition by multiple scholars (e.g. Pütz et al. 2001a, b; Dirven 2005; Boers and Lindstromberg 2006; Niemeier 2008) of the subfield of applied cognitive linguistics. The second fact worth mentioning in this connection is a large (and growing) number of publications featuring both theoretical propos-als and empirical studies concerning the application of cognitive linguistics to lan-guage teaching, which is a powerful indicator of the robustness of the new discipline. These publications include numerous journal articles (e.g. Kövecses and Szabó 1996; Boers 2000; Lindstromberg and Boers 2005) and articles in edited volumes (e.g. Holme and King 2000; Król-Markefka 2006, 2007), devoted to different aspects of language teaching and learning, as well as some single-authored monographs (e.g. Holme 2009; Littlemore 2009). Perhaps the most important of these publications are the following edited volumes dedicated solely to applied cognitive linguistics: Pütz et al. (2001a, b), Achard and Niemeier (2004), Boers and Lindstromberg (2008), De Knop and De Rycker (2008), Robinson and Ellis (2008), De Knop et al. (2010), and Littlemore and Juchem-Grundmann (2010). It appears that Taylor’s (2008) remark (originally made in 1993) that “[n]ow, as the cognitive linguistics movement grows in strength and self confidence, it is only natural that scholars should be turning to the possible pedagogical applications of the approach” captured a real and robust trend of (at least) the following two decades.

It has to be admitted that the majority of applications of cognitive linguistics to language pedagogy attempted so far, especially those which have been subjected to the rigid standards of empirical research, concern the teaching of vocabulary (e.g. Boers 2000), including idioms (e.g. Boers 2001; Csábi 2004) and colloca-tions/phraseology (e.g. Walker 2008), and of some elements at the interface of lexicon and grammar, e.g. phrasal verbs (e.g. Kövecses and Szabó 1996; Csábi 2004) and prepositions (e.g. Piątkowska 2007). The sub-branches of cognitive linguistics which have been subject to pedagogical application the most often include Conceptual Metaphor Theory (e.g. Kövecses and Szabó 1996; Boers 2000, 2001; Condon 2008) and Prototype Theory and Image Schemas (e.g. Boers and Demecheleer 1998; Verspoor and Lowie 2003). While they have been sometimes used in the design of serious proposals to teach certain aspects of second or for-eign language grammar (e.g. Tyler and Evans 2001), it would seem that when it comes to teaching the formal elements of language, the cognitive linguistic the-ory known as Cognitive Grammar should be paramount, as it is devoted to both

1 Applied research with origins in cognitive linguistics has been reported in numerous publi-cations. Prominent among them are the 22, as of July 2012, volumes published (or in print) in Mouton de Gruyter’s series Applications of Cognitive Linguistics.

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formal and semantic intricacies of the grammatical component of language. While there are numerous theoretically-oriented proposals concerning the harnessing of Cognitive Grammar in the service of grammatical instruction (e.g. Turewicz 2000; Niemeier and Rief 2008), empirical research testing the effectiveness of such applications and comparing their contributions with the effects of using other theo-retical models or traditional descriptions of grammar is currently scant.

Given this state of affairs, the present work is intended as a contribution to the emerging body of research concerned with testing the applications of Cognitive Grammar to the teaching of formal aspects of language. Specifically, its purpose is determining the effectiveness of using descriptions of several grammatical phenomena formulated within the theoretical confines of Cognitive Grammar in grammatical instruction, and comparing this effectiveness with that of grammar teaching relying on traditional pedagogical descriptions found in standard peda-gogical grammars. The grammatical features which have been selected for this research project are selected elements of the English tense/aspect system, namely the so-called present simple and present continuous, and their interplay with sta-tive and dynamic verbs when reference is made to situations unfolding at the time of speaking.

Ronald Langacker, the father of Cognitive Grammar, observes that “the impact of linguistic theory on language pedagogy has been less than miraculous and sometimes less than helpful” (Langacker 2008b, p. 66). This is because

[u]nless they are themselves experienced language teachers, the advice of linguists on lan-guage pedagogy is likely to be of no more practical value than the advice of theoretical physicists on how to teach pole vaulting. What they can offer, qua linguists, is insight into the structure of particular languages and the properties of language in general. But even when limited in this fashion, the input of linguists cannot necessarily be trusted. They quarrel with one another about the most fundamental issues, suggesting that some of them (at least) must be fundamentally wrong (Langacker 2008b, p. 66).

Langacker (2001a, p. 3) also says, “I see the effectiveness of pedagogical appli-cations as an important empirical test for linguistic theories.” For a number of reasons, some of which will be spelled out later in the book (Sect. 4.4.1.1), he adds, “[m]y suspicion is that, in the long run, cognitive grammar will not fare badly in this regard [emphasis original]” (Langacker 2001a, p. 3). It is there-fore not surprising that research efforts aimed at testing the applicability of Cognitive Grammar to language teaching are gaining momentum. If they reveal that Cognitive Grammar may successfully be used in the teaching of at least some aspects of foreign language grammar, they will narrow the gap between theoretical linguistics and language teaching, perhaps lessening the distrust of the teaching profession towards theoretical linguistics. Conversely, if they fail to demonstrate the suitability of Cognitive Grammar for pedagogical application, they will pos-sibly contribute to the introduction of important revisions and improvements to this linguistic theory. Either way, such research seems to be a win-win endeavor. Despite his optimism concerning the usefulness of Cognitive Grammar for lan-guage pedagogy, Langacker (2008b, p. 66) admits that “extensive pedagogical application [of Cognitive Grammar] remains a long-term goal.” This book hopes

1 Introduction

4 1 Introduction

to contribute to achieving that goal, or, should the application of Cognitive Grammar turn out to be premature or ill-advised, to the possible process of modi-fication of the theory itself. Needless to say, it also aims to further to whatever small extent our understanding of how foreign languages, and especially their grammatical systems, are best taught and learned.

In spite of there being a lot of diverse research in this area motivated by dif-ferent theoretical and practical concerns, the view that the understanding of these processes needs refinement is not controversial. As Pawlak (2006, pp. 9–10) says, despite the current general consensus among second language (L2) schol-ars that teaching grammar has a facilitative effect on learning languages in the classroom, there are still numerous disagreements and doubts concerning such essential aspects of grammar teaching as its forms, timing, duration and intensity, among others. It seems to us that, in addition to focusing on the interface between theoretical linguistics and SLA, the present work, which features a thorough description of a quasi-experiment involving some actual language teaching and testing in the classroom, has a definite potential to broaden the understanding of these general issues.

In addition to the introductory (the present chapter) and concluding (Chap. 6) chapters, the book includes four major chapters, the first three of which provide the necessary theoretical background, with the last one (Chap. 5) reporting an empirical study conducted in order to achieve the aforementioned objectives. Chapter 2 intro-duces the theory of Cognitive Grammar by showing its place in and relation with the broader area of cognitive linguistics, by discussing, presenting and exemplify-ing its major principles, constructs, analytical tools, and notational conventions, and by setting it against other cognitive approaches to grammar. Chapter 3 includes two kinds of detailed descriptions of the grammatical items which were the objects of pedagogical intervention in the study constituting the empirical part of the book. As already stated, the grammatical features are selected aspects of the English tense/aspect system including the present tense, the progressive aspect, and the distinction between stative and dynamic verbs. First, these grammatical items are described in considerable detail from the point of view of traditional pedagogical grammars, and from the perspective of the theory of Cognitive Grammar, which is followed by a comparison of these two sorts of description. While Chaps. 2 and 3 deal with issues in the realm of linguistic theory and description, Chap. 4 enters the area of L2 acquisition and foreign language teaching. It presents an array of contempo-rary theoretical positions concerning the teaching of grammar and a wide range of instructional options language teachers have at their disposal with respect to intro-ducing and practicing grammatical structures. The most important SLA theories which are presented include those which advocate the abandonment of the formal teaching of grammar (e.g. the Identity Hypothesis and Monitor Theory), as well as those which recommend certain kinds of teaching in this area (e.g. Skill-Learning Theory and the Output Hypothesis). The instructional options discussed include both methodological options, i.e. various techniques and procedures which may be used to teach grammar, and certain choices in terms of the descriptions of the lan-guage material to be taught. With respect to the latter, Chap. 4 presents the case for

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using Cognitive Grammar in language instruction, and juxtaposes the potential suit-ability of this theory’s grammatical descriptions with that of traditional pedagogical descriptions. Also, paving the way to the study presented in Chap. 5, the existing research concerning the application of Cognitive Grammar to grammar teaching is reviewed towards the end of Chap. 4. Chapter 5, which is concerned with the teach-ing of the already mentioned area of English tense/aspect, reports the results of a study exploring the effectiveness of grammatical instruction based on Cognitive Grammar descriptions of these grammatical phenomena and comparing it with the effects of instruction based on traditional pedagogical descriptions. Specifically, the study attempts to determine the effectiveness of the two instructional options when it comes to fostering both explicit (both studies) and implicit (one study only) gram-matical knowledge. The possible development of the two kinds of knowledge by employing the two sorts of descriptions is investigated both in the short and in the long run, and the receptive and productive dimensions are also explored in the case of explicit knowledge. In addition, the possible effectiveness of the CG option is analyzed with respect to learners at different levels of advancement. Finally, Chap. 6 offers a number of general conclusions formulated on the basis of the research con-ducted as well as some pedagogic implications that this research supports. It also points to the directions which future research concerning the application of CG to grammar teaching might take.

1 Introduction

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2.1 Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is the introduction of the framework of Cognitive Grammar, a theoretical development within the field of cognitive linguistics, whose pedagogical application is the focus of the present work. As a first step, Sect. 2.2 introduces, in a general fashion, the overall area of cognitive linguistics, as well as Cognitive Grammar, one of its major subcurrents, together with its definition of grammar/language. All the subsequent sections present the theoretical and descriptive apparatus of Cognitive Grammar, introducing along the way its most relevant notions, definitions, distinctions, terms, etc. First, in Sect. 2.3, the Cognitive Grammar view of language as essentially meaningful, or, in other words, the theory’s symbolic thesis, is introduced and discussed. The introduction to the theory is further effected by explaining in a detailed manner, in Sects. 2.4 and 2.5, the above-mentioned definition of grammar/language espoused by Cognitive Grammar. This theory is further intro-duced through a discussion, in Sect. 2.6, of its view of the role of cognitive abilities in natural language. Finally, Sect. 2.7 summarizes the diverse array of issues treated in the whole chapter, spells out how Cognitive Grammar conforms to the principles of cognitive linguistics and briefly compares this theory with other cognitive approaches to grammar, evaluating, in a preliminary fashion, its pedagogical potential.1

1 Although the introduction to Cognitive Grammar offered in the present chapter focuses mainly on the facets of the theory the understanding of which is necessary to properly appreciate its descriptions of the grammatical material taught in the course of the study reported in Chap. 5, it also covers some issues which are not of direct relevance to this study. However, it seems to us that making the scope of this introduction a little broader than perhaps absolutely necessary is at worst harmless and perhaps desirable. There are two reasons for this desirability. First, we feel that there is an acute need to legiti-mize our turning to Cognitive Grammar in search for ideas potentially enhancing the quality and effec-tiveness of grammar teaching. This rationalization may come not only from direct arguments included in Sect. 4.4.1.1, but also from the presentation of Cognitive Grammar as a highly coherent and com-prehensive view of natural languages. The second reason for the expansion of this introduction beyond absolute necessity is the fact that the book may be of interest to two major groups of linguists: theoreti-cal and applied. While the theory may be familiar to most linguists of the former kind, it is expected not to be so to the majority of the latter, who may therefore welcome some basic information concerning the theory which is not strictly related to the empirical study reported in Chap. 5.

Introduction to Cognitive GrammarChapter 2

J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8_2, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

8 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

2.2 Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Grammar

Cognitive linguistics (CL) is not a single linguistic theory; rather, it is a relatively diverse conglomerate of numerous theoretical proposals and modes of conducting linguistic research which are generally compatible with one another by virtue of being united by a set of common assumptions, concerns and basic guiding princi-ples, the most important of which are (cf. Langacker 1999a, pp. 13–14; Evans and Green 2006, p. 3):

• the cognitive nature of language, where the term cognitive is understood in a very specific way that receives an in-depth elucidation below;

• the related belief in the non-autonomy of language and grammar;2

• the focus on the semantic motivation of most, if not all, linguistic phenomena including grammar;

• the commitment to the embodied character of language;• the commitment to the usage-based nature of language, which implies heavy

focus on actually occurring linguistic data;• the linguistic importance of conceptual metaphor and other figurational devices.

At present, the most prominent strands of research within CL are Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Kövecses 2002; Barcelona 2003), Linguistic Categorization and Image Schemas Theory (Lakoff 1987; Hampe 2005), Mental Spaces and Conceptual Blending Theory (Fauconnier 1994, 1997; Fauconnier and Turner 2003), Conceptual (Cognitive) Semantics (Talmy 2003a, 2003b) and cognitive approaches to grammar including Construction Grammar (Fillmore 1988; Goldberg 1995; Kay and Fillmore 1999; Croft 2001) and Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991; for more references see the next sec-tion), the last of which is the focus of this book. Despite the relative heterogeneity of these linguistic developments, they still maintain a degree of compatibility and commonality embodied by the above concerns and assumptions, which allows one to place all these research strands under the joint heading of CL.

It has to be admitted that the name of this general area of linguistics, i.e. cognitive linguistics, has a certain potential to mislead. CL belongs to the func-tional tradition of language study (Langacker 1999a, p. 13), which has developed in contrast and opposition to the formal tradition (cf. Nerlich and Clarke 2007). However, the formalist-Chomskyan paradigm, as well as some other theoretical strands, have also employed the term cognitive for self-description, if not for self-reference (cf. Gibbs 1995; Taylor 2002, p. 4). As a result, the self-christening of the CL movement with the term cognitive has been a source of some controversy. Therefore, some clarification of the use of the term in linguistic circles of different theoretical persuasions seems to be in order.

2 For an interesting distinction between weak and strong autonomy, see Langacker (2005a, pp. 103, 104; 2009, p. 6).

9

Although probably every contemporary linguistic theory is and would admit to being cognitive in the sense that it views language as a cognitive phenomenon (cf. Taylor 1996, p. 21ff), beyond this obvious statement linguistic formalism and CL differ with respect to how they understand the term. Taylor (2002, p. 8) provides a succinct discussion of these two respective understandings [a slightly different, and a more detailed discussion of this issue is offered by Geeraerts and Cuyckens (2007, p. 4ff)]. From one perspective, generativism declares itself to be cognitive in the sense that it draws inferences about the mind on the basis of the study of linguistic capabilities. From another, and a radically different point of view, CL attempts to come up with linguistic descriptions that are in accord with what is independently and quite straightforwardly known about cognition. Accordingly, cognitive linguists often speak of general human cognitive abilities and try to fash-ion their descriptions of linguistic phenomena in such a way that there is a high degree of consonance between them and what is known about the functioning of general cognitive faculties. Thus, even though both generativism and CL may be called cognitive (mentalist) approaches due to their commitment to investigating the psychological reality of language (cf. Evans and Green 2006, p. 744; Kardela 2011) as well as to modeling speaker knowledge (cf. Evans and Green 2006, p. 753), they implement these objectives in radically different ways.

From the perspective of CL as described above, its practitioners recognize, highlight and explore a number of inherent linkages between language and cog-nition. The major claim is that language is an integral part of cognition rather than an autonomous cognitive module divorced from other mental faculties (cf. Langacker 1987, 1991, 1999b; Fauconnier 1994, 1997; N. Ellis 1999; Evans 2011). In particular, it is asserted that language draws on such facets of cognition as general human cognitive capacities (e.g. memory, perception, categorization), embodied experience, knowledge, cognitive models, and other related phenomena (Radden 1992; Langacker 1999b, pp. 2–3; Langacker 2008a, pp. 34–35, 85, 104). All these aspects of cognition, which are thought to be implicated in language, are also regarded as intimately interconnected with one another (cf. Barsalou et al. 2007). For instance, general human cognitive capacities such as vision, attention and the numerous like, which are possible due to the existence of the human body, give rise to and shape embodied experience, which in turn enables and formatively influences the accumulation of knowledge and the emergence of cognitive models. Given the many interconnections and interdependencies between different aspects of cognition, one of which is language itself, it seems to be quite natural for CL to regard language as inherently linked with cognition in general.

It should be stressed that the above assumptions, although perhaps not explic-itly, do include the interrelationship between language and such aspects of human experience as culture, society, emotions and communication (cf. Rudzka-Ostyn 1993, p. 1). It is so because humans experience, know about, store in memory and categorize, among a multitude of other things, different facets of their social status and relations, their emotional states, and their communication activity. In other words, society, culture, emotions and communication figure prominently in cognition by virtue of being part and parcel of “the world” experienced and

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10 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

processed by homo sapiens on an everyday basis (cf. Langacker 1994, 1999a, p. 16). CL, recognizing the mutual influence between cognition and language, naturally accords these crucial aspects of human life, and thereby cognition, their share of reciprocity with language. It should be conceded, however, that CL relates language with the sociocultural, emotional and interactional with heavy emphasis on the conceptualizational interface by means of which these phenomena are pro-cessed, which may distinguish CL from other functionalist linguistic enterprises (cf. Nuyts 2005).

The conviction that language and cognition are inextricably linked has one important consequence for the nature of language inquiry done cognitive- linguistics-style. From the assertion of the inseparable interconnectedness between language and cognition it follows that large portions of the former cannot be accu-rately and revealingly explained without reference to the latter (cf. Radden 1992). If it is accepted that multiple aspects of cognition all contribute to shaping lan-guage, a conclusion follows that they must be studied or at least referred to as part of linguistic analysis. This is actually the case in CL and will be repeatedly illus-trated by the ensuing introduction to Cognitive Grammar as well as by the more detailed descriptions of specific elements of English in Chap. 3. For now, it will suffice to be noted that CL and Cognitive Grammar feel no compunction about evoking certain aspects of general cognition for the proper description of numer-ous (if not all) linguistic elements. Rather, a strong urge to do so is the norm in these linguistic enterprises.

It should be granted, though, that in CL and Cognitive Grammar the relation-ship between language and cognition is considered to be dialectic; not only does human cognitive functioning tell us something about the language faculty, but also our insight into language provides important clues to understanding cognitive pro-cesses. Although this claim is reminiscent of the formalist understanding of the term cognitive as used with reference to language study, in CL this term is, as has just been explained by referring to the formative linguistic role of cognitive pro-cesses, understood much more broadly (and therefore differently).

The focus of this book is the pedagogical application of one of the major theo-retical and analytic frameworks within CL that from the very beginning of this linguistic movement has been one of its formative currents: Ronald Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991, 1999b, [1991] 2002; Taylor 2002; Langacker 2008a, 2009). Cognitive Grammar—CG for short—shares all the basic assumptions of CL mentioned in the previous section. Allegiance to most of them, with the exception of the commitment to the importance of metaphor and figura-tion, which is recognized by CG but is not central to the theory due to its different focus, will be substantiated by this introduction to CG.

CG has been developing rapidly since around the mid-1970s. In the process, it has undergone a change of name, since originally it functioned under the appella-tion of Space Grammar (cf. Langacker 1982). A more significant result of the pro-cess of development has been the transformation of CG, along with its “mother” movement of CL, from interesting but infrequently discussed proposals to their present-day status as firmly established and (more and more) widely recognized

11

and practiced modes of thinking about language and doing linguistic research. Attesting to the successful expansion of CG is the fact that since its inception it has been profitably applied to a multitude of phenomena in numerous languages. In addition to the whole body of work applying CG to various aspects of English (e.g. Lindner 1981; Langacker 1991; Taylor 1996; Langacker 1999b; Brisard 2005; Langacker 2009), there have also been numerous endeavors to apply it to a number of other, often genetically and typologically different languages and to contrastive analyses thereof. Some examples include Polish (Kochanska 1996, 2002; Góralczyk 2009), Cora (Casad 1981, 1982; Casad and Langacker 1985), Finnish (Leino 2005), Croatian (Belaj 2008), Czech (Janda 1993), Russian (Janda 1993), Polish and English (Turewicz 1994, 1997; Kochanska 2004), and German, Dutch and English (Mortelmans 1994). Despite the plethora of CG research now being conducted and published, it is worth noting Langacker’s (2008a, p. viii) conviction that “even after 30 years—research in CG is only starting,” meaning that CG has certainly not yet exhausted its potential, which, incidentally, this book attempts to demonstrate by applying CG to language teaching.

Similarly to the Chomskyan definition of grammar as a model of native speak-ers’ grammatical competence (Chomsky 1986, p. 22), i.e. the knowledge of their language, CG also essentially equates language, or more appropriately linguistic ability, with grammar. The grammar of a language is defined in CG as “a struc-tured inventory of conventional linguistic units” [emphasis ours, JB and MP] (Langacker 1987, p. 57, 1999b, p. 98). It should be borne in mind, however, that the concept of grammar and the above definition exploit conceptual reification, which renders something inherently dynamic and processual as some kind of a thing, or entity. In fact, for cognitive grammarians, grammar (language) and its constitutive units ultimately reduce to cognitive routines, which take the form of patterns of neural activation.3 Incidentally, the acknowledgement that language is most fundamentally electro-chemical brain activity is one reason why CG stresses language’s embodied nature. In order to present the framework of CG, the above characterization of grammar as a structured inventory of conventional linguistic units will be explained in considerable detail. It will be done in three parts; first, grammar as a repository of symbolic and conventional elements, as well as ele-ments with the status of linguistic units will be discussed in Sect. 2.3; next, the structuring of grammar will be considered in Sect. 2.4; and finally, grammar as an inventory of conventional linguistic units will be briefly discussed in Sect. 2.5. Every opportunity that presents itself in the course of this discussion to introduce important distinctions, concepts, terms, notational conventions, etc., characteristic of CG will be taken, which will prepare the right ground for the detailed descrip-tions of specific grammatical elements, i.e. the English present tense, progressive aspect, and stative and dynamic verbs, in the subsequent chapter.

3 CG subscribes to the connectionist model of cognitive processing (also called parallel distrib-uted processing or neural network modeling) (Langacker 1991, p. 525; 2008a, p. 10) outlined by Rumelhart and McClelland (1986) and McClelland and Rumelhart (1986). It is an alternative to algorithmic models associated with generative grammar.

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12 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

2.3 Symbolic Nature of Conventional Linguistic Units

In order to properly comprehend the relatively uncomplicated nature of linguistic units as conceived in CG and to recognize their types, one has to appreciate the so-called symbolic thesis posited by the theory. It proclaims the symbolic nature of (the whole of) language (Langacker 1987, p. 12). Specifically, the theory regards as symbolic, i.e. as meaningful, not only lexicon but also (and much more surpris-ingly, in some linguistic circles at least) what is normally regarded as grammatical elements, i.e. grammatical morphemes and syntactic structures. This means that all such elements which occur in actual discourse, as well as their schematizations, which cannot be directly spotted in actual utterances, are thought to combine pho-nological material with semantic content. Although meaning (semantic structure) and speech sounds (phonological structure) may be autonomous to a certain degree and therefore subject to their own laws of organization, in CG the primary role of either is participation in symbolic structures of multiple sorts, which are, accord-ing to the symbolic thesis, the essence of language. The thesis, which ascribes to basically the whole of language the primary role of conveying meaning, may seem so obvious and trivial as not to seem worth mentioning, given the commonsensical function of language as a tool of communication. This claim has to be stressed, however, because of the existence of prominent contemporary linguistic theories, such as generative grammar, which, unlike CG, do not emphasize but even more or less explicitly deny the symbolic nature of (large portions of) language.

2.3.1 The Symbolic Thesis and Symbolic Units4

The symbolic thesis endorsed by CG has an important implication for the theo-ry’s conception of language and for its descriptive model. The implication is that language elements requiring explicit description are either symbolic ones or else components of symbolic elements. In particular, CG claims that language consists of and may be satisfactorily described in terms of only three kinds of structures: phonological, semantic and symbolic (Langacker 1987, p. 76). Symbolic units are the most complex of the three (although surprisingly simple compared with many other kinds of units conceived of by linguists of other theoretical persuasions), because they are pairings of structures of the other two kinds. To put it differently, and in CG terms, every symbolic element consists in establishing a correspond-ence between the element’s phonological pole and its semantic pole, which is also called a predication. This arrangement concerning the essential building blocks of language posited by CG is so simple and economical that the phrase “extreme aus-terity” (Taylor 1996, p. 58) has been used to describe it.

4 Beyond its introduction in the present section, symbolization receives further treatment in Sect. 2.4.1, where it is considered as one of the structuring relations of grammar.

13

As stated earlier, one of the assumptions of CL is that language and grammar are not autonomous. Accordingly, in CG, lexicon, morphology and syntax are not treated as distinct or autonomous subsystems, or modules, of language. Rather, these traditionally distinguished linguistic levels are seen as forming a continuum of symbolic elements the differences between which are thought to lie in their var-ious degrees of phonological and semantic schematicity and symbolic complexity (Langacker 1999b, p. 18). This claim is supported by the following discussion of selected examples of linguistic units of different kinds as analyzed by CG and a brief consideration of the differences among them.

The view that lexical elements, in contrast to grammatical ones, are inherently symbolic is not controversial. The presentation of the CG description of an example lexical item, pen, with its explicit characterization of the element’s phonological and semantic poles will illustrate the exact nature of these CG concepts and will introduce some basic notational conventions of the theory, which will be used throughout the book. Pen is a symbolic unit consisting of the semantic structure (the word’s semantic pole) that is expressed by the notation [PEN] and of the phonological structure (the word’s phonological pole) written down as [pen]. [PEN] is a neat abbreviation of the word’s meaning, which consists of multiple specifications that include the function of the object it designates (a writing implement), its shape (oblong, thin), constitutive material (usually a plastic/metal shell with an ink refill inside), and possibly some oth-ers. The notation [pen] stands for speakers’ representations of the phonological shape of the word including the component sounds (phonemes and allophones), the transi-tions between them, stress, and so on. However, the two elements alone do not exhaust the description of the lexical unit pen. Since the word is a symbolic element, what is missing is a symbolic relation that depends on a correspondence established between the word’s semantic and phonological poles. This symbolic relation is marked by “/” in the following formula representing the entire symbolic unit pen: [[PEN]/[pen]].

In contrast to lexical items such as pen, the symbolic status of the so-called “gram-matical” morphemes is questioned by numerous linguistic theories. In CG, however, all of them are treated as meaningful. The item of is often considered as an “empty” grammatical marker (by Chomsky 1981, p. 50, among others) and is therefore a typi-cal representative of the class of “grammatical” morphemes. CG, living up to the promise of its symbolic thesis, has been able to ascribe a clearly defined meaning to of: this preposition is said to designate some sort of an intrinsic relationship between two participants (Langacker 1999b, p. 76). This meaning is illustrated by the following array of diverse examples taken from and discussed by Langacker (1999b, pp. 74–76):

(1) the bottom of the jar(2) seven of the peas(3) the chirping of birds(4) a man of integrity(5) the color of the lawn(6) the state of California

In (1) of designates an inherent relationship between a part (the bottom) and a whole (the jar). The seven peas in (2) may be treated in much the same way; they

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14 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

are an intrinsic subpart of a greater assembly of peas. In (1) and (2) of is used with what is probably its prototypical meaning, namely the relationship between a whole and an intrinsic and restricted subpart thereof, which obviously conforms to the maximally general (schematic) meaning of of identified above. The remain-ing examples, despite the fact that they illustrate various kinds of divergence from the prototype, are still within the limits of the schematic semantic character ascribed to of. In (3) the birds that do the chirping are participants of an event. As a rule, an event’s participants are intrinsic to it, since it is not possible to conceive of an event without conceptualizing its participants, at least in schematic terms. In (4) and (5) integrity and the color designate essential qualities of a person and of a lawn respectively. The component noun phrases in these two examples are linked by of because essential qualities are intrinsic to the entities that bear them. Finally, in (6) both noun phrases, the state and California, designate the same entity, the difference between them residing in the schematicity of this designa-tion; the head of the whole noun phrase (state) refers to the designated entity in schematic terms and the head (and only element) of the complement noun phrase (California) does so in a much more specific fashion. According to Langacker (1999b, p. 77), of is justified here because “an entity could hardly not be intrinsic to itself.” In sum, the example of the preposition of, often regarded as semanti-cally empty, convincingly demonstrates CG’s symbolic commitment and its abil-ity to apply the symbolic thesis to even the most “grammatical” of the so-called grammatical elements.

Not only is CG able to propose a definite meaning of a seemingly meaningless language element, but by doing so it is also capable of insightfully explaining various nuances of its use. Only some of these subtleties will be discussed here in the way of exemplification.5 In the subsequent discussion reference will be made to the follow-ing examples [examples (7) and (9) are offered by Langacker (1999b, pp. 74–75)]:

(7) ?the label of this jar(8) ?He is sometimes a man of integrity.(9) *the brown spot of the lawn

The first nuance of the use of of is the lesser felicity of (7) compared with (1) (the bottom of the jar). This is in fact predicted by the general meaning of the preposi-tion posited by CG, which is the establishment of an intrinsic relationship between some two participants. In contrast to the bottom of a jar referred to by (1), a jar’s label is not unequivocally its intrinsic element because it may be quite easily removed and another one may take its place. With reference to the lesser felicity of (8) compared with that of (4) (a man of integrity), it should be noted that basically the same expression with of in the context forcing the interpretation of the quality as an accidental rather than an essential one, which is created in (8) by sometimes, is not very felicitous, because it conflicts with the inherence of the relationship imposed by the preposition. Similarly, (9) is not acceptable because a brown spot

5 For a full account, see Langacker (1999).

15

is not an inherent characteristic of a lawn, but rather an unwelcome intrusion, which is different from the lawn’s color, a truly intrinsic quality, whose relation to the lawn is licitly expressed by of in (5) (the color of the lawn). The discussion of these selected examples is intended to show that the meaning CG ascribes to of, a supposedly meaningless grammatical marker, has significant explanatory power and is therefore well-grounded.

In addition to “grammatical” morphemes such as of, grammar, as traditionally understood, includes the combinatorial properties of morphemes (morphology) and larger units such as words and phrases (syntax). Structures consisting of two or more elements of these sorts are called grammatical constructions (Langacker 1987, p. 82). These assemblies are put together in accordance with conventional patterns of construction called constructional schemas, which “are acquired through a process of schematization, being abstracted from occurring expressions as skel-etal representations of shared organizational features” (Langacker 2008a, p. 168). Constructional schemas, i.e. morphological and syntactic patterns of syntagmatic integration, are thus kinds of templates akin to “rules” and are considered in CG, alongside lexical items and grammatical morphemes with which they form a con-tinuum, as unequivocally symbolic. One example of a morphological constructional schema and another one of a syntactic type will now be discussed.

As an example of a symbolic grammatical construction the morphological pat-tern of plural noun formation in English will be considered, as discussed by Langacker (1987, pp. 82–85). The constructional schema sanctioning the composi-tion of plural nouns has the following form when expressed by means of CG nota-tion: [[THING]/[…]]-[[PL]/[z]].6 The sequence [[THING]/[…]] represents a schematic noun involving a symbolic relation between [THING], which is a maxi-mally schematic semantic noun-like concept,7 and […], an even more schematic characterization of its phonological pole.8 [PL] is a semantic structure specifying a replicate mass, i.e. “a mass that we can think of as being formed by replicating indefinitely many times a discrete entity that we are accustomed to dealing with individually” (Langacker 1991, pp. 77–78), and [z] is a phonological marker of plurality understood in terms of replication as just described. These two elements are linked by a symbolic relation to make up the plural morpheme [[PL]/[z]]. The constructional schema of plural noun formation discussed here is symbolic in nature because, just as in the case of individual lexical items, it has its phonologi-cal pole, at which the elements […] and [z] are syntagmatically integrated to ren-der […]-[z] (the hyphen marks the relation of integration), and this phonological

6 A convention derived from CG literature of abbreviating semantic units by means of capital-ized graphemic representations, phonological structures by means of lower-case graphemic rep-resentations and including both of them within square brackets is adopted throughout the book. Another convention used is placing a hyphen between representations of linguistic units to mark the relation of integration.7 [THING] is to be described in much more detail in Sect. 2.4.2.3.8 Basically, […] stands here for “any phonological content.” However, see the review of Taylor’s (2002) findings in Sect. 2.4.2.3.

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pole is in a symbolic relation with the constructional schema’s semantic pole, where the elements [THING] and [PL] are integrated to form [THING]-[PL]. In other words, the constructional schema stipulates that the integration of a count noun with the plural morpheme stands for a replicate mass consisting of indefi-nitely many instances of the “thing” designated by the noun.

When it comes to syntactic constructions, CG treats them in terms parallel to those used for morphological integration, which means that they are also ascribed semantic values. A suitable example is the constructional schema sanctioning the assembly of a prototypical English finite transitive clause such as Jerry opened the window. Langacker (1991, p. 298) proposes to characterize this syntactic schema with reference to the canonical event model (Langacker 1991, pp. 285–286). In essence, this cognitive model includes one discrete object, an agent, transmitting energy to another discrete object, a patient, through physical contact, as a result of which the patient undergoes a change of state. Closely conforming to the model, the constructional schema for the prototype of a transitive clause involves the syn-tagmatic integration of an agent (subject) noun phrase (Jerry in the above exam-ple), a verbal element (opened) and a patient (object) noun phrase (the window).9 These elements are all symbolic and correspond to the elements of the canonical event model since their integration at the semantic pole renders the conception of a volitional agent (a person) energetically interacting with a patient in which some change of state occurs as a result of the interaction. Obviously, corresponding to the integration relations at the semantic pole of the clause are relations of the same kind at the phonological pole; they define the syntagmatic combination of the phrasal constituents. The constructional schema of the prototypical English finite clause is thus a symbolic unit of a syntactic type.

Following the presentation of some examples illustrating the symbolic nature of lexicon, morphology and syntax, some apparent differences between units of these respective types should be briefly considered. As was stated earlier, the differences between them pertain to the level of their phonological and semantic schematicity and their symbolic complexity (Langacker 1999b, p. 18). Thus, lexical items tend to be both phonologically and semantically specific and usually have a moderate degree of symbolic complexity. The lexical item pen, to return to an earlier instance, has very specific phonological and semantic poles that were described above and is symbolically simple, as it is made up of only one symbolic unit. Next, morphemes of a “grammatical” kind are, similarly to lexical items, usually symbol-ically simple and phonologically specific, but differ from them in that they are semantically quite schematic (abstract). Of, another of the earlier examples, is illus-trative in this connection: its phonological pole is fairly specific but its semantic pole, which is an intrinsic relation between some two participants, a meaning which covers a diverse range of relations at a more concrete level (e.g. part-whole, partici-pant-event, characteristic feature-characterized entity, etc.),10 is rather abstract in

9 The fact that these obligatory elements may be accompanied by additional optional material, i.e. adverbials, is ignored here.10 See examples (1)–(6) earlier in the section.

17

nature. Symbolically, of is as simple as pen, which is in line with the above charac-terization of lexical and “grammatical” morphemes as sharing this feature. Syntactic constructions, in contrast to both lexical and morphological items, display a tendency to be symbolically quite complex and rather schematic both phonologi-cally and semantically. Thus, the prototypical transitive clause schema discussed earlier is symbolically complex as it involves the integration of at least three phrasal (and symbolic) elements: an agent noun phrase, a verbal element, and a patient noun phrase. The schema is phonologically schematic as there is no concrete speci-fication at its phonological pole. Semantically, it is also quite schematic as the spec-ification of an energetic interaction between two participants as a result of which the patient undergoes a change of state covers a number of much more specific interactions, e.g. causing movement, causing disintegration, causing disfiguration, and so on and so forth. It should be remembered, however, that the above patterns (and differences between units) are nothing more than tendencies. Thus, it is not difficult to find a lexical item that is semantically schematic (e.g. entity) or a “gram-matical” morpheme whose phonological pole is not very specific (e.g. the English plural –s or the English past tense morpheme, whose ultimate phonological schema has to be fairly schematic in order to accommodate its variant realizations of /t/, /d/ and /id/ and the diverse range of irregular past tense forms).

Having considered the nature of and differences between units belonging to different traditionally distinguished levels of linguistic analysis, it remains to be stressed that these dissimilarities are a matter of degree and that the units, just as the levels at which they occur, form a continuum of symbolic structures. This view is an important feature of the CG conception of language, which denies grammar any significant autonomy vis-à-vis other areas of language and, subscribing to the symbolic thesis just presented, emphasizes semantic motivation of all linguistic units, no matter what “types” they are.

2.3.2 Linguistic and Unit Status of Language Elements and their Conventionality

As will become apparent in the course of this introduction to the basics of CG, this linguistic theory rejects a number of dichotomies that have pervaded linguistics and related research fields for a very long time (Langacker 1987, pp. 18–19).11 One such presumably false dichotomy is the distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic units, which has a direct bearing on the interpretation of the defini-tion of grammar currently under discussion. While CG recognizes the existence of

11 This is due to, among other things, the rejection in CL and CG of the classical view of cat-egorization (based on necessary and sufficient attributes), traceable to Aristotle, in preference to Prototype Theory of Categorization (cf. Rosch 1978; Lakoff 1987). This view of categorization, together with categorization by schema, which is the second major alternative to the classical view widely used in CL and CG, are discussed in considerable detail in Sect. 2.4.2.

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a core of units that are centrally and unequivocally linguistic, e.g. words and mor-phemes, whose linguistic status is hardly questioned, it contends that it is in prin-ciple impossible to sharply distinguish between linguistic and non-linguistic symbolic elements (Langacker 1987, p. 60). What transpires from the earlier dis-cussion of the symbolic nature of linguistic elements, a prototypical linguistic unit consist of a segmental phonological pole and a fairly specific semantic pole (a conceptualization) (Langacker 1987, pp. 61–62). However, in the process of com-munication language users employ numerous elements that only partially resemble this prototype. For example, nonsense words occurring in songs and poetry12 are clearly segmental, but they lack clear semantic content, which may be only vaguely guessed at on the basis of the (more or less) linguistic context. Another kind of marginally-linguistic elements discussed by Langacker (1987, p. 61) occur in sentences such as (10):

(10) When she saw the snake, she went [SCREAM].

Although the scream produced in the sentence is not segmental, which consti-tutes a divergence from the prototype of a linguistic item, language users have no trouble interpreting its specific meaning when they recognize it (as they do) as an instance of onomatopoeia. In addition, the pattern exemplified by the above sen-tence, where the verb go is followed by a non-segmental vocalization or gesture, is fairly conventional and familiar to the vast majority of native speakers, which draws the non-segmental part into the realm of linguistic elements. In sum, the above two examples, i.e. nonsense words and extreme onomatopoeia in (10), dem-onstrate that there are indeed sound grounds for CG to regard a symbolic unit’s status as linguistic as a matter of gradience.

Another dichotomy that is regarded by CG as unwarranted is the distinction between these linguistic elements that have the unequivocal status of linguistic units and those that do not. In the mind of a given speaker, linguistic elements dif-fer among themselves with respect to the ease of their activation, or, in other words, with respect to what may be called the degree of their “automatization.” To refer to it in CG terms, one must speak of a scale of entrenchment along which all lin-guistic units are arranged (Langacker 1987, p. 59). Units that are used, or activated, relatively frequently are characterized by a relatively high degree of entrenchment, which manifests itself in their effortless use. In contrast, units that have not been activated for prolonged periods, together with novel ones that have just entered the linguistic system of a given speaker, have a relatively low degree of entrenchment, as displayed by a certain degree of mental exertion accompanying their use. In sum, in CG unit status of a linguistic element is neither an all-or-nothing nor a once-and-for-all affair; rather, being subject to the changing patterns of use, a unit’s entrench-ment, or its unit status, is, similarly to the linguistic status of a unit, gradable.

12 In this connection Langacker (1987, p. 62) cites the example of jabberwocky, which evokes Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky.” It is not difficult, however, to find numerous other exam-ples of similar poems and songs, which are usually addressed to children.

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An issue related to unit status is the conventionality of the linguistic units mak-ing up the grammar of a given language, i.e. the quality of being shared and recog-nized as being shared by a large number of speakers (Langacker 1987, p. 62). Once again, it is necessary to speak of a gradation of conventionality rather than a strict dichotomy between fully conventional(ized) and unconventional linguistic units (Langacker 1987, p. 62). Quite obviously, a novel linguistic element starts off with a minimal degree of conventionality when only isolated individuals begin to use it, which increases as more and more users integrate it into their linguistic repertoires. The conventionality of a linguistic element is related to its unit status because in tan-dem these two factors contribute, if their magnitudes are high, to the status of an ele-ment as firmly established in a given language, or, if their magnitudes are low, to its status as novel (Langacker 2008a, pp. 20–21). Following the discussion of grammar as consisting of conventional linguistic units, the CG view of grammar/language as a repository of such units characterized by a certain structure will now be presented.

2.4 Grammar as a Structured Inventory of Conventional Linguistic Units

In Langacker’s theory, the inventory of linguistic units that constitutes the gram-mar of a given language is structured. This means that it is not simply a set of iso-lated, self-contained elements, but rather a kind of a system with its own internal organization and “logic.” This organization is provided by a limited set of relations that obtain between the three kinds of linguistic structures identified earlier: pho-nological, semantic, and symbolic. Such units may be related to one another by virtue of only three kinds of relations: symbolization, categorization and composi-tion (Langacker 1987, pp. 73–75; 1999b, p. 98). They are discussed in more detail in the two subsections below.

2.4.1 Symbolization: Semantic and Phonological Space

Symbolization, already introduced in a preliminary fashion in Sect. 2.3.1, seems to be the most straightforward of the three kinds of relations. It simply consists in establishing a correspondence between an element in the so-called semantic space and another element in the so-called phonological space (Langacker 1987, p. 77). As a result, these two elements form a bi-polar symbolic entity and con-stitute its semantic and phonological poles. To fully understand symbolization as conceived of by CG, as well as the other relations that obtain between symbolic units and between their components, it is necessary to grasp the essential attributes of the two kinds of spaces and the basic characteristics of the elements that inhabit them. Since phonological space may be regarded as a subregion of semantic space (Langacker 1987, p. 79), and because its specific details are beyond the scope of

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20 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

the present work and not very relevant in its context, the following account will center almost exclusively on semantic space. In the course of its discussion the nature of such additional important CG notions, constructs and beliefs as semantic units, encyclopedic semantics, the profile/base alignment and the false linguistics/pragmatics dichotomy will be presented.

Semantic space may be thought of “as the multifaceted field of conceptual potential within which thought and conceptualization unfold” (Langacker 1987, p. 76) and it consists of multiple cognitive domains (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 147ff). The explication of the character of cognitive domains, these building blocks of semantic space, is a key to elucidating the nature of the space itself. Cognitive domains may be usefully divided into basic and non-basic domains. Basic domains are “irreducible realms of experiential potential” (Langacker 1999b, p. 2) with which human beings are endowed. Some straightforward examples of such domains are time, space, the color spectrum, the pitch scale, vision, taste, smell, etc., or, rather, the range of experience of these phenomena accessible to humans. Basic domains serve as backgrounds in relation to which various concepts may be defined. These concepts, distinguished against the backdrop of basic domains, constitute non-basic domains13 and may in turn serve as bases for the definition of other, higher-order concepts, which likewise constitute further non-basic domains (Langacker 1987, p. 150). This process of employing a concept as a cognitive domain in terms of which, or against the backdrop of which another is established may continue indefinitely, resulting in the creation of concepts of progressively higher orders. Non-basic domains are essentially equivalent to frames, scenes, schemas, scenarios, etc. distinguished in other theoretical models (Langacker 1987, p. 150n).14 To sum things up, semantic space, made up by multiple cogni-tive domains, both basic and non-basic, may be thought of as the ultimate concep-tual “area” within which multiple “subareas,” or concepts, may be delineated.

After the introduction of the concept of semantic space, the related notion of a semantic unit will be considered. A semantic unit, or a linguistically relevant con-cept (cf. Langacker 2008a, p. 25), typically consists of specifications in multiple cognitive domains. For example, the concept inherent in the word sister consists of specifications in at least the following domains: kinship relations, the biological/social domain of sex/gender, living organisms (non-basic domains) and three-dimensional space (basic domain).15 In the kinship network [SISTER] is specified by being in the sibling relation to an ego (it has the same parents as ego), in the sex/gender domain it is defined as female/feminine, in the taxonomy of living organisms it is specified as probably a mammal and likely a human, and in

13 Non-basic domains used to be called (in multiple works on CG) abstract domains. However, Langacker (2008a, p. 45n) admits the latter term’s infelicity and abandons it in preference to the former.14 One example of a frame is the Fillmorian commercial transaction frame (Fillmore 1977) in terms of which the meanings of such verbs as buy, charge and spend must be defined.15 Langacker (1987, pp. 184–186) provides a discussion of a similar example, uncle, on which the present treatment of sister draws.

21

three-dimensional space it is specified as a body of a certain shape and size. For illustrative purposes, the first of these specifications, i.e. the one in the kinship net-work, is rendered diagrammatically in Fig. 2.1,16 which includes a portion of kin-ship relations necessary for the characterization of [SISTER]. The network is itself based on a fairly complex area of knowledge including mating, reproduction, par-ent–child relations, sibling relations and so on and so forth. The heavy-line circle indicates the focus of the semantic unit associated with sister. All the other specifi-cations for this unit in the remaining domains could be summarized diagrammati-cally in a similar fashion. Taken together, they form the concept’s matrix, which is understood in CG as the set of domains in terms of which a given concept is defined (Langacker 1987, p. 147). It will be clear from the discussion of the sister example that cognitive domains usually overlap in intricate ways to define a semantic unit, and, conversely, that a semantic concept may be viewed as an area of overlap of a number of cognitive domains.

It should be noted that not all the specifications in a number of different domains are equally central and equally entrenched for a given concept (Langacker 1987, pp. 164–165, 189). For instance, both crazy and insane may be used to refer to the same state of mind that is grossly deviant from what is consid-ered as norm. However, the specification of a mental disease in the domain of medically defined health problems figures much more centrally and is much more entrenched in the matrix of insane (strictly, of [INSANE]) than in that of crazy ([CRAZY]), where it is only marginally present. Conversely, the specification of foolish, reckless behavior resulting from the state of mind evoked by the two words figures a little more centrally and is a little more entrenched in the matrix of crazy than in that of insane. From these considerations it follows that in CG the characterization of a concept by a specification in a domain, which may be more

16 Figure 2.1 is modeled on a figure by Langacker (1987, p. 185) concerning a different kinship term, uncle.

SISTER

KINSHIP NETWORK

e

e

= male

= female

= unspecified gender

= ego

Fig. 2.1 Semantic pole of sister in the domain of kinship relations

2.4 Grammar as a Structured Inventory of Conventional Linguistic Units

22 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

or less central and entrenched, is a matter of degree.17 This fact evokes, meshes with and prepares ground for the introduction of the specific model of linguistic semantics adopted by CG, whose exposition in the next paragraph will further illu-minate the theory’s understanding of semantic units, and, indirectly, of semantic space and therefore of linguistic symbolization.

CG features an encyclopedic view of linguistic semantics (Langacker 1987, p. 63, 154ff). In contrast to many other theories, this view does not ascribe a neatly delineated, forever-fixed dictionary meaning to a linguistic item which is clearly distinguished from “extralinguistic” knowledge concerning the object of its desig-nation. Rather, it conceives of linguistic meaning, or the semantic pole of a sym-bolic unit, as an essentially open-ended subpart of the entirety of our knowledge. In a truly encyclopedic fashion, this meaning shades away into other areas of knowledge that are progressively less and less centrally relevant to a given linguis-tic unit. This encyclopedic conception of linguistic semantics will be best further explained by discussing an example. The discussion will also shed light on the important CG notion of profiling.

The example to be employed here is yet again the word sister. In CG, every lin-guistic expression, including the lexical item sister ([[SISTER]/[sister]]), desig-nates, or profiles, a certain element in the person’s conceptual universe, which thereby receives special salience, some kind of focal prominence (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 183ff). This salient element, the expression’s profile, is typically character-ized by multiple specifications in its matrix of cognitive domains and is by (CG) convention indicated by heavy-lining in pictorial representations (as in Fig. 2.1).18 The domains in the matrix are, as has been said, necessarily evoked for the charac-terization of the profile and are effectively constitutive, together with some others with which they link and into which they shade in a non-discrete fashion, of the lan-guage user’s entire knowledge complex. In the present example, the profile, which is the conception of a female human being sharing parents with another human being, is characterized by specifications in multiple domains, the most prominent of which have already been identified and are repeated here for convenience: kinship relations, the biological/social domain of sex/gender, living organisms and three-dimensional space. In addition to being characterized by numerous specifications, the profile may also be viewed as a point of entry into the vast expanse of a person’s knowledge, a point which will be presently elaborated. As the discussion of this example shows, the meaning of a linguistic element, because of the existence of a chain of linked domains, is open-ended rather than strictly limited.

Since, as has just been implied, the characterization of the encyclopedic view of linguistic semantics involves reference to the notion of knowledge, and since its understanding facilitates further explication of the nature of semantic units, it seems worthwhile at this point to present the CG conception of knowledge. Langacker (1987, p. 162) proposes to view a person’s knowledge in terms of a

17 It seems that the lower the degree to which a given concept is characterized by a specification, the more numerous such specifications are.18 The convention is followed throughout the book.

23

network model. In this model, conceived entities constitute nodes in a network, and conceived relationships between any two entities are arcs between nodes. The model’s complex structure derives from the fact that any relationship between any two nodes may itself be an entity linked with some other node. This and other related characteristics of the model contribute to the fact that “knowledge struc-tures grow to be extraordinarily intricate and convoluted” (Langacker 1987, p. 163). This understanding of knowledge in CG provides for and facilitates the appreciation of the concept of semantic base, which is complementary with the already introduced notion of profile and enables its fuller understanding, as well as a better understanding of semantic units in general. Thus, the semantics of sister is further discussed in the following paragraph in the light of the CG view of knowl-edge just presented.

The entity profiled by the lexical unit sister, just as the profile of a linguistic expression of any size and complexity, is considered to be a node in the system of knowledge. Because of its multiple links with other elements (nodes) in the matrix of domains evoked for its definition, it constitutes an access node on the occasion of the use of the symbolic unit sister, which means that it is a point of access to the whole system of knowledge (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 163). This access node, or the expression’s profile, however, should not be confused with (or taken for) its mean-ing; the meaning of the expression is constituted by the entire configuration of the profile standing “in bas-relief” (after Langacker 1987, p. 183, who ascribes this wording to Susan Lindner) against the background (or “surface”) of the expres-sion’s conceptual base, which is the conceptual context necessarily evoked for the characterization of the profile. Thus, it is the so-called profile/base alignment, i.e. the relationship between the profile and the base, which constitutes a fairly com-plete characterization of the word’s semantic value. This alignment is illustrated in Figs. 2.2 and 2.3, which represent the meanings of circle and arc, respectively. While circle takes two-dimensional space as its base, arc requires the notion of a circle ([CIRCLE]) in this capacity. An example of the profile/base relationship is also provided by Fig. 2.1, which shows the profile of sister displayed against a part of its base provided by the kinship network. Further details of the notion of base explain why it is only possible to speak of “a fairly complete” characterization of a linguistic element’s meaning, rather than speak of it in more absolute terms.

It should be emphasized that the conceptual base, which is one component of the profile/base alignment, is fundamentally an open-ended subpart of semantic space rather than a clearly delineated one (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 161ff). This fact has already been hinted at and it explains why the meaning of sister and the meanings of other expressions cannot be in principle reduced to a single strictly defined portion of the entire knowledge network. To demonstrate this virtual open-endedness, it may be useful to consider the following chain of links in the knowledge network implied by sister. The semantic value of this word includes the specification of a female (i.e. [FEMALE]) in the gender domain,19 which, following the view of knowledge

19 The possible distinction between the biological category of sex and the social category of gen-der is ignored here.

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24 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

adopted here, is a node with which, in addition to many others, the access node of sister is linked. This node in the gender domain is in turn linked with other numerous nodes, including the one specifying the capacity to conceive and bear children, which is typically posited as one of the defining specifications for (the semantic concept) [FEMALE]. The concept of child bearing in its turn links with still others including, through the possible mediation of the concept of child care, the specification of a maternity leave in the domain of employment, which further links with (and there-fore implies) a temporary vacancy. Stopping this journey along a conceptual path at this point, which is obviously an arbitrary decision because it could in principle con-tinue indefinitely, it must be concluded that sister is capable of activating the concep-tion of a temporary vacancy. In a similar vein, any other linguistic expression may in principle activate, by virtue of the indeterminacy of its (broadly understood) base, conceptual elements only weakly and indirectly related to its core semantic value.

Although such activation of a conceptually remote semantic specification is possible, it has to be admitted that it is not very probable on most occasions when linguistic expressions are uttered. What makes this kind of activation unlikely in the case of sister, and parallel remarks may be offered in relation to any other expression, are the indirectness of linkage and the “distance” of the concept of a temporary vacancy, or the node representing it in the knowledge system, from the node representing the profile of sister. The likelihood may increase, however, if special properties of the linguistic or situational context arise which will high-light the indirect relationship of the profile of sister with the particular semantic

Fig. 2.3 Semantic pole of arc (adapted from Langacker 1987, p. 184)

CIRCLE

Fig. 2.2 Semantic pole of circle (adapted from Langacker 1987, p. 184)

SPACE

25

specification of a temporarily vacant position. If this is not the case, the concept of a job vacancy figures only extremely peripherally in the meaning of sister due to the great conceptual “distance” and the concomitant difference between the two nodes. The sister example just discussed suggests the conclusion that every semantic node is linked with every other node, irrespective of how distant and indirect this relationship may be. For all intents and purposes, though, there is usually no need to include the more peripheral specifications in the expression’s semantic description. Restricting such descriptions of the base to these specifi-cations and relationships that figure centrally in the semantics of a given unit is the practical and realistic norm. The above discussion implies, however, that a description of the meaning of an expression is never exhaustive.

Langacker (1987, pp. 155–158) marshals several substantial arguments for the encyclopedic conception of linguistic semantics sketched above, one of which will be discussed here because it highlights the unfounded nature of the strict differenti-ation between linguistics and pragmatics.20 The argument is that the encyclopedic view of semantics neatly accommodates different uses of a linguistic item or a combination of items; in different usage events21 different specifications in diverse domains (different parts of the network) may be reached through the access node of the profile and activated with various degrees of intensity. It is instructive to consider in this connection the sentence The cat is on the mat, which is an example of Langacker’s (1987, p. 155), and his discussion of the possible meanings thereof:

Prototypically it describes a situation where a mat is spread out on the ground and a cat is lying on it. Already there is indefinite variability, since the cat can be of any size, coloring, or subspecies; the mat is similarly variable; the cat can assume many different postures; and so on. But this is only the beginning. Possibly the mat is rolled up in a bun-dle and the cat is sitting or lying (etc.) on top of it. Maybe the operator of a slide show has just managed to project the image of a cat onto a mat being used for a makeshift screen. The sentence is appropriate in a mat factory where a worker has just finished decorating a mat with the outline of a feline. Conceivably a wrestler is holding an exhibi-tion match with a tiger and has just succeeded in pinning its shoulders to the floor of the ring. The possibilities are obviously endless.

All these diverse meanings are possible because of the open-endedness of seman-tic structure, which is predicted by the encyclopedic view of semantics exploit-ing the network view of knowledge. Cat, for instance, will have different profile/base alignments under different uses/interpretations of the example sentence given by Langacker. For instance, under the cat-on-the-mat-in-the-factory interpretation, the profile is the conception of the image of a cat, while under the-wrestling-tiger interpretation the profile is the conception of a tiger. Differences of comparable magnitude may be cited for the bases of the two profiles. To conclude, then, in CG contextually-determined meaning is part of every usage event, and since language is usage-based, this kind of meaning necessarily contributes to the meanings of conventional linguistic units, which are extrapolated from actual usage practice.

20 This is another dichotomy, in addition to the ones mentioned in Sect. 2.3.2, eschewed by CG.21 The term usage event is explained in more detail in Sect. 2.5.

2.4 Grammar as a Structured Inventory of Conventional Linguistic Units

26 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

More generally, the conclusion is that in CG, rather than be strictly distinct, the linguistic and the pragmatic form a continuum.

As mentioned earlier, semantic space, made up by multiple cognitive domains, actually subsumes phonological space (Langacker 1987, p. 79), which is indispen-sable for the creation of symbolic units of linguistic nature. Phonological space constitutes this subpart of semantic, or conceptual, space which is responsible for our capacity to process sounds, including speech sounds (Langacker 1987, p. 76). Phonological space is far less complicated than semantic space by virtue of a much more restricted variety of concepts whose existence it supports. They are all auditory22 and include the whole spectrum of linguistic sound elements. Being part of semantic space, phonological space is subject to the same basic principles of organization. Since the present discussion does not require a detailed considera-tion of its idiosyncrasies, phonological space, as already signaled, will not be char-acterized in any substantial detail here. It should just be recalled that both kinds of spaces prove necessary for the emergence of symbolic linguistic units, which, to repeat, involve a correspondence between an element in semantic space and one in phonological space.

It should be borne in mind that conceiving of our conceptual functioning in terms of “spaces,” and of concepts and semantic units as open-ended subparts of these spaces defined in terms of nodes and inter-node relations in a network, is just a convenient metaphor employed by CG. Therefore, remarks similar to the ones made earlier with reference to grammar (see Sect. 2.2) also apply here. Specifically, conceptual structure ultimately reduces to neurological activity and any terms such as space, domain, concept, element in a space, etc. are intended to facilitate the discussion of inherently dynamic, mental processes. Being processual, they are not object-like elements fixed somewhere in the mind or brain; rather, they are enacted by cognitive routines ultimately describ-able in terms of neurological, i.e. electrochemical, activity (Langacker 1987, p. 100).23

2.4.2 Categorization

Following the discussion of symbolization and related phenomena, the second type of relations between linguistic elements that make a grammar a structured inventory of linguistic units—categorization—will be considered. Because of its structure-imposing function, but also because of its importance for understanding the overall framework of CG, including its perspective on language use (discussed

22 In some cases at least their auditory specifications may be combined with motor-kinesthetic specifications responsible for articulatory routines.23 See note 3 above.

27

briefly in Sect. 2.5) (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 369), it is essential to appreciate the view of categorization adopted by CG. The theory’s understanding of this process is an alternative to the classical criterial-attribute model of categorization based on specifying attributes that are necessary and sufficient for category membership. Since this traditional model of categorization has been shown by many linguists to be inadequate for natural language (e.g. Lakoff 1987; Taylor 1995), in CG cat-egorization is modeled on two alternative and related categorization types, namely on categorization by schema and on categorization by prototype (Langacker 1987, pp. 370–373). The former, also known as elaboration, involves the relation between a schema and its instantiations, i.e. between a general category and more specific instances of this category, there being no conflict whatsoever between the two. The latter, also known as extension, involves the relation between a category prototype and more peripheral members of the category, which diverge from, or conflict with the prototype, to a greater or lesser extent. What needs to be demon-strated at this juncture is how categorization of these two sorts contributes to the establishment of schematic networks that cement the elements of a language into a structured linguistic system.

Roughly speaking, symbolic units of a language categorize various elements of reality; this, however, is not what lends a sense of structure to language. To get to the roots of structuring in language, it is necessary to realize that, in addition to categorizing extra-linguistic reality, linguistic elements themselves constitute cat-egories that participate in a great number of categorizing relations with other units in two obvious ways: they categorize other elements and are in turn subject to cat-egorization by some others (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 369ff). Because categoriza-tion lends structure to a linguistic system, this section focuses, in a fairly detailed manner, on categorizing relations affecting semantic, phonological and symbolic units. In the course of this discussion, the CG view of the fundamental linguis-tic categories known as word classes (or lexical categories) will receive extensive exposition. Because of its significance for understanding the CG view of word classes, the discussion will also shed some light on the important CG notion of linguistic construal.

2.4.2.1 Categorization of Semantic and Phonological Units

It is a truism to claim that human beings excel at categorization; this is reflected in, among other things, the imposing size and intricate structure of their concep-tual world. As large parts of this immense, structured, conceptual universe lend themselves to linguistic expression and thereby constitute semantic poles of sym-bolic linguistic units, these conceptual areas must also be ascribed the same kind of structural organization induced by categorization (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 373ff). As a simple example of categorization by schema structuring semantic space one might think of the semantic pole of the word house, i.e. [HOUSE]. It is a schema whose many elaborations (instantiations) include the concepts symbol-ized by terraced house, semi-detached house, detached house, bungalow, etc.

2.4 Grammar as a Structured Inventory of Conventional Linguistic Units

28 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

At the same time, however, [HOUSE] itself, together with concepts designated by warehouse, supermarket, stable, barracks, etc., is an elaboration of, among others, the notion symbolized by building ([BUILDING]). Obviously, such networks of schematic relations are much larger and more elaborate as they extend much fur-ther in both the “upward” (or schematic) and “downward” (or concrete) direc-tions,24 and as in principle there is no limit to their growth in either direction. Because a single concept usually participates in numerous schema-instance rela-tions, schematic networks of the sort just exemplified usually cross-cut. To return to the above example, i.e. [HOUSE], in addition to being an instantiation of [BUILDING], it is also, together with the meaning of land ([LAND]), apartment ([APARTMENT]), etc., an instantiation of [REAL PROPERTY]. Descriptions similar to those applying to the examples just discussed pertain to the whole of semantic structure, as this kind of categorization by schema is commonplace among the elements of semantic space. The result is the emergence of numerous overlapping networks that ultimately constitute a single huge network of catego-rizing relationships.

Given the fact that phonological concepts make up a subset of semantic space, similar structuring is ascribed by CG to phonological poles of linguistic units (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 389ff). A classic and obvious example are the relations of schematicity between phonemes and their allophones. Some other examples of categorization by schema among phonological elements are relations between different classes of speech sounds. For instance, the concept of a consonant is an instantiation of a more general conception of a speech sound and simulta-neously it is schematic for such classes of consonants as obstruents, nasals and approximants. Following Taylor (2002, p. 155), it is worth noting that not just individual elements of phonological space such as segments, syllables and into-nation contours are subject to categorization; the same kinds of relations may affect categorizing relations of elaboration (categorization by schema) and exten-sion (categorization by prototype) themselves. One example that Taylor (2002, pp. 156–157) cites is that of the schematicity relation between the English voice-less stop phonemes and their allophones. The fact that every English voiceless stop phoneme (/p/, /t/ and /k/) has an aspirated (word-initially, especially in a stressed syllable) and an unaspirated (following a syllable-initial /s/) allophone presumably supports the extraction of a higher order categorization relation between the concept of a voiceless stop phoneme and the conception of its two allophones: an aspirated one and an unaspirated one. This relation is a schema elaborated by (or a pattern schematic for) the relations of schematicity between the specific voiceless stop phonemes and their particular allophones. To sum up, in CG, phonological space, just as semantic space of which it is a subpart, is structured by relations of categorization, which results in its elements, character-ized by various degrees of schematicity, being organized in numerous complex networks of categorization.

24 It is common to think about such paradigmatic relations as vertical, with syntagmatic relations of composition, discussed in Sect. 2.4.2.6, regarded as horizontal.

29

2.4.2.2 Categorization of Symbolic Units: Word Classes

Schema-instance relations exemplified above with respect to semantic and phono-logical space, as well as prototype-extension relations, are also the staple of lin-guistic organization when it comes to symbolic units, i.e. language structures more complex than purely phonological and purely semantic ones in that they combine a semantic and a phonological element. The discussion of their categorization in the present section highlights CG’s unorthodox understanding of the traditional parts of speech. This understanding is original in two ways. First, according to CG, word classes are defined by their respective word-category schemas, which are understood to be nothing else but symbolic units, on a par in this respect with specific lexical items that are their elaborations and different from them only with regard to the level of schematicity at which their specifications are established (Langacker 1987, p. 189). The second source of originality of the CG under-standing of lexical categories has to do with showing the inadequacy of what has become common knowledge among many linguists, namely the view that lexical classes defy neat definitions that apply uniformly to all the members of a given class (cf. Croft 2000). While it is relatively unproblematic to define a prototypical member of a lexical category in notional, morphological and distributional terms (cf. Hopper and Thompson 1984; Radford 1988, 2009), given the existence of scores of members of any particular class diverging from the prototype in diverse and numerous ways, it seems virtually impossible to devise a schema general enough to cover all of them. However, in addition to defining the prototypes of the most important word classes, CG is able to overcome this problem and propose word-category schemas applying to all the members of a given class (Langacker 1987, p. 189). The ensuing discussion will demonstrate both of these two uncon-ventional characteristics of the CG view of the parts of speech.

As signaled above, symbolic units, including lexical items, are structured by relations of categorization in a fashion parallel to the structuring of the remaining two types of linguistic structures. For instance, specific nouns such as woman ([[WOMAN]/[woman]]) and water ([[WATER]/[water]]) are subsumed by higher order schematic categories of count ([[REPLICATE THING]/[…]]) and non-count ([[HOMOGENOUS MASS]/[…]]) nouns respectively, which are in turn in a schema-instance relation with a category of an even higher order, namely that of nouns ([[THING]/[…]]).25 This category, together with others such as the verb, adjective and adverb categories, is an instantiation of the highly abstract category of words. Some of these relationships are shown in Fig. 2.4, which is a partial classification of lexical units of English. It includes the basic subdivisions within the major word classes of nouns and verbs, and it follows the following conven-tions: the upper part of a box expresses the semantic pole of a symbolic unit, while

25 The nature of most of these units is explained in more detail later in the section. For now, it should be noted that [THING], [REPLICATE THING] and [HOMOGENOUS MASS] are highly abstract notions, and […] stands for a schematic phonological structure, “little more than the presence of ‘some phonological content’” in Langacker’s (2002, p. 17) words.

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30 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

the bottom part stands for the phonological pole; three dots enclosed in a box sym-bolize maximally schematic (semantic or phonological) content; and three unboxed dots abbreviate indefinitely many additional members of a given class that are not listed. It has to be stressed here that this partial hierarchy of word-like linguistic structures corresponding to a part of the conceptual space of speakers of English is a taxonomy of symbolic structures, each combining a semantic and a phonological pole. The exact values of these semantic poles are presented in sub-sequent sections, where the particular parts of speech are discussed.

In CG, the often variegated morphological and syntactic behavior of mem-bers of a given part of speech, which is a problem with most accounts of word classes, is taken to be only symptomatic, and not definitional, of their underlying, shared semantic character (Langacker 2008a, pp. 128, 131, 155). This semantic commonality, the shared conceptual core uniting all the members of the class is, given their diversity, naturally highly abstract (Langacker 2008a, p. 95). What is more, the schematic, abstract charac-terization, instead of making reference to the sheer content of the seman-tic poles of units in a given lexical class (cf. Langacker 2008a, p. 98), focuses on how that content is construed (cf. Langacker 2008a, pp. 95, 112) and ultimately refers to the underlying cognitive processing (Langacker 1987, p. 183) as well as the cognitive abilities which support this processing (cf. Langacker 2008a, p. 103). The notion of construal, which refers to the man-ner of viewing semantic content (cf. Langacker 2008a, p. 55ff), is granted a very important role in CG and, for this reason, it receives detailed treatment extending beyond its significance for parts of speech in Sect. 2.6.2. The next section first offers the CG description of the prototype of the first word class, the category of

PERFECTIVE PROCESS

...

Schematicperfective verb

IMPERFECTIVE PROCESS

...

Schematicimperfective verb

HOMOGENEOUSMASS

...

Schematicmass noun

REPLICATE THING

...

Schematiccount noun

THING

...

Schematicnoun

...

...

Schematicword

PROCESS

...

Schematicverb ...

...WATER

water

...WOMAN

woman

RESEMBLE

resemble

... ...CLOSE

close

Fig. 2.4 Partial taxonomy of lexical units of English

31

nouns, as its appreciation provides clues to understanding the emergence of the overall noun category schema. This is followed by the focus on the high degree of abstractness of this schema and the role of construal in its establishment.

2.4.2.3 Nouns

As remarked earlier, the network of schematic relations among the symbolic units of a language is quite complex, as is a subpart of this network accounting for a particu-lar part of speech. The prototype of a word class is understood in CG to be one ele-ment of such a network, albeit one with a special degree of prominence bestowed upon it by its archetypal character (Langacker 1999b, p. 9). In the case of nouns, it is a symbolic unit whose phonological pole, characterized as having any phonological content, is extremely schematic, while its semantic pole is a schematic conception of a physical object (Langacker 1999b, p. 10). According to Langacker (1999b, p. 10), this archetypal noun prototype reflects a presumably inborn human cognitive “capac-ity for grouping a set of entities and manipulating them as a unitary entity for higher-order purposes.” This ability is responsible for the permeation of human experience by the perception of physical objects and the permeation of human thought by their conception. It is exactly the primacy and ubiquity of such perception and conception which gives the prototype, a schematic physical object, its archetypal quality, and thus its salience. The subsequent application of this basic ability to non-basic domains other than three-dimensional space and the visual plane eventually necessi-tates the extraction of the overall category schema. The process of applying the basic ability to such non-basic domains may also be viewed as relying on categorization by prototype. Every act of categorization of this sort, which consists in observing some degree of similarity between the prototype and a non-prototypical entity, results in category extension to form a higher order entity of a greater degree of schematicity. An indefinite series of such acts has resulted in the establishment of the highest-order noun schema (the mechanism is the same in the case of other parts of speech), which, as will be presently shown, is of a highly abstract nature.26

In the case of nouns, the category schema includes, just as the category pro-totype, a very general specification at the phonological pole (i.e. the specifica-tion of any phonological content) and the specification of a thing at the semantic pole (see Fig. 2.4) (Langacker 1987, p. 189). In other words, the noun category schema, just as all the subclasses of nouns that it categorizes and all individual, actual nouns, profiles (designates) a thing (the concept [THING]). This abstractly understood conception of a thing is defined in CG as a region in some domain (Langacker 1987, p. 189). To appreciate the highly abstract notion of a region in a domain, which is crucial for the comprehension of the noun schema instantiated by a diverse array of individual, actually occurring nouns, it seems best to turn to Langacker’s (1987, p. 198) characterization of the concept:

26 The same remarks concerning the operation of extension in the establishment of the category schema apply to verbs and other word classes. The verb prototype is discussed in one of the sub-sequent sections.

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32 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

A region will be defined as a set of interconnected entities. The requisite notion of inter-connection is explicated with reference to event coordination (4.3.4): conceived entities are interconnected when the cognitive events constituting their conception are coordinated as components of a higher-level event. Recall that events are coordinated in a variety of ways: by simple association, through various operations (e.g. scanning, focal adjustment), or by incorporation as constituents of a more elaborate conception (e.g. a conceived rela-tionship). It is important to observe that these interconnections (i.e. the coordinating oper-ations or relationships) are not themselves profiled by a nominal predication; they serve to establish a set of entities as a region, but are not per se constitutive of the region. Note fur-ther that the profiling of the interconnected entities is collective: the region as a whole (the full set of entities) functions as a designatum and constitutes one instance of the [THING] category [emphases original, JB and MP].

Certain important characteristics of the above CG definition of the noun category schema are discussed below, as this will shed further light on the schema itself.

Three significant features of the noun schema definition which contribute to the schema’s highly abstract, universal character need to be elaborated upon here. First, the term entity occurring in the characterization of the schema, which may seem to be imprecise or even vague and may therefore resist straightforward inter-pretation, should be clearly defined. It is used here in a “maximally general sense” (Langacker 1987, p. 198) and basically covers anything that may be conceptual-ized; it may therefore refer to such phenomena as sensations, relationships, inter-connections, points or values on a scale, etc. Second, to avoid the trap of forming a biased characterization by focusing unduly on some noun types at the expense of others, this definition makes reference not so much to the specifics of the contents of conception as to the construal of, i.e. a specific way of viewing, semantic mate-rial. In particular, reference is made to profiling, one aspect of construal which was discussed in considerable detail in Sect. 2.4.1. Third, and guarding against the same bias as the previous attribute, the above definition of the noun schema resorts to cognitive events27 constitutive of noun conceptualizations. All of these charac-teristics, i.e. the maximally general understanding of entities, and reference to con-strual and cognitive events, make the schema general enough to be applicable across the wide and diverse spectrum of the whole noun category.

Given the above, in addition to nouns approximating the category prototype, i.e. those designating physical objects, a very broad and heterogeneous array of nouns are accommodated and easily covered by the maximally general definition of the noun schema just offered. To illustrate this point, several examples will be dis-cussed, most of which derive from Langacker (1987, pp. 199–202). First, there are nouns designating regions in basic domains other than three-dimensional space: circle and line profile regions in two-dimensional space; spot and stripe profile things in the visual field; moment and period profile regions in the domain of time; and red and blue regions in the color (hue) spectrum. Second, the schema covers many nouns which designate things (regions) delineated in non-basic domains. For instance, the words January, C-sharp, paragraph, and knuckle designate regions in

27 It should be recalled that cognitive events are ultimately implemented by patterns of neural activation.

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such non-basic domains as the conception of a calendar, a musical scale, a written work, and the human hand. Third, nouns such as hole and pause, which may seem not to designate anything that might be termed a thing under the commonsensical interpretation of the term, profile regions made up of the sensation of absence of a certain substance and activity respectively. These sensations of absence in the domains of space and time are contiguous and thereby connected, which makes the two words’ designata things, as defined by CG. The next example is the word constellation, a noun that profiles a set of stars that may be extremely distant from one another and even interspersed in the visual field with stars that are not part of the constellation. Although these facts may seem to prevent the profile of constel-lation from being considered as a region, the designated stars are in fact intercon-nected by jointly forming a certain image. The last example is the word team and other similar nouns (band, gang, etc.), again designating seemingly unrelated enti-ties, which, however, constitute a region made up by individuals related (intercon-nected) by virtue of participating in a cooperative enterprise of some sort. In sum, the noun category schema applies to virtually any noun, including nouns whose regions are established in heterogeneous ways in a diverse array of domains.

Following a fairly detailed treatment of the semantic pole of the noun category schema, some discussion of its phonological pole is in order. Despite the fact that Langacker (2002, p. 17) ascribes a specific (although abstract) value only to the semantic pole of a schematic noun, leaving the phonological pole of this element maximally schematic [saying that it involves some (any) phonological content, which is symbolized by the three boxed dots of Fig. 2.4], an attempt to characterize this constituent of the English noun schema in more palpable terms was made by Taylor (2002, pp. 180–185). Specifically, his experimentally derived statistical contrastive analysis of English noun and verb phonology provides some clues that might lead to the postulation of a more specific phonological pole of the noun category schema. To illustrate what this phonological element might look (or sound) like, a summary of Taylor’s (2002, pp. 180–185) findings with respect to the phonology of English nouns as compared with that of verbs will now be presented. First, both mono- and polymorphemic English nouns tend to be relatively long (longer than verbs). Second, these English nouns which have an obstruent as a final sound are likely to end in a voiceless rather than a voiced one, and an exactly reversed pattern applies to verbs. Third, disyllabic nouns, in contrast to English verbs, are usually stressed on the first syllable. Fourth, high-frequency nouns tend to have non-front vowels in their stressed syllables, which once again is a pattern exactly reversed in the case of English verbs. Taking all these findings into account, one may conclude that the characterization of the phonological pole of the English noun category schema might include all of the above features of English noun phonology, which would make it more specific than Langacker’s stipulation that it contains any phonological content.28

28 For reasons of economy, the subsequent discussions of the other word class schemas will not make reference to their phonological poles. It should be generally assumed that they are likewise specified in highly schematic terms. The discussion of the phonological pole of the noun schema was included to give an idea of how CG handles such matters.

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Two basic, traditionally distinguished and widely recognized subclasses of nouns were mentioned in the discussion of the schematic network of word-sized symbolic units (see Fig. 2.4). They are the classes of count and non-count (mass) nouns and they will be discussed at this juncture for two major reasons. The first one is that the distinction between them is semantically based and highlights the semantic motivation of linguistic phenomena that is characteristic of CG. The second reason is the fact that the contrast between these two noun subclasses is accompanied by a parallel one among English verbs and is needed for its proper presentation, which is in turn necessary because this verb distinction is the focus of the subsequent chapter.

The difference between count and non-count nouns is explained in CG with ref-erence to how their semantic content is construed with respect to the notion of bounding, which involves setting a limit to the set of interconnected entities that constitute a region in some domain,29 which, in turn, precludes its indefinite exten-sion (Langacker 1987, p. 201). Count nouns are said to designate regions that are bounded in their bases (Langacker 1987, p. 189). The bounding characteristic of count nouns may be effected in two different ways: the limit may be imposed by factors either internal or external to the region. For instance, while constellation profiles a region that is bounded by the internal configuration of interconnections between the stars constitutive of the region, spot designates a region that is deline-ated by reason of contrast with its surroundings with respect to such parameters as color and brightness. In sharp contrast to count nouns, non-count nouns are believed to profile regions not specifically bounded in their bases, or, to use an alternative term, in their scopes of predication (Langacker 1987, p. 203). The dif-ference that the two major subclasses of nouns display with respect to bounding accounts for a further contrast that results in different patterns of grammatical behavior of their members.

The contrast in question results from the difference between the construal of regions as bounded and unbounded and has consequences for the grammati-cal property of pluralization. Count noun concepts are distinguished by the fea-ture of replicability (Langacker 1987, p. 204). A bounded region that such a noun designates constitutes a separate instance of some type of a thing and if need arises to refer to a greater number of the specimens of the type, to “more” of the type as it were, it is necessary to conceptualize two or more instances of it, since one bounded and thereby discrete instance is always exhausted at some point in the process of incrementation. This characteristic of replicability, or “the possibility of multiple instances of the same category” in Langacker’s (1987, p. 204) words, is exploited in pluralization, which is, as is widely acknowledged, possible only with respect to count nouns, but not non-count nouns. The latter profile concepts which have the feature of indefinite expansibility and contract-ibility, which contrasts with replicability and means that any portion of a mass designated by a non-count noun is a valid instance of a given category (Langacker

29 In Langacker’s definition, a primary domain is mentioned in this connection, which is the most important domain for a given noun.

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1987, p. 204ff). This explains why with non-count nouns it is possible to use one noun form, which is regarded as neither singular nor plural, to denote different quantities of the designated “substance.” For example, the form wine may be used to refer not only to the contents of one bottle of the drink, but also to one drop of it as well as to the contents of an entire well-provisioned cellar without any need to resort to pluralization or any other grammatical device. It is, however, possi-ble to refer to a bounded portion of a region designated by a mass noun. It may be effected, for instance, by means of adding a partitive, as in a drop of wine, in which case the bounded region, just as count noun concepts, may be replicated and the corresponding noun phrase pluralized, as in several drops of wine. In sum, different grammatical properties of count and mass nouns, i.e. the fact that count nouns may be pluralized and non-count nouns are considered in CG as neither singular nor plural, are semantically motivated and follow from the former des-ignating replicable entities and the latter indefinitely expansible and contractible ones.

Causally related to the characteristic of indefinite expansibility/contractibility is yet another feature of mass noun concepts, namely their effective homogeneity (Langacker 1987, p. 205). Although, as Langacker (1987, p. 205) admits, a mass or substance designated by a non-count noun is seldom or never totally homog-enous because it may either be composed of small elements that may carry some individual features (such as individual blades of grass) or because certain portions of the mass may not be exactly identical, mass noun concepts are construed (by language users) at the level of schematicity at which the actual differences of this kind are ignored. Consequently, the mass designated by a non-count noun is con-strued as an undifferentiated, homogenous region, as the following remarks based on Langacker (1987, p. 205ff) concerning a number of examples make clear. For instance, nouns such as grass designate masses composed of an indefinite num-ber of small components, in this case blades of grass, which are all different from one another with respect to shape, size, etc., but are nevertheless conceptualized as uniform throughout their extension. Similar remarks are in fact true even of nouns whose profiles are not perceivably composed of such individuated sub-elements, e.g. water; no two drops or even particles of water are ever exactly identical, but the standard construal is of a homogeneous liquid. Furniture is another instruc-tive example. It designates a mass construed as such even though the subregions of this mass, i.e. different pieces of furniture such as chairs, tables, sofas, etc., are plainly different from one another. But construal takes precedence over objec-tive factors here; furniture is a mass noun because the shared function of various pieces of furniture allows speakers of English to conceive of them, at a certain level of schematicity, as an undifferentiated mass. Moreover, “effective homoge-neity is the source of indefinite expansibility and contractibility; [a]ny portion of a mass entity, however large or small, constitutes a valid instance of the category [original punctuation altered for clarity, JB and MP]” (Langacker 1987, p. 259). To conclude, the effective homogeneity ascribed by CG to diverse mass noun profiles, which is the source of contractibility/expansibility, is yet another important feature of non-count nouns.

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2.4.2.4 Relational Predications: Towards Defining Other Word Classes

As shown earlier, the schema for the whole category of nouns profiles a thing, and this property sets the category apart from the schemas for all other word classes. These other categories, which, similarly to nouns, are structured networks of word-sized symbolic units ultimately subsumed under the word schema, are thought in CG to designate relations rather than things (Langacker 2008a, p. 99). This means that they profile not solely sets of interconnected entities, but in addi-tion the interconnecting relations between them (Langacker 1987, pp. 215–216). The result is that in relational predications, in contrast to nominal ones, semantic content is construed in such a way that both the conceived entities (or participants) and the relations between them are highlighted.

More exactly, CG views relational symbolic units in the following, very specific terms. A unit of this sort typically involves and jointly profiles a configuration involving a specially prominent entity called trajector, one or more entities of sec-ondary prominence called landmark(s),30 and the interconnection (relation) between the two. The trajector is considered to be some kind of focal figure characterized by a high degree of salience and it stands out against the less salient landmark, which provides some kind of (back)ground (Langacker 1987, p. 217). It should be stressed that both the trajector and the landmark need not be things (conceptual regions); they are entities31 that may be either things or relations. A number of notions rele-vant to the present discussion are expressed diagrammatically in Fig. 2.5 in accord-ance with CG conventions; a circle is used to indicate a thing, a box stands for an entity and a line connecting two elements expresses a relation between them. The two kinds of relations shown in the figure should now be explained.

These two sorts of relational predications, whose understanding is indispensable for the appreciation of further word-class distinctions made in CG, are distinguished on the basis of the temporal status of the profiled relation (cf. Langacker 1987, p. 214). First, a relation may be atemporal, which means that it reduces to a single relational configuration that is not conceived of as persisting thorough time; hence the absence of the time arrow below the relevant part of Fig. 2.5. Atemporal relations are often thought of as states. Second, a relation may be processual, or temporal, by virtue of being construed as consisting of a sequence of relational configurations that extend through conceived time. This is marked by placing a time arrow below the last part of Fig. 2.5. Such a series of relational configurations, which may actually differ from one another, arises as a result of applying a mode of cognitive process-ing called sequential scanning (Langacker 1987, p. 145), which is discussed in more detail later, in Sect. 2.4.2.6, where the category of verbs is discussed. The difference between symbolic units with relational predications of the atemporal and processual types gives rise to the distinction between such lexical classes as adjectives, adverbs and prepositions, on the one hand, and verbs, on the other (Langacker 1987, p. 214).

30 In the majority of cases, there is only one landmark, so the ensuing general discussion of rela-tional predications will focus on cases of this sort.31 See the all-inclusive definition of an entity in Sect. 2.4.2.3.

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Before the second major lexical category, i.e. the class of verbs, characterized in CG as designating a process (a temporal relation) (Langacker 1987, p. 244), is discussed, it seems profitable to briefly focus on atemporal relations defining the categories of adjectives and adverbs, as these are conceptually less complex and therefore constitute a natural transition leading to the explication of the more complicated relations of a temporal kind. It was noted above that the trajector and landmark of a relation may be either things or relations. In fact, the categorization of a given symbolic unit with a stative (atemporal) relation at its semantic pole as an adjective or an adverb hinges on whether the trajector is a thing or a relation (Langacker 1987, p. 242).

2.4.2.5 Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives are defined in CG as profiling stative relations whose trajectors are things (Langacker 1987, p. 242). For instance, beautiful profiles the relation of association (or inclusion) between the trajector, which is a schematically defined thing, e.g. the concept of a view in a beautiful view, and the landmark, which in this particular case is, but need not be, another thing, namely a subpart of a scale of aesthetic judgment that is relatively distant from the subpart considered as a norm and located in the part of the scale indicating ascending positive aesthetic judgment.32 The semantic pole of this adjective as used in a beautiful view is ren-dered diagrammatically in Fig. 2.6, where the circle marked V stands schemati-cally for the meaning of a view. It should be stressed that the adjective beautiful designates the whole relation consisting of the trajector, the landmark and the rela-tion between them in the form of the specification that the trajector is included in (or associated with) the landmark. As in this example, in all adjectives the trajector is specifically a thing, while the landmark may be either a thing, as here, or a relation.

32 The analysis of beautiful (and of adjectives in general) offered here diverges from Langacker’s (1987, pp. 216–217, 227, 272–274) analysis of adjectives in certain subtle ways. For instance, to give justice to the full complexity of the CG analysis, reference would have to be made to the notion of active zones (cf. Langacker 1987, pp. 272–274). The simplification, encountered in many other works (cf. Broccias 2006, p. 87; Evans and Green 2006, p. 567), is made for exposi-tory clarity and coherence.

Fig. 2.5 Diagrammatic representation of basic CG notions (entities) (adapted from Langacker 1987, p. 220)

THING ENTITYSTATIVE

RELATION

tr

lm

PROCESS

tr

lm

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In contrast to adjectives, whose trajectors are things, adverbs profile atemporal relations whose trajectors are specifically relations (Langacker 1987, p. 242). For example, beautifully designates the relation of inclusion (or association) between the trajector, which is a schematically specified relation, and exactly the same region on the scale of aesthetic judgment as the one given above for the corresponding adjec-tive, which again is the landmark. As to the trajector of beautifully, two examples will be cited. In She dances beautifully the trajector is a process, hence a relation (of a processual type) profiled by the verb dance. The second example is the phrase a beautifully naked statue of Venus, whose trajector is an atemporal relation symbol-ized by the adjective naked, the details of which will not be elaborated on here. The meaning of beautifully in the above examples could be easily expressed in a pictorial form by replacing the view circle of Fig. 2.6 with symbols standing for the relevant relations; all the other elements would stay the same. Irrespective of whether their trajectors are temporal or atemporal relations, and both options are possible in the case of beautifully, all adverbs are characterized by their trajectors being relations.

2.4.2.6 Verbs

It should be noted that for the classes of adjectives and adverbs, whose schematic val-ues have just been presented, the category prototypes have not been discussed. To be sure, listing them is not impossible [for instance, the adjective prototype specifies a property (Langacker 2008a, p. 95)], but has been skipped here due to a lack of revela-tory character of these prototypes. Matters are different when it comes to the prototype of the verb category, which CG sees as “the archetypal conception of an asymmetri-cal energetic interaction, specifically an event in which an agent does something to a patient” (Langacker 1999b, p. 10). This prototype depends on two fundamental cognitive abilities: the ability to apprehend a relationship and to track it through time

Fig. 2.6 Semantic pole of beautiful in a beautiful view

lmtr )

NORM

BEAUTYVrelation of

association

scale of aestheticjudgment/sensation

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(Langacker 2008a, p. 104), which, just as in the case of their counterparts related to the noun prototype, make the verb prototype perceptually and conceptually basic and salient. In addition, because the same abilities are also applied to certain kinds of inter-actions between the agent and the patient which are different from energetic ones, the overall verb category schema is necessarily much more abstract.

In CG, the verb class schema has at its semantic pole a process, i.e. a relation with a positive temporal profile (see Fig. 2.4) (Langacker 1987, p. 244).33 This means that the relation is specifically construed as unfolding through conceived time. The conceptualization of such a relation requires the employment of a mode of cognitive processing called sequential scanning (it is dealt with in more detail in Sect. 2.6). This kind of processing is applied to a series of relational configura-tions of the simple sort described above for adjectives and adverbs, which are thus transformed sequentially one into another. Langacker’s (2002, pp. 78–79) words may be instructive in this connection:

The various phases of an evolving situation are examined serially, in noncumulative fash-ion; hence the conceptualization is dynamic, in the sense that its contents change from one instant to the next. At the level of cognitive events, we can suppose that events that represent a given scene remain active only momentaneously, and begin to decay as the fol-lowing scene is initiated.

In addition, it should be stressed that the component relations are conceived as occupying points in time ensuing one after another, which constitutes the posi-tive temporal profile defining the category of processual relations, i.e. verbs. Such a characterization of the verb category schema, similarly to the definition of the noun schema, makes crucial reference to construal and cognitive processing, which take precedence over the contents of conception.

Another similarity between the classes of nouns and verbs highlighted by CG is that the distinction between the two general types of nouns, count and non-count, has a corresponding equivalent in the form of a broad distinction within the verb category (Langacker 2008a, p. 128). The distinction, which is aspectual in nature, is that between perfective and imperfective verbs (and processes) (Langacker 2002, p. 87). As Langacker (1987, p. 254) remarks, because a process is a series of relations scanned through conceived time in a sequential fashion, words with pro-cessual profiles are ideal devices for describing change. And indeed, most verbs, called perfective verbs, refer to a change of one kind or another (Langacker 1987, p. 254). Individual relations of such verbs in the whole series of relational configu-rations that they profile are usually not all the same, and their non-identity consti-tutes the change in question. For instance, the verb close in The door closed designates a series of changing relations scanned sequentially through conceived time. In the initial configuration, the door (actually, only its three edges), which is

33 As is clear from Fig. 2.4, the verb schema’s phonological pole is, just as the noun schema’s (and any other lexical category’s), specified only in very schematic terms, i.e. as any phono-logical content. However, Taylor’s (2002, pp. 180–185) findings concerning the phonology of English nouns as compared with that of verbs, reviewed in Sect. 2.4.2.3, may be also taken as the basis for a more specific characterization of the phonological pole of the verb category schema.

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the trajector, is positioned away from the frame, the landmark, enabling passage. This relation between the door and the frame is followed by a number of relations in which the door is progressively closer to the frame, all of which are slightly dif-ferent from the initial one and from one another by virtue of the changing distance between the trajector (door) and the landmark (frame). In the final relation, which is also different from all the previous ones, the door touches the frame preventing passage.34 The conceptualizer’s registration of the disparities between the succes-sive relations constitutes the conception of change characteristic of perfective verbs and perfective processes that they designate (see Fig. 2.4).

The definition of verbs as profiling a relation with a positive temporal profile scanned sequentially obviously covers perfective verbs expressing change, but it does not rule out the possibility that all the component states of a process are con-strued as effectively identical. This kind of construal creates the conception of a sta-ble situation persisting through time and verbs which express this kind of meaning are called imperfective (Langacker 1987, p. 256). One of Langacker’s (1987, p. 255) examples is the verb resemble. Its component states are viewed as effectively the same because each and every relation this verb profiles is a relation of similarity between conceived individuals, objects, etc. The fact that any relation of this verb’s predicate is perceived as identical with any other gives rise to the conceptualiza-tion of the progression of the relation of similarity through conceived time. To sum up, although imperfective verbs, profiling a series of relations which are perceived as identical, do not exploit the natural suitability of processual profiles to express change and thus diverge considerably from the category prototype, they still conform to the verb category schema, which requires a verb to profile a process (see Fig. 2.4).

As signaled earlier, there are some interesting parallels between the categorial divisions within the noun and verb classes, two of which will now be presented. The first similarity pertains to the flexibility of members of the two subdivisions manifested in their ability to be used as members of the opposite subclass. It is common knowledge that most non-count nouns may be used as count nouns, e.g. to express quality (We have two coffees: espresso and cafe latte) and quantity (Three coffees, please), and a reversed situation is not unheard of (It’s a lot of car for a modest price). Just as most nouns of one subcategory may be alternatively used as members of the other, many verbs have both a perfective and an imperfective vari-ant (Langacker 2008a, p. 148ff) and others may be used as members of the oppo-site category with an extended sense (Langacker 2008a, p. 150). The following examples illustrate two variants of a verb, each belonging to a different subdivision:

(11) Jerry had a car back then.(12) Jerry had an apple for breakfast.

In (11) have is used with an imperfective sense because it profiles a stable situation whose component states, relations of ownership, are all effectively

34 The actual conceptualization entertained by most speakers would probably be enriched by some specifications concerning the lock and its function in the whole action. For the purposes of the present discussion this consideration may be ignored.

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identical. By contrast, in (12) have is used with a perfective sense because the relations it profiles between Jerry and the apple are not all the same. Under the most likely interpretation of this example, the initial relation is that between Jerry and the whole apple, each subsequent relation in the whole series being between Jerry and a progressively smaller part of the apple reduced by Jerry’s bites. An example of a verb reclassified from one category to the other through extension is resemble in the following examples given by Langacker (1987, pp. 255–256):

(13) J.P. resembles his father.(14) J.P. is resembling his father more and more every day.

In (13), resemble, used with its canonical value, is imperfective, conforming to its characterization in an earlier paragraph. In (14), however, it expresses an increase, and therefore a change, in the degree of similarity between J.P. and his father, which makes it perfective. This flexibility of verbs manifested by the ability of their variants to be subsumed by different verb subclasses is one important prop-erty they share with nouns.

The second parallel between the two subgroups within the noun and verb cat-egories concerns the mutually exclusive characteristics of replicability and indefi-nite expansibility/contractibility, which have already been ascribed to count and mass nouns, respectively. Langacker (1987, p. 257ff) focuses on the similarities in this respect between count nouns and perfective verbs, on the one hand, and between non-count nouns and imperfective verbs, on the other. Just as count noun profiles are bounded and therefore replicable, the profiles of perfective verbs are also bounded in their primary domain, i.e. the domain of time, and may be, just as their noun counterparts, replicated. The following examples are intended to sup-port the existence of this parallel:

(15) The door closed again and again.(16) *J.P. resembled his father again and again.

In (15) the perfective close is compatible with the adverbial again and again, as well as with many others expressing repetition (e.g. repeatedly and time after time), since the process it designates is replicable in its domain of instantiation, namely time. Resemble in (16), by contrast, is not compatible with any of these adverbials because replicability is ruled out for imperfective verbs, in the same way that it is for mass nouns.35 In contrast to countables and perfectives, mass nouns share with imperfective verbs the feature of effective homogeneity resulting in their indefinite expansibility/contractibility, which also points to the fact that imperfective processes are unbounded. The discussion of the following two exam-ples backs this claim:

35 Ignored here is the unlikely interpretation of resemble in (16) as a perfective verb designating a cycle of starting to resemble someone, resembling this person for some time and then ceasing to do so, in which case it would of course be compatible with again and again.

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(17) J.P. resembled his father when he was young, and in fact he still does.(18) *The door closed five minutes ago, and in fact it still does.

The fact that imperfective resemble inflected for the past tense in (17), in contrast to perfective close of (18), is compatible with a clause such as in fact they still do may be explained by the indefinite contractibility/expansibility of the imper-fective. In this connection, two facts related to different aspects of the example sentences should be considered. First, the use of the past tense in the first clause of either implies a full instantiation of a process before the time of speaking. Second, the appended clause and in fact he still does conveys the duration of the first clause’s process from some point in the past up until the present in an unin-terrupted fashion. The appropriateness of (17) may now be easily explained once its process is understood to bear the feature of indefinite contractibility/expansi-bility. The verb resemble in this example may be licitly used with both the past tense of the first clause and with the second clause, because the full instance of the process implied by the past tense may be freely expanded (as well as contracted) to cover the time from some point in the past up until now. The situation is dif-ferent with the process designated by close in (18), though. Its full instantiation prior to the time of speaking implied by the past tense makes it impossible for the verb to simultaneously convey the continuation of the process up until the present, because the process of perfective close is not conventionally construed as effec-tively homogenous and therefore indefinitely contractible/expansible. This is why (18) is unacceptable. Instead, should a need arise to convey the recurrence of the process, replication (e.g. by means of again and again) rather than expansion is possible [as in (15)]. In sum, despite the fact that their members involve essen-tially different sorts of construal, it is possible to observe close parallels between the groupings within the categories of nouns and verbs, as illustrated in this and the preceding paragraph. The two major classes of verbs, i.e. perfective and imper-fective verbs, are further discussed in Chap. 3, which describes the use of the English present tense and progressive aspect to refer to situations taking place at the time of speaking.

As already mentioned, besides symbolization and categorization, also the rela-tion of composition lends structure to a language. Composition will not be dis-cussed here in as much detail as the other two kinds of relations because it is crucially relevant neither to the descriptions offered in Chap. 3 nor the quasi-experiment reported in Chap. 5; instead, only a few general remarks concern-ing this relation will be offered to complement the picture of the CG view of the structuring forces of human languages. Incidentally, some remarks concerning composition were already provided in Sect. 2.3.1, which concerned the symbolic nature of grammatical phenomena and where the integration of the English plural morpheme with a countable noun and the integration of the component phrases of a prototypical English transitive clause were considered. These examples illus-trated the nature of grammatical constructions and constructional schemas, which involve semantic and phonological integration. An important terminological point is that in CG the elements which undergo integration are called component

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structures, and the resulting amalgam they make up is dubbed the composite struc-ture. Even more important is the fact that crucial for composition as viewed by CG are correspondences established by language users between these elements of the two component structures which they have in common. For example, in the case of the composite structure jar lid at the semantic pole the profile of [JAR] cor-responds to the unprofiled schematic container in [LID]’s base (Langacker 2008a, pp. 162–164). Such correspondences are thought to motivate and enable compo-sition, and at the same time they reflect the contribution of component elements to the values of composite structures (Langacker 1987, p. 94). Another important facet of composition is the fact that the composite structure inherits the profiling of only one of the component structures, which is thereby called the profile deter-minant (Langacker 2002, p. 123). In the jar lid example, lid is the profile deter-minant, since the composite structure jar lid designates the cover profiled by lid rather than the container profiled by jar. As has been shown, the relation of com-position is thought in CG to depend on correspondences established between cer-tain elements of the composite structures, one of which determines the profile of the composite structure.

2.5 Grammar as an Inventory

Defining grammar (and language) as an inventory of linguistic units results from the fact that CG is a usage-based theory of language. Already mentioned at the beginning of this chapter as one of the major principles of CL, the usage-based conception of language means that speakers, on the basis of their linguistic experi-ence, first of all learn vast amounts of specific language elements of all sorts, i.e. phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic ones (Langacker 1999b, p. 91ff; N. Ellis 2003). This mode of learning, however, does not preclude the acqui-sition of rules, or rather constructions.36 The huge inventory of actually occurring language chunks of various sizes and kinds supports the extraction of multiple pat-terns (constructional schemas) of different degrees of generality, which then con-stitute more abstract elements of the inventory. From this it follows that CG allows for the simultaneous inclusion of general patterns and at least some specific, actu-ally-occurring expressions instantiating the operation of these very patterns in the speaker’s linguistic knowledge (i.e. in the inventory). One should therefore not fall into the trap of the so-called rule/list fallacy warned against by Langacker (1987, p. 27), which excludes from the inventory either the general patters or the actual expressions. Steering clear of the fallacy, CG thus sees grammar as an inventory of

36 Strictly speaking CG does not recognize the existence of rules, which it takes to be “analo-gous to the phrase structure rules and transformations of generative syntax” (Langacker 2009, p. 2). Rather, it only posits the existence of constructions (constructional schemas) (Langacker 2009, p. 2), as defined in Sect. 2.3.1.

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conventional linguistic units of various degrees of specificity (generality), com-plexity and of different sizes.

This way of viewing grammar nullifies the need for the postulation of a gen-erative device that is the highlight of some major linguistic theories, e.g. the Government and Binding Theory or the Minimalist Program, which are probably still the ruling orthodoxy of the language study landscape today. Without posit-ing such a device, the conceptual apparatus of CG is capable of accounting for speakers’ full command of language including creating syntactically well-formed, although novel, strings. In particular, in CG it is language users themselves, and not the linguistic system, who are responsible for the “generation” of linguistic output (Langacker 1999b, p. 99).

In every instance of language use, the speaker faces the seemingly mundane task of finding the right expression to convey a conceptualization that he or she entertains. In CG, this process is termed coding37 and it is a kind of a problem-solving activity (Langacker 1987, p. 65). The problem to be solved here is select-ing such elements from the inventory of conventionalized linguistic units which are capable of conveying the intended meaning, i.e. a contextually-determined conceptualization contemplated by the speaker in a given situation.38 Even though the problem is usually dealt with relatively successfully and effortlessly, at least in the case of a native language, part of its challenge lies in the fact that on the whole the meaning to be expressed and the phonological sequence that is produced to symbolize it are much richer in specific detail than the specifications of the semantic and phonological poles of the linguistic unit(s) that may be selected. In CG, the solution to the problem is the process of categorization: the two poles of a particular usage event (an instance of language use), i.e. the con-text-dependent conceptualization and the actual segmental vocalization, are cate-gorized by the two corresponding poles of conventional linguistic units selected for this purpose on a given occasion (Langacker 1987, p. 68). The intricate details of coding will not be discussed here in greater detail (see Langacker 1987, p. 65ff), but it should be noted that similarly to composition it depends on a num-ber of correspondences between (different parts of) linguistic units and objects of conception.

The fact that in CG the only units of language are thought to be phonological, semantic and symbolic ones, and that they are supposed to enter only three kinds of relations, namely symbolization, categorization and composition, testifies to the frugality of the set of conceptual tools used by the theory for linguistic analysis. Despite this conceptual economy, the descriptions and analyses that CG offers are characterized by a high degree of psychological reality, as attested by the next sec-tion, where the linguistic role of cognitive abilities is reviewed.

37 The process of coding performed by the speaker is reflected as a kind of a mirror image in the process of decoding performed by the hearer (Langacker 1999, p. 99). The latter process is ignored here for the sake of economy.38 It seems that the process of coding developed by CG roughly corresponds to the formulator in the well-known model of speech production by Levelt (1989).

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2.6 Cognitive Abilities

Following the introduction of the basics of CG which are evoked by its definition of grammar, some fundamental cognitive abilities believed by cognitive gram-marians to be implicated in language will be reviewed. The discussion of the abilities, which are formatively crucial for both the name and nature of CG, will complement the foregoing presentation of the theory by stressing its cognitive commitment. As was stated at the outset of the present chapter, CG grants human cognitive abilities an important place in linguistic theory due to its insistence on regarding language as inherently intertwined with general cognition. In particu-lar, CG postulates the linguistic importance of a wide array of cognitive abilities that are nevertheless, in themselves, relatively uncontroversial, not to say obvious (Langacker 1987, p. 99, 2008a, p. 8). This provides them with an important fea-ture of being established independently of linguistic considerations, which makes CG different from the generativist framework, where linguistic factors are taken as revelatory with respect to human cognition without any or little support from psy-chology or cognitive science (Taylor 2002, p. 8, see Sect. 2.2).

Some cognitive abilities are so obviously the basis of language (as well as many other higher-order cognitive phenomena) that there is probably no linguistic theory that would deny their linguistic importance. One example of such an ability is memory. It must be used, for instance, to keep track of the unfolding discourse at the levels of the phrase, sentence, text, etc. Another example is directing and focusing of attention. As part of language use, attention must be paid to, among other things, the phonological input and output of any conversation. In addition to such abilities, whose use is straightforward and which have their indisputable and quite obvious role in language, however, there are others whose linguistic employ-ment is perhaps more intricate and definitely not as obvious. The following selec-tive review will deal with these cognitive abilities ascribed linguistic importance by CG which are deemed the most relevant in the context of the present work. This means that quite frequently the overview will refer back to some phenomena already discussed earlier in the chapter, highlighting their cognitive nature.

2.6.1 Correspondences and Transformations

The first cognitive ability posited by CG as crucial for linguistic functioning is the ability to establish correspondences (Langacker 1987, p. 90). It is part and parcel of numerous linguistic phenomena, some of which have already been dis-cussed or mentioned. First, correspondences in the form of symbolic relations are established between semantic and phonological poles of all symbolic elements. Second, very often correspondences are involved in the employment of another basic ability of linguistic importance, namely the ability to compare. For instance, in relations of composition certain subelements of the component structures are

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compared and consequently judged to be the same at a certain level of abstraction (Langacker 1987, p. 278). This process of comparison involves the establishment of correspondences between the compared elements in general, and it is, impor-tantly, reducible to a number of “local” correspondences and comparisons between their subparts (Langacker 1987, p. 284). The correspondences (and comparisons) between the elements of the component structures, in turn, give rise to the cor-respondences between certain elements of the composite structure and those of the component structures, which indicate the contribution of the latter to the value of the former. Third, linguistic categorization, whose importance for grammatical organization and usage events has already been asserted, is another process based on comparison and therefore on correspondences. For example, in numerous usage events multiple correspondences are formed between various phonological and semantic elements of the categorizing linguistic unit(s) and the categorized ele-ments of the usage event (actual context-specific conceptualization and vocali-zation), both of which are judged to be identical in the sense of there being no incompatibility between them. In sum, the basic and closely related cognitive abil-ities to establish correspondences and to effect comparisons are crucial for such essential linguistic phenomena as symbolization, composition and categorization.

Another major cognitive ability essential for the CG view of language is the capacity to carry out mental transformations in the sense of one conceptualiza-tion being changed into another (Langacker 1987, p. 138). One important kind of transformation is the process of scanning, which, as has already been signaled (see Sect. 2.4.2.6), is crucial for the conceptualizations evoked by verbs. Actually, two linguistically significant, contrasting modes of scanning are distinguished in CG. The first kind, called sequential scanning, “involves the transformation of one configuration into another, or a continuous series of such transformations” (Langacker 1987, p. 145). It is further defined by Langacker (1987, p. 145) in very precise terms:

For a series of distinct configurations to be perceived as a coherent evolving scene, corre-spondences must be established among them, and each configuration serves as a standard for an act of comparison (possibly quite complex) that constitutes a recognition of dispar-ity between it and the next. Because the scenes are viewed successively rather than simul-taneously, recognition of disparity amounts to recognition of change. In contradistinction to summary scanning, the separate components (states) are conceived as neither coexistent nor simultaneously available; hence there is no judgment of inconsistency.

The ability to scan in a sequential fashion is exemplified by conceptualizations evoked by every finite verb, one of which is fall. Its semantic pole is schemati-cally represented in Fig. 2.7, in which the circle represents a falling object (the trajector), the bottom flat rectangle stands for a surface towards which the object is moving (the landmark) and the arrows represent successive acts of comparison constitutive of the scanning process. The second type of scanning, called summary scanning, is different from sequential scanning in that all the component states (configurations) are activated, and therefore mentally available, simultaneously. Summary scanning is exemplified by the episodic noun fall, whose semantic pole is shown in Fig. 2.8. By way of summary and further elucidation, it is useful to

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consider Langacker’s (1987, p. 145) comparison of the two kinds of the scanning ability discussed here with two other everyday activities (and abilities):

It is not at all farfetched to compare the difference between summary and sequential scan-ning to that between examining a photograph and watching a motion picture (though I have taken pains to characterize the notions independent of this analogy): indeed our abil-ity to view both photos and motion pictures nicely exemplifies these respective modes of processing and argues strongly for their validity.

2.6.2 Construal

Another important cognitive ability crucial for the CG conception of language is the ability to construe a given situation in alternate ways (Langacker 1987, p. 138), which basically has to do with different and quite intricate ways of focusing atten-tion on conceptual content (Evans and Green 2006, pp. 536, 537). This ability, which was already evoked in a preliminary fashion as a crucial element of the CG descriptions of the noun and verb schemas as well as to discuss important distinc-tions within the verb and noun word classes (see Sect. 2.4.2), will now receive more detailed treatment. As Langacker (1987, p. 116) says, “[l]inguistic expressions per-tain to conceived situations, or ‘scenes’.” The meaning of an expression, however, is not exhaustively described by referring to the contents of a conceived scene. Equally important for the semantic value of any piece of language is the way in which these contents are viewed (conceptualized), or construed (Langacker 1987, p. 138). In other words, of paramount importance in CG is the image that is imposed on and used

t

tr

lm

tr

trtr

lm lmlm

Fig. 2.7 Semantic pole of the verb fall (adapted from Langacker 1987, p. 144)

Fig. 2.8 Semantic pole of the episodic noun fall (adapted from Langacker 1987, p. 144)

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to structure a scene that is being conceptualized, which ultimately depends on how attention is focused on different elements of the scene. A number of examples taken from Langacker (2005b, p. 15) will now be used to further illustrate the notion of construal and the operation of more specialized cognitive abilities associated with it.

On seeing a glass with some water in it, speakers may use many different expressions to refer to what they see including the following:

(19) the glass with water in it(20) the water in the glass(21) the glass is half-full(22) the glass is half-empty

Examples (19) and (20) differ with respect to profiling, which is one aspect of con-strual and which was already introduced in Sect. 2.4.1. This facet of construal is all about highlighting certain aspects of conceptualized scenes, which thereby receive some kind of focal prominence. This extra salience is given by (19) to the glass, whose conception is the profile, while the water in this example is an impor-tant but unprofiled element of the base. (20), by contrast, shifts the profile of (19) to the water in the glass, leaving the glass unprofiled. In contrast to both (19) and (20), (21) and (22) are verbal rather than nominal expressions, which constitutes one major difference between their respective construals. The difference is clear once the schematic characterizations of nouns and verbs are recalled; nominal (19) and (20) profile abstract things (regions in domains, as defined in Sect. 2.4.2.3), while verbal (clausal) (21) and (22) designate relationships scanned sequentially through conceived time (as described in Sect. 2.4.2.6). As to the difference in con-strual between (21) and (22), it may be said, simplifying matters a little for exposi-tory purposes, that (21) profiles the relation between the glass and the region inside the glass occupied by the water, which is achieved by viewing or scanning the entire inside of the glass in the direction from bottom to top; and that in (22) the inside of the glass is scanned in the opposite direction, from top to bottom, and the relation designated by the sentence is that between the glass and the empty region inside it. Thus, in addition to the major difference between (19) and (20), on the one hand, and (21) and (22), on the other, (21) and (22) differ from each other with respect to construal as well, specifically with regard to the direction of scanning that they involve. These examples demonstrate that the construal of a conceived situation is the mental image39 used to structure the situation in a cer-tain way rather than in another chosen from among a number of alternatives.

The ability to construe conceived scenes in competing ways involves variation with respect to a number of dimensions, or parameters (Langacker 1987, p. 117). The most relevant of them will now be discussed. In the course of the discussion an array of more specifically defined cognitive abilities, subsumed under the broad

39 The image is not necessarily visual; it may involve a different sensory mode, e.g. auditory or tactile, or else it may be autonomous (abstract) in the sense of being executed by cognitive pro-cessing divorced from any perceptual support (Langacker 1987, pp. 111–113).

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heading of the construal ability, will be considered. The discussion is based mainly on Langacker (1987) and Langacker (2008a).

The first general parameter of construal is a function of the human capacity for selection. Speakers of a language constantly select certain aspects of conceived situ-ations to be dealt with rather than others, an example of which is the selection of a profile—a facet of a scene accorded special prominence. Another important, and related, kind of selection pertains to the so-called scope of predication, which has already been encountered under the name of base. Every linguistic expression, and therefore every predication, includes the profile—the most prominent element which “can be thought of as a kind of focal point” (Langacker 1987, p. 118) distinguished within and against the background of the scope, which is in turn the portion of the whole scene necessary for the proper characterization of the profile. Sometimes the selected scope of predication (the base) is not sharply delimited and a special part of the base is distinguished. It is called the immediate scope and, in contrast to the base’s more peripheral regions of diminished relevance, it is the most salient and relevant for the characterization of the profile. As examples of the scope of predication (under the name of base) have already been amply provided in the discussion of the notion of profile (see Sect. 2.4.1), and because the two notions are related, only immediate scope will be exemplified here. One of Langacker’s (1987, p. 119) instances concerns body-part terms including body, arm, hand, finger, and knuckle. Body’s profile is the immediate scope for arm, arm’s profile constitutes the immediate scope for hand, hand’s for finger’s and so on and so forth, with the profile of every term providing the immediate scope necessary for the characterization of the profile of the word that is next on the list. This is supported by language data such as the following:

(23) A body has two arms.(24) A hand has five fingers.(25) ?A body has two hands.(26) ??An arm has five fingers.(27) ???An arm has eight knuckles.

Sentences with have are the most felicitous when the subject designates the part of the body which constitutes the immediate scope for the characterization of the direct object, as in (23) and (24). If the subject profiles a part of the body that is part of the scope of predication for the direct object noun in a more marginal way, i.e. less saliently and directly, as illustrated by (25), (26) and (27), the relative felic-ity of the sentence decreases. In fact, the degree of acceptability is inversely related to the conceptual “distance” between the scope defined by the subject’s profile and the profile of the object. To sum up the present discussion of selection as a param-eter of construal, it may be reiterated that the human capacity to select certain fac-ets of conceived situations that will be attended to manifests itself in, among other things, such constructs of CG as profile, scope (base) and immediate scope.

The second general parameter of construal is perspective, which “relates to the position from which a scene is viewed, with consequences for the relative promi-nence of its participants” (Langacker 1987, p. 117). One major aspect of perspective, relating to the prominence of linguistically coded participants, is the cognitive ability

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to impose the so-called figure/ground organization. This is how Langacker (1987, p. 120) describes this phenomenon: “[i]mpressionistically, the figure within a scene is a substructure perceived as ‘standing out’ from the remainder (the ground) and accorded special prominence as the pivotal entity around which the scene is organ-ized and for which it provides a setting [emphases original, JB and MP].”

Before the linguistic relevance of the figure/ground organization is exempli-fied, it should be stressed that although there is a natural tendency for them to con-flate, the figure/ground distinction is not equivalent to the profile/base organization (Langacker 1987, p. 187). While profiling seems to be explainable in terms of atten-tion, the notion of figure appears to be best explicated as something contrasting sharply with its immediate surroundings. Obviously, an entity (the figure) standing out against its environment (the ground) is a natural attractor of attention and there-fore the two frequently, although not invariably, coincide; this is the source of the tendency to equate them. However, it is not uncommon for the two distinctions to stay apart. Langacker (1987, p. 120) cites some features that make entities contrast with their environment, i.e. features of a prototypical figure. For example, a mov-ing object is likely to contrast with its surroundings consisting of other unmoving objects, and consequently it is likely to become the figure. Despite the fact, how-ever, that in the plane’s descent the plane is a moving object and therefore the fig-ure, it is not profiled at the level of the whole expression, which designates either the path of motion or the movement itself (Langacker 1987, p. 187). Bearing in mind that the figure/ground organization often coincides with the profile/base align-ment but is a qualitatively different and possibly distinct phenomenon, the linguistic relevance of the cognitive ability that underlies it will be considered.

In CG the capacity to impose the figure/ground organization is claimed to lie at the root of some basic linguistic constructs, two of which will be discussed here in the way of exemplification. The first linguistic phenomenon that CG analyzes in terms of the figure/ground organization are the grammatical relations of the sub-ject and direct object, which are regarded as the primary and secondary figure in the conceptualization evoked by a clause (Langacker 1991, p. 304ff). This analysis is for instance supported by the fact that a moving entity (a moving object, person, etc.) is almost invariably coded by the subject at the level of the clause. Despite the fact that CG is not able to offer definitive evidence for this analysis, to fur-ther support it Langacker (1991, p. 317) evokes a number of proposals along the same lines made by such authors as Chafe (1976), Fillmore (1977) and Shibatani (1985). As another special case of the figure/ground organization Langacker (1987, p. 231) posits the basic distinction between the trajector and landmark, which is so crucial to relational predications (and relational word classes in gen-eral). The trajector is considered to be a relational figure while the landmark, said to constitute a “secondary figure,” is supposed to be (part of) the ground at a cer-tain level of analysis. One important argument for this view is based on examples such as (28) and (29).

(28) X is above Y.(29) Y is below X.

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Both sentences may describe exactly the same spatial configuration of elements X and Y, but they differ in their choice of the primary figure, arguably the trajector, standing out against the background of the landmark. Element X is the trajector and therefore the figure in (28), where Y is the backgrounded landmark; while in (29) the statuses of X and Y with respect to the figure/ground organization are reversed. In sum, all of this shows that in CG the cognitive ability to impose the figure/ground organization underlies such fundamental linguistic phenomena as the basic grammatical relations (subject, object) and the trajector/landmark distinction.40

The third major dimension of the construal ability is abstraction, which “per-tains to the level of specificity at which a situation is portrayed” (Langacker 1987, p. 117). This parameter of construal concerns the human capacity to abstract away from specific detail of a conceived situation or of linguistic elements. The linguistic importance of abstraction understood in this way, which often leads to the establishment of schemas, was illustrated in the discussion of categorization employed in coding (Sect. 2.5), in the treatment of the extraction of constructional schemas (Sect. 2.3.1), and in the description of the emergence of word category schemas (Sects. 2.4.2.3–2.4.2.6). It will therefore not be dealt with much further here beyond reiterating its function in these phenomena. To begin with, in cod-ing language users abstract away from specific details of context-sensitive concep-tualizations and vocalizations to subsume them under more schematic (abstract) linguistic units. Second, to extract constructional schemas, speakers abstract away from actually occurring linguistic expressions. Finally, to create word class sche-mas, it is necessary to abstract away from the idiosyncratic properties of members of a given word class. In the first of these cases, abstraction operates at the level of conceptualized situations; in the other two, at the level of linguistic units.

By focusing on selected cognitive abilities employed in language, the present Sect. 2.6 has shown that in CG care is taken to fashion linguistic descriptions in such a way that there is no incompatibility between them and what is known about human cognitive functioning. Also, the present section has demonstrated, by turn-ing attention to how basic cognitive abilities inform language and how this fact is reflected in CG descriptions of language, that despite the frugality of the set of conceptual tools used by CG for linguistic analysis, the resulting descriptions are characterized by a high degree of psychological reality. The following remarks by Radden and Dirven (2007, p. 1) seem to be suitable as a conclusion emphasizing the role of cognition in CG, including the role in it of basic cognitive abilities: “[a] Cognitive Grammar is based on the insight that grammar is the product of human cognition. Therefore we must first understand the principles of cognition that determine grammar.”

40 In addition, CG uses the figure/ground organization to explain the traditionally trouble-some, in terms of defying neat definitions, head/modifier distinction (Langacker 1987, p. 235). However, its explication would require an extended discussion, which is foregone here for rea-sons of economy.

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2.7 Conclusion

This chapter, whose aim has been the introduction of the framework of CG, has demonstrated that, as well as how, this linguistic theory subscribes to most of the basic principles and assumptions of CL.41 The assumption concerning the cogni-tive nature of language in the sense of language drawing on general cognitive phe-nomena has been highlighted in the discussion of the following important aspects of CG:

• the cognitive canonical event model as the basis of the prototypical English transitive clause;

• word category schemas and the basic subdivisions within the noun and verb classes, which depend on the broad cognitive ability of construal;

• the relations of composition, symbolization and categorization utilizing the cog-nitive abilities to establish correspondences and to compare;

• the profile/base (scope)/immediate scope configurations underpinned by the aspect of construal called selection;

• the subject/object and trajector/landmark distinctions as manifestations of the figure/ground alignment, which in turn depends on another dimension of con-strual, namely perspective;

• coding and the emergence of constructional schemas, which are functions of the aspect of construal called abstraction;

• verbal predications depending on the cognitive ability to scan sequentially.

The CG conviction that language is a cognitive phenomenon functioning in accordance with general cognition was highlighted and summarized in Sect. 2.6, which reviewed the CG views on the linguistic function of cognitive abilities.

Recognition in CG of the role in language of all these general cognitive phe-nomena implicates the non-autonomy of language, another guiding principle of CL. The commitment of CG to the cognitive-linguistic assumption of non-autonomy of grammar has been revealed, for instance, in the exposition of the fuzzy boundary between grammar/language and pragmatics and in the discussion of the meaning-fulness of such grammatical processes as plural noun formation, which depends on different aspects of cognition such as, for instance, the establishment corre-spondences (symbolization is basically a correspondence relation). Non-autonomy has also been demonstrated in the discussion of the assembly of prototypical transitive clauses, which is based on a general cognitive model. The demonstra-tion of the meaningfulness of these elements testifies, together with the semantic

41 The only concern of CL from among those mentioned in the introductory section that has not been reflected in the foregoing introduction to CG is the linguistic relevance of conceptual metaphor, metonymy and other figurational devices. Although their linguistic importance is rec-ognized by the theory and they are easily accommodated by it (see for instance Langacker 2009: Chap. 2), CG’s focus seems to lie elsewhere. Because figuration does not occupy a central place in CG and because its analysis is not relevant in the context of the present dissertation, CG’s approach to it has not been presented.

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characterization of word category schemas, to the CG and CL conviction that virtu-ally all language phenomena, including grammar, are semantically motivated. The allegiance of CG to the embodied nature of language, another assumption of CL, is reflected in the theory’s ascription to language of all the above-mentioned general cognitive processes, which are tools of bodily experience, and in its insistence on the ultimately neural enactment of cognitive and linguistic phenomena. Finally, the commitment of CG to the cognitive-linguistic usage-based conception of language transpires from the framework’s view of grammar as an inventory of linguistic units of various degrees of schematicity and the attendant view of linguistic coding.

In addition to presenting all these major general characteristics that CG shares with its mother movement of CL, the present chapter has introduced a number of more specific notions and features of CG. First and foremost, the CG definition of grammar and language as a structured inventory of conventionalized linguistic units was presented. Its more detailed exposition in the remainder of the chapter allowed the introduction of a whole spectrum of notions, tools, concepts, etc., endorsed and utilized by CG. In addition, the present chapter introduced, by displaying a number of figures (e.g. Figs. 2.1, 2.2, 2.3), the special kinds of pictorial representations that CG uses to abbreviate important linguistic constructs and processes, as well as a number of notational conventions used by the practitioners of the theory. It should be conceded that although the present introduction to CG focused on the most important aspects of the framework and paid special attention to these of its ele-ments which are deemed the most relevant in the context of the quasi-experiment reported in Chap. 5, due to the sophistication of the theory and the richness and breadth of its application it has not been, by necessity, exhaustive. Some additional details of the framework of CG are offered and explored in Chap. 3, which includes in-depth CG descriptions of a number of specific grammatical elements of English: the present tense, progressive aspect and stative (imperfective) and dynamic (per-fective) verbs.

As a final step in this concluding section, a brief attempt will be made to enu-merate certain differences between CG and other cognitive approaches to gram-mar, and, also, between CG and other mentalist (broadly cognitive) approaches.42 This is done in order to set CG against the background of other cognitive views of grammar. Some of these differences, however, will also signal in a preliminary fashion the pedagogical potential of the theory, which the other cognitive approaches may lack.

At the beginning of the present chapter it was asserted that CL and CG had developed in opposition to generative linguistics. Naturally, then, there are a num-ber of crucial differences between the two approaches, some of which have already been mentioned in the body of the chapter. One of them was touched upon in the introductory section, where the meaning of the first word in the appellations Cognitive Grammar and cognitive linguistics was considered. The difference is that CG (just like CL) attempts to inform its linguistic analyses by what is known about

42 Both kinds of approaches were mentioned briefly in Sect. 2.2.

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54 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

general cognition, while generative linguistics draws conclusions as to the cogni-tive architecture on the basis of language study. Other important differences may be easily enumerated by considering the other items on the list of the major assump-tions and principles of CL given in the introduction to the present chapter: CG sees language and grammar (syntax) as non-autonomous, while generativism holds the opposite view; in CG language is embodied, whereas in generativism it has the properties of a disembodied algorithmic model; CG is usage-based, generative grammar is not. The most important difference from the point of view of pedagogic utility, though, seems to be constituted by the CG belief in the meaningfulness of the majority of linguistic elements (lexical, morphological, syntactic), which is spurned by generative linguistics. Commonsensically, a theory stressing the mean-ingfulness of all sorts of linguistic elements seems to be pedagogically superior to theories which relegate meaning to a peripheral role and posit the existence of semantically empty elements. This rings especially true in view of recent devel-opments in foreign language pedagogy, which are presented and frequently men-tioned in Chap. 4 and which place a premium on meaningful language use, even when teaching the formal aspects of language. The potential pedagogical advantage of CG over generative approaches to grammar is in fact supported by the severely limited extent to which generative models have been directly applied to language teaching (cf. Odlin 1994a, p. 15; Whong 2011). Also relevant in this connec-tion is the difference between diagrammatic representations employed by the two approaches. While generative grammar uses intricate syntactic tree diagrams treated as models of speaker knowledge (Evans and Green 2006, p. 764), CG, as has been illustrated throughout this chapter, employs pictorial representations which, because of their direct reference to meaning, seem to be more accessible and which do not aspire to directly represent native speaker knowledge. Because of their inclusion of meaning, these CG representations may turn out to be useful in language pedagogy. To summarize, a number of crucial differences exist between CG and generative approaches, some of which seem to make CG better suited to pedagogical applica-tion. Although of much lesser magnitude, certain differences also exist between CG and other cognitive approaches to grammar, which, likewise, seem to make the for-mer a little more suitable for application in language teaching than the latter.

Although CG shares with other cognitive approaches to grammar a number of assumptions and principles, among which there is the pedagogy-friendly focus on the meaningfulness of a wide array of linguistic elements including construc-tions, there are nonetheless certain differences between these approaches, some of which may suggest the superiority of CG with respect to pedagogical applica-tion. First, in contrast to CG and the remaining cognitive approaches, the model of Construction Grammar developed by Charles Fillmore and his collaborators (Fillmore 1988; Kay and Fillmore 1999), which is often considered as an inter-mediate step between generative and truly cognitive approaches to grammar, is not usage-based (cf. Evans and Green 2006, p. 661). Second, unlike CG, the incarnation of Construction Grammar developed by Adele Goldberg (1995) and Radical Construction Grammar developed by William Croft (2001) do not define such basic grammatical notions as noun, noun phrase, subject, verb, etc. in

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semantic terms at the schematic level (Langacker 2005a, p. 106; Broccias 2006). Consequently, these approaches recognize the level of grammatical form, which is reminiscent of autonomous grammar associated with generative approaches and makes Construction Grammar and Radical Construction Grammar less parsimoni-ous than CG (Langacker 2005, p. 106), where no such level exists. This may give CG a pedagogical upper hand, as this model does not suggest the existence of for-mal elements with elusive or non-existent meanings which language learners may find extremely puzzling. Third, as Broccias (2006, p. 97) notes of the treatment by the cognitive approaches of the issue of verbal vs. constructional meaning, and this claim might be extended to other cases as well, the CG analysis “seems more consonant with truly cognitive assumptions about language [compared with con-struction grammars, JB and MP].” Similar in tone is the remark by the same author that Radical Construction Grammar displays some features of an objectivist view of semantics/pragmatics (Broccias 2006, p. 102), which puts it in contrast with the empiricist-embodiment view of CL and CG. To conclude, even though there is a lot of common ground between different cognitive approaches to grammar, some relatively subtle differences between them do exist and some of what distinguishes CG may well be suspected to be, a priori, a pedagogical advantage.

It has to be conceded, though, that other cognitive approaches to grammar, and especially Goldberg’s (1995, 2006) Construction Grammar, may also be well suited for pedagogical application, a view expressed by a number of authors (e.g. Wee 2007; Hinkel 2011; Holme 2011; Turula 2011). The reason which is often cited is that Construction Grammar is a middle-of-the-road option between two imperfect extremes. One of them is associated with generative models of grammar which are algorithmic in nature and therefore expect of learners the assembly of every utterance out of the smallest component structures. The other extreme is exemplified by the Lexical Approach (Lewis 1993, 2000), which places heavy emphasis on teaching and learning collocations and fixed expres-sions, at the expense of grammatical rules and patterns. According to Turula (2011, pp. 342–345), Construction Grammar avoids the problems associated with these extremes because it envisages language learning as based on both memory and pattern extraction, sees pattern formation as a function of both induction and deduction, makes room for creative use of constructions and does not neglect extra-lexical grammar. While it seems that CG, which is often licitly classified as a kind of constructional grammar, seems to offer exactly the same advantages as Goldberg’s Construction Grammar, it is possible that the differences between these two theories, although mostly a matter of shifted emphasis rather than of fundamental contrast, do make Construction Grammar better suited for peda-gogical application with respect to some aspects of language. It is an empirical issue which undoubtedly deserves due investigation, but is beyond the scope of the present work. In the absence of research concerning their suitability for peda-gogy, we can only express our strong suspicion that the two theories might well prove to be complementary in this regard.

In addition to the differences between CG and the other cognitive approaches to grammar, several other facts about CG should be cited as they motivated the

2.7 Conclusion

56 2 Introduction to Cognitive Grammar

focus in this book on this rather than another cognitive theory. The first one is that CG is considered as the most comprehensive theory of grammar to have origi-nated from the cognitive linguistic movement (Broccias 2006, p. 108). No doubt because of its wide scope and minute attention to analytic detail, which could only be demonstrated in the present chapter to a limited extent due to space limita-tions, Langacker’s theory is also at present the most influential of the cognitive approaches to grammar (Evans and Green 2006, p. 480). Broccias (2006, p. 108) goes as far as to claim that in a way other cognitive theories of grammar may be viewed as notational variants of CG. All of this, it seems, makes CG a prime can-didate for being tested in applications to language teaching as the most compre-hensive and well-known representative of the cognitive approaches to grammar. It should be noted, however, that the theory’s pedagogical suitability has been con-sidered here in a highly preliminary and limited fashion and that much more in this regard appears in the subsequent chapters. In Sect. 3.4, the CG descriptions of the English present tense and progressive aspect are compared with traditional descriptions, which brings out certain aspects of the pedagogical potential of CG; in Sects. 4.4.1 and 4.4.2, the instructional potential of CG is argued for and juxtaposed with that of traditional grammatical descriptions, and the research concerning the applications of CG to grammar teaching is reviewed; finally, in Chap. 5, a study is reported in which we put grammar teaching based on CG to the empirical test.

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3.1 Introduction

The purpose of the present chapter is twofold. First, it provides both the traditional and CG descriptions of the grammatical units of English mentioned in the title of the chapter. The descriptions are offered because the teaching of these grammatical elements was the main focus of the empirical study reported in Chap. 5. Both kinds of descriptions are presented since the quasi-experiment described in that chapter compared the effects of teaching based on traditional descriptions of the gram-matical phenomena in question with teaching outcomes based on CG descriptions. The second objective follows naturally from the first, and from the focus of the whole book, which is the exploration of the effectiveness of CG-inspired grammar teaching in comparison with instruction based on traditional grammars. The second aim is to compare and contrast the two kinds of grammatical description, i.e. tra-ditional descriptions and descriptions offered by CG. This is done in the second part of the chapter, mostly on the basis of the descriptions provided in the first. The grammatical elements to be described are specifically the English present tense, the progressive aspect, and the distinction between stative and dynamic verbs. The contrast between stative and dynamic verbs is discussed, because it impinges on how English verbs are used in the present tense and the progressive aspect.

The description of these grammatical elements and the comparison of the two sorts of descriptions are organized in the following way. First, after a brief discus-sion of the theoretical basis of traditional descriptions at the beginning of Sects. 3.2, 3.2.1 offers some general and relatively uncontroversial background informa-tion concerning the elements such as the grammatical categories they fall into, their structural properties and the like. Second, in Sect. 3.2.2, a table is included present-ing, in a summary fashion, the treatment of the grammatical items in question, and in particular their meaning and use, by three major descriptive/reference grammars of English, namely A comprehensive grammar of the English language (Quirk et al. 1985), Longman grammar of spoken and written English (Biber et al. 1999) and The Cambridge grammar of the English language (Huddleston and Pullum 2002).

Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs

Chapter 3

J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8_3, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

58 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

The table is based on traditionally-oriented descriptive grammars just listed and, therefore, it features what may be called a traditional description of the relevant grammatical items. The table is based on the works just mentioned, because they enjoy the status of the most authoritative and comprehensive grammars of English available today. It is included in order to provide some further general background to the grammatical elements which are of interest here and to show that practical/pedagogical grammar descriptions of the meaning and use of the same material, to be presented later in the chapter, have their direct counterparts in the major reference grammars, from which they clearly drew inspiration. In fact, the nature of these two sorts of descriptions, as will be demonstrated, is essentially the same, the difference between them residing in their scope and depth of coverage. Third, what may be called a traditional pedagogical description of the relevant grammatical units based on two standard intermediate- and advanced-level practical grammars is offered, also in Sect. 3.2.2. The practical/pedagogical grammars in question are John Eastwood’s ([1992] 1999) Oxford practice grammar and Elzbieta Manczak-Wohlfeld et al.’s ([1987] 2007) A practical grammar of English. They have been selected because they seem to be representative of the grammar reference materials used by and for secondary and tertiary level learners of English in the Polish edu-cational context, where the study reported in the empirical part of this book took place. Next, still in the same section, the links and similarities between the charac-terization of the relevant grammatical elements offered by the traditionally-oriented descriptive/reference works and that given by the likewise-oriented pedagogical grammars are pinpointed. The next step, made in Sect. 2.3, is the provision of a CG account of the same grammatical material, i.e. the English tense/aspect/verbs com-plex, making use of numerous theoretical concepts introduced in Chap. 2. Further, in Sect. 2.4, the two kinds of grammatical description, i.e. traditional descriptions and descriptions based on CG, are compared and contrasted. Finally, Sect. 3.5 summarizes the content of the chapter and provides a transition to the next one.

3.2 Traditional Descriptions

Before the grammatical elements whose teaching was subject to empirical testing discussed in Chap. 5 are described, some discussion of the theoretical underpin-nings of the descriptive/reference works and the practical/pedagogical grammars that the descriptions are based on is in order. This discussion will have to explain why the label traditional has been applied to these works and to the descriptions based on them. It will also complement, in a way, the introduction of the theoreti-cal apparatus of CG included in Chap. 2, which provides a theoretical foundation of the CG descriptions of the relevant grammar offered later in the present chap-ter. By the same token, the discussion of the theoretical basis of the reference and practical grammars will serve as a background to the traditional descriptions of the same grammatical material, also included in the present chapter.

It is perhaps curious that none of the major reference grammars under consider-ation, i.e. Quirk et al. (1985), Biber et al. (1999) and Huddleston and Pullum

59

(2002), explicitly evokes particular linguistic theories and openly admits to having been informed by them. As one of them announces, however, “the languages human beings use are too complex to be described except by means of a theory” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 18), and it is therefore possible to discern certain general theoretical underpinnings in the case of each and every one of them. Most importantly, all of the grammars may be labeled structuralist-traditional because, overall, they rely heavily on traditional terminology (cf. Aarts 1988; Standop 2000, as cited in Mukherjee 2006, p. 340; Aarts 2004) and organization of the pre-sented grammatical material (cf. Biber et al. 1999, p. 4), contain overwhelmingly more description of language facts than explanations thereof,1 and are full of tax-onomies of various sorts. It has to be admitted, though, that in addition to their structuralist-traditional nature, all of them display some other influences.

In particular, according to numerous scholars, the three reference/descriptive grammars are informed by a number of more recent (in the sense of having occurred before their publication dates) advances in modern linguistics. For exam-ple, Huddleston (1988, pp. 345–346) notes the influence of Systemic Theory, which foregrounds paradigmatic relations in language (cf. Halliday 1979, 1993), on Quirk et al. (1985), while Aarts (1988, pp. 167–168) acknowledges the influ-ence of Case Grammar, which highlights the semantics of argument structure (cf. Cook 1989), as well as Speech Act Theory, focusing on the locutionary, illocu-tionary and perlocutionary value of utterances (cf. Austin 1962; Searle 1969), on the same work.2 Huddleston (1988, p. 345) and Aarts (1988, p. 167ff) recognize the influence of generative linguistics, most forms of which assume syntactic transformations between different levels of representation (cf. Chomsky 1957), on Quirk et al. (1985), who mention “systematic correspondences” (Quirk et al. 1985, p. 57), which are reminiscent of transformations. The same kind of influence on Huddleston and Pullum (2002) is noted by Aarts (2004, p. 368ff) and Mukherjee (2006, p. 339). Another influence on Huddleston and Pullum (2002), as pointed out by Leech (2004, p. 124) and Aarts (2004, p. 366), is that of Phrase Structure Grammar, which is generative but non-transformational (cf. Pollard and Sag 1994). Finally, numerous authors, including, for instance, Mukherjee (2006), men-tion the obvious influence of corpus linguistics on Biber et al. (1999). Of all these theoretical foundations of the three grammars, however, the structuralist- traditional one seems by far the strongest and it is also universal in the sense of applying to all the three works. Both of these observations are reflected in the labeling of the grammars in Table 3.2, whic provides traditional descriptions of the

1 Aarts (1988, p. 170ff) views this difference, i.e. the difference between being fact-oriented and explanation-oriented, as a difference between traditional grammar and generative grammar, the latter being clearly theoretical and not structuralist-traditional in orientation.2 This and subsequent influences on Quirk et al. (1985) pertain also to Biber et al. (1999), which follows Quirk et al.’s (1985) general framework and grammatical outlook: “[f]rom CGEL [A com-prehensive grammar of the English language] we have also borrowed, with few exceptions, the grammatical framework of concepts and terminology which has provided the present book with its descriptive apparatus” (Biber et al. 1999, p. viii).

3.2 Traditional Descriptions

60 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

relevant grammar and where the structuralist-traditional label is attached to all the grammars. This, in turn, justifies the application of the same label to the descrip-tions of grammatical phenomena given later in the present chapter.

In addition to the structuralist-traditional label, it is possible, in view of the diverse theoretical influences mentioned above, to attach to these grammars some further labels capturing the most significant of these influences and highlighting some other important principles that underlay their creation. Some of these additional labels were proposed by Leech (2004, p. 126) in his discussion of “a scalar view of gram-mars,” in which grammars are arranged along a continuum ranging from extreme data-orientation, to the middle ground of descriptive orientation, to extreme theory-orientation. The graphic representation of this arrangement is reproduced in Fig. 3.1, which provides a succinct explanation of Leech’s labels. Extreme data-orientation, despite requiring at least a modicum of theorizing, is inductive and primarily involves empirical attention to language specimens, usually in the form of a corpus. By con-trast, extreme theory-orientation, despite its vestigial attention to linguistic data, is deductive and mainly entails explanation and argumentation within the confines of a universalist theory [Leech (2004, p. 126) cites Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (see Chomsky 1995) as a prime example here]. Finally, descriptive orientation, combining the two orientations just mentioned, refers to a very broad array of approaches whose primary goal is the description of individual languages.

Let us begin with categorizing the two related works by Quirk et al. (1985) and Biber et al. (1999).3 Of all the three grammars, Quirk et al. (1985) seems to stick to the structuralist-traditional paradigm and mode of description to the greatest degree.4 Therefore, the only additional label attached to it is that of data-orienta-tion (cf. Leech 2004), reflecting its frequent embracement of gradience in descrip-tions of grammatical categories and its offering of multiple alternative analyses of certain grammatical phenomena (cf. Mukherjee 2002). Despite the fact that all of the three works are corpus-based to some extent (cf. Aarts 2004, p. 368), only Biber et al. (1999) is explicitly labeled as such because it is the only work which is systematically based on a corpus (Mukherjee 2006, p. 342).5 It is also labeled as use-oriented because its systematic reliance on corpus data results in a considera-ble amount of attention paid to such aspects of use as distribution of grammatical features across registers and choice between grammatical variants as determined by discourse factors. At this point, two related things should be noted with respect to the two reference grammars which have just been mentioned. First, for quite

3 See note 2 above.4 The relative influence exerted on Quirk et al. (1985) by some of the theories mentioned seems to be by far the weakest in comparison with the other reference works and therefore negligible when attaching additional labels.5 Biber et al. (1999) is based on the over-40-million-word Longman spoken and written English corpus. For some criticism of this grammar’s approach to corpus research, see Mukherjee (2006). It is interesting to note that the limited preoccupation of the other two grammars with language corpora has earned them the label corpus-aware (Mukherjee 2006, p. 342) rather than corpus-based.

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obvious reasons related to this work’s reliance on a corpus, and despite the absence from it of multiple analyses noted by Mukherjee (2006, p. 339), Biber et al. (1999) would have to be placed considerably further down the data-orientation arrow of Fig. 3.1 than Quirk et al. (1985). Second, this dissimilar placement of the two grammars along Leech’s continuum and the similarity of their general gram-matical outlook6 make the two grammars highly complementary (cf. Mukherjee 2006). Even though the works by Quirk et al. (1985) and Biber et al. (1999) do exhibit some generative influence, they are not marked with the generative label, as this influence is arguably negligible, in contrast to the other influences described above. To summarize, the grammar by Quirk et al. (1985) is classified as structuralist-traditional and data-oriented, while that by Biber et al. (1999) as structuralist-traditional, corpus-based and use-oriented.

The categorization of Huddleston and Pullum (2002) is achieved by means of two additional labels. First, in contrast to Quirk et al. (1985) and Biber et al. (1999), Huddleston and Pullum (2002) bears the generative label. This is because, in the case of this work, the influence of formal linguistics is much more obvi-ous and its extent is such that it has been referred to by some reviewers as “enor-mous” (Mukherjee 2006, p. 339). The use of “deep” trees involving singular and binary branching (Leech 2004, p. 126) and the adoption of an idiosyncratic X-bar framework (Aarts 2004, p. 368) to analyze noun phrases are two example features of this grammar legitimizing the attachment of the generative label. The second label accompanying Huddleston and Pullum (2002) is that of theory-orientation (cf. Leech 2004), which reflects the grammar’s tendency to offer rigorous formula-tions and to avoid the adoption of gradience and multiple analyses of grammatical phenomena (cf. Leech 2004; Aarts 2004, p. 367ff), as well as the tendency to explain and argue in favor of some of the adopted analytical solutions and descrip-tions. This grammar is thus categorized as structuralist-traditional with generative

6 See note 2 above.

working towards a

comprehensive description

of individual languages,

informed both by evidence

(especialy corpora) and by

theory

using rigorous and explicit

formulations; argument ative,

with explanatory focus on

language; answerability to

overarching theory of

universals and typology

corpus-driven or

corpus informed or using

other kinds of empirical

evidence; variational in

focus; nondeterministic (in

using frequency, gradience,

alternative analyses)

THEORY ORIENTATIONDESCRIPTIVE ORIENTATION

DATA ORIENTATION

Fig. 3.1 A scalar view of grammars (adapted from Leech 2004, p. 126)

3.2 Traditional Descriptions

62 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

influence, as well as theory-oriented. Following the discussion of the labeling included in the descriptive Table 3.3, which is also given here in Table 3.1 for con-venience, some concluding remarks in this regard are in order.

Even though the three grammars lean in the directions of data-orientation and theory-orientation in their idiosyncratic ways, and despite the fact that some of them display other relatively strong influences, they are all predomi-nantly descriptive, since, overall, they seem to strike a balance between the two extremes of Fig. 3.1 by offering comprehensive descriptions of English informed by both evidence and theory. It should also be borne in mind that, as stated ear-lier, their descriptions are first and foremost structuralist-traditional. This justifies the application of the term traditional, which should be taken to summarize the structuralist-traditional character of their grammatical descriptions as character-ized earlier in the present section, to refer to some of these descriptions focused on in the remainder of the book. In what follows, the label traditional will also be used to distinguish grammatical descriptions based on the reference grammars from descriptions formed within the framework of CG. Therefore, it should be stressed that neither the reference grammars nor the practical grammars which are based on them display any significant influence from what might be called mod-ern CL, CG included. This claim seems to be valid despite the fact that in at least some of these grammars, especially in the descriptive ones, there are some fea-tures of approach and descriptive practice that could be regarded as traces of the spirit of CL. Two examples are the adoption of gradience to describe some gram-matical phenomena, and some elements of prototype categorization. These slight influences, however, are rather insignificant and the sharp distinction between traditional and CG approaches and descriptions is maintained in the remainder of the book. As mentioned earlier, the most important differences between the two approaches and modes of description are discussed in detail in the last part of the present chapter, in Sect. 3.4.

The empirical part of this book focuses on the choice made by learners between the progressive and the non-progressive present tense to refer to single situations, i.e. to states, activities, events, actions, processes, etc.,7 existing or happening at the time of speaking, which often depends on whether the situation is expressed by a stative or a dynamic verb (cf. I want an apple vs. *I am wanting an apple, She is driving now vs. *She drives now). For this reason, the present section, as well as

7 The use of situation as an umbrella term to refer to verb-symbolized phenomena existing and unfolding in time is adopted here and follows Quirk et al. (1985, p. 177).

Table 3.1 Labeling of the major descriptive/reference grammars

Quirk et al. (1985) Biber et al. (1999)Huddleston and Pullum (2002)

Theoretical orientation Structuralist-traditional, data-oriented

Structuralist-traditional, corpus-based and use-oriented

Structuralist-traditional, with generative influence, theory-oriented

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Sect. 3.3 containing the CG description of the same grammatical material, focus mainly on the relevant aspects of the multi-faceted English grammatical phenomena involved, i.e. the present tense, the progressive aspect and the distinction between what has been traditionally called stative and dynamic verbs. This will be done to the exclusion of all the other aspects and uses of these grammatical elements.8

3.2.1 General Characteristics of the English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs

The English present tense is obviously one manifestation of the general grammatical category of tense, which is usually taken as serving to indicate the time of a situation (cf. Comrie 1985, p. 1; Binnick 1991, p. 452) in a deictic manner (cf. Comrie 1985, p. 14) by means of the grammatical resources, morphological or other, of the verb phrase (cf. Comrie 1985, p. 13). The deictic nature of tense requires that the time of the situation be located with respect to the reference time which is, in default cases, the time of speaking, or, sometimes, some other time established with respect to the time of speaking (Declerck 2006, p. 22). As attested by the relevant views of the three major reference grammars offered in Table 3.3, the English present tense, marked morphologically by either zero or –s, is usually regarded as labeling the situ-ation as co-extensive with the present time understood as the time of the speech event (cf. Declerck 2006, p. 173). The grammatical category of tense is often regarded as closely related to aspect, the next category of the verb phrase, because both of them inherently interact in referring to time as expressed by this phrase type.9

The category of aspect is generally defined along the lines sketched by Comrie (1976), who says, following Holt (1943, p. 6), that “aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation” (Comrie 1976, p. 3). Being quite general, this definition covers several kinds of aspect that have been traditionally distinguished, two of which seem to be recognized and described more often than others and are also relevant in the context of this book. They are

8 Specifically, the present chapter excludes from its scope such phenomena as the tentative use of the progressive (e.g. I’m hoping to gain admission) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 210), the use of the progressive and the non-progressive present tense to refer to the future (e.g. Are you going to the cinema tomorrow? The plane leaves tomorrow at seven) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 210) or the use of the non-progressive present tense to refer to multiple situations (the habitual use of the present tense, e.g. He frequently opens that closet) (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 118). Also excluded from consideration are verbs that are intermediate between stative and dynamic verbs, such as the so-called stance verbs (e.g. sit, live) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 205ff), verbs of bodily sensation (e.g. hurt, tickle) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 203) and the verb look, as these seem at first blush to welcome arbitrariness with respect to their use in the progressive and non-progressive present tense. Verbs with this property were deemed undesirable for the experi-mental part of the study reported later in the book for reasons to be discussed in Sect. 5.5.9 See the comment on the difficulties in clearly distinguishing between tense and aspect in Sect. 3.2.2.

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64 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

grammatical aspect, exemplified by the English progressive, and aktionsart, also known as lexical aspect, exemplified by the distinction in English between stative and dynamic verbs (cf. Binnick 1991, p. 139ff; Declerck 2006, p. 29ff).

Grammatical aspect is realized by verb morphology or syntax (periphrasis) and is regarded by some authors (e.g. Huddleston and Pullum 2002) as being realized in English solely by the progressive/non-progressive opposition. Some others (e.g. Quirk et al. 1985) see the perfect/non-perfect dichotomy (e.g. I had done it vs. I did it) as one more aspectual distinction of the grammatical kind. Since the perfect aspect is beyond the scope of this book, only the progressive is further discussed. The English progressive, also known as the continuous aspect, is realized formally by the auxiliary be in combination with the present participle (the –ing form/par-ticiple) of the main verb of a verb phrase and is generally regarded as express-ing an internal perspective on a situation, which is viewed as being in progress at some point in time (cf. Declerck 2006, p. 29 and Table 3.3). Conversely, the non-progressive is considered to take an external perspective and view a situation as complete (but not necessarily completed) (Declerck 2006, p. 29ff).

In contrast to grammatical aspect, lexical aspect is not overtly marked by means of verb phrase morphology or periphrasis. Rather, aspectual values of the aktionsart type are, in ideal cases, inherent features of particular verbs. In practice, however, it is more appropriate to speak of aktionsarten of specific verbs used in particular con-texts together with their complementation (Quirk et al. 1985, p. 200). For instance, as Quirk et al. (1985, p. 200) note, the lexical aspect of the verb write considered in isolation from its complementation attendant on a given occasion of its use, or with-out specifying the lack thereof, cannot be established. The identification of the verb’s lexical aspect is only possible when these missing elements are specified; write in Jill is writing uttered during Jill’s actual performance of the activity of writ-ing has the aktionsart called activity, while the lexical aspect of same word, together with is complementation, in Jill is writing a novel said of someone not engaged in actual writing at the moment is classified as an accomplishment (both aspects will be presently explained).10 Still, many verbs considered in isolation are often referred to as stative or dynamic (or imperfective or perfective in CG terms, as explained in Sect. 3.3). This may generally be for two reasons. First, many verbs display central or prototypical senses which are taken as their default values and are the basis of classifying them, even if considered as isolated verbs, as stative or dynamic. For

10 The two linguistic examples used in this sentence are taken from Quirk et al. (1985, p. 200).

Table 3.2 Basic taxonomy of English lexical aspect (based on Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 118)

States (stative situations)

Occurrences (dynamic situations)

Processes Achievements

Activities Accomplishments

The flag is red He read to them He read the note I declare the meeting closedHe likes her I had walked

in the parkI had walked home I found the key

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instance, in its prototypical sense like refers to a stative situation of regarding some-one or something favorably, and even though in one of its marginal senses it might designate a dynamic situation involving a constant increase in the degree of the favorable approach (as in I’m liking it more and more) (cf. Langacker 1991, p. 208), the verb considered in vacuo is normally called stative. Second, a phrase such as “a stative verb” may be just shorthand for “a stative combination of a verb and its com-plementation.” The latter convention is followed in the remainder of the book.

Similarly to grammatical aspect, English lexical aspect is an area of some con-troversy and contention (cf. Binnick 1991, p. 139ff; Declerck 2006, p. 66ff), with some scholars going as far as to question the aspectual nature of aktionsart (Binnick 1991, p. 144). Nonetheless, the majority of sources do acknowledge this categoriza-tion of lexical aspect. Probably the best-known taxonomy of lexical aspect in English, which is referred to by virtually every work on English aspect (Verkuyl 1993, p. 33), is that by Vendler (1967).11 Its essence is adopted by both Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 118ff) and Quirk et al. (1985, p. 200ff), although the latter elaborate considerably on the original analysis and consequently offer a much more detailed classification with an additional number of lexical aspect subclasses.12 For the present purposes, the Vendlerian taxonomy presented by Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 118) will be briefly discussed and illustrated by examples from the same source. In this taxonomy, abbreviated and exemplified in Table 3.2, situa-tions referred to by verbs and their complementation are first broadly divided into states (static/stative situations) and occurrences (dynamic situations). A more detailed characterization of states is given in Table 3.3. Dynamic situations, which are likewise defined in specific terms in Table 3.3, are further divided into pro-cesses, which are durative, this being a feature they share with states, and into achievements, which are punctual, or instantaneous. Processes are in turn subdi-vided into accomplishments, which are telic, meaning that “they have an inherent terminal point beyond which they cannot continue” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 120), and into activities, which are atelic, i.e. they lack such a terminal point.13

In conclusion of this general introduction to English tense and aspect it should be noted that even though a fourfold taxonomy of English lexical aspect was just presented and even though there exist various linguistic differences between the above English aktionsarten which may, in some cases, have a bearing on the choice between the progressive and the non-progressive in the present tense, in what follows only the broad distinction between stative and dynamic situations/verbs is considered. The reason is that this distinction is deemed sufficient given

11 This taxonomy was in fact published earlier, in Vendler (1957), but was widely popularized by Vendler (1967).12 In their presentation of lexical aspect, neither of the two reference works evokes the label lexical aspect or the term aktionsart. Instead, they speak of situation types designated by the verb phrase understood as the verbal group and its complementation.13 Most treatments of lexical aspect such as that by Huddleston and Pullum (2002) also distin-guish some situation types that are intermediate between the types mentioned here. As stated earlier, they are not subject to further investigation here.

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66 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

the pedagogical focus of the quasi-experiment reported in the empirical part of the book (Chap. 5), which was not concerned with the more fine-grained distinctions.

3.2.2 The English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs in Descriptive/Reference Grammars and Practical/Pedagogical Grammars

Table 3.3 presents the most relevant information found in the three authoritative descriptive/reference grammars of English on the English present tense, progressive aspect and the distinction between stative and dynamic verbs. In particular, their mean-ing and use when referring to situations existing or happening at the time of speaking are in focus. The table is organized in such a way that every row contains data concern-ing English tense/aspect drawn from the three works that correspond to one another, i.e. the data in different columns of a row, despite being taken from different gram-mars, seem to be the closest equivalents or correlates. Thus, an empty cell indicates that a given descriptive grammar does not contain an element (e.g. a meaning, use, etc.) corresponding to those on its right and/or left, given by the remaining works. All the linguistic examples are taken from the descriptive works and the majority are given in their original form, with only some modified slightly to make them less wordy.

At this point, some comments concerning the preparation and the contents of the table are needed. The three reference grammars offer some of the information gath-ered in Table 3.3 in an explicit and compact manner, but a considerable amount of this data is not offered in this form. Therefore, in the process of designing and cre-ating the table some data were constructed on the basis of the linguistic examples and isolated pieces of information gleaned from different parts of the books. Some other, apparently missing information was arrived at, as already signaled in some of the footnotes above, by adopting an analysis of a given phenomenon which is a reversal of an analysis of a different phenomenon supposed to be its opposite.

Even more interesting to note is the fact that the account of the use of the pre-sent tense with the progressive aspect (the progressive present) to refer to present situations given by Biber et al. (1999) and summarized in the table differs consid-erably from the accounts found in the other two reference works. To understand why, it is useful to consider the following remarks by Biber et al. (1999, p. 472):

[m]ost previous accounts of the progressive aspect describe it as occurring freely with dynamic verbs, while verbs with stative senses have been described as not occurring with the progressive. However, it turns out that both dynamic and stative verb senses are included among the most common verbs in the progressive–and that both dynamic and stative verbs are included among the verbs that very rarely take the progressive.

Also, it appears that at least partially the discrepancy may be due to the fact that Biber et al. (1999) assign verbs into the stative and dynamic categories in an idi-osyncratic way, different from the classifications by the other two grammars. For instance, Biber et al. (1999, p. 473) regard look, stare and listen as stative verbs, while Quirk et al. (1985, p. 204) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 169) con-sider them as unequivocally dynamic.

673.2 Traditional Descriptions

Tabl

e 3.

3 D

escr

iptiv

e/re

fere

nce

gram

mar

des

crip

tions

of

the

Eng

lish

pres

ent t

ense

, pro

gres

sive

asp

ect,

and

stat

ive

and

dyna

mic

ver

bs

Qui

rk e

t al.

(198

5)B

iber

et a

l. (1

999)

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m (

2002

)

The

ref

eren

ce g

ram

mar

’s

theo

retic

al o

rien

tatio

nSt

ruct

ural

ist-

trad

ition

al, d

ata-

orie

nted

Stru

ctur

alis

t-tr

aditi

onal

, cor

pus-

base

d an

d us

e-or

ient

edSt

ruct

ural

ist-

trad

ition

al, w

ith g

ener

ativ

e in

fluen

ce,

theo

ry-o

rien

ted

Gen

eral

defi

nitio

n of

tens

e

and

aspe

ctB

oth

tens

e an

d as

pect

rel

ate

to ti

me

ex

pres

sed

by th

e ve

rb p

hras

eB

oth

tens

e an

d as

pect

rel

ate

to ti

me

expr

esse

d

by th

e ve

rb p

hras

eTe

nse

is c

once

rned

with

tim

e by

rel

atin

g th

e tim

e of

a s

ituat

ion

to th

e tim

e of

spe

ech

and

is r

ealiz

ed b

y ve

rb in

flect

ion

Tens

e is

con

cern

ed w

ith th

e pr

esen

t and

pas

tT

he te

rm te

nse

“app

lies

to a

sys

tem

whe

re th

e ba

sic

or c

hara

cter

istic

mea

ning

of

the

term

s is

to

loca

te th

e si

tuat

ion,

or

part

of

it, a

t som

e po

int o

r pe

riod

of

time”

(H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

200

2, p

. 11

6), u

sual

ly r

elat

ive

to th

e tim

e of

spe

akin

gA

spec

t is

“a g

ram

mat

ical

cat

egor

y w

hich

re

flect

s th

e w

ay in

whi

ch th

e ve

rb a

ctio

n is

reg

arde

d or

exp

erie

nced

with

res

pect

to

tim

e” (

Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p. 1

88),

but

in

a m

anne

r no

t rel

ativ

e to

the

time

of

spea

king

Asp

ect “

rela

tes

to c

onsi

dera

tions

suc

h as

the

com

plet

ion

or la

ck o

f co

mpl

etio

n of

eve

nts

or s

tate

s de

scri

bed

by a

ver

b” (

Bib

er e

t al.

1999

, p. 4

60)

The

term

asp

ect “

appl

ies

to a

sys

tem

whe

re th

e ba

sic

mea

ning

s ha

ve to

do

with

the

inte

rnal

tem

pora

l co

nstit

uenc

y of

the

situ

atio

n” (

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m 2

002,

p. 1

17)

Mea

ning

s/us

e of

the

no

n-pr

ogre

ssiv

e

pres

ent t

ense

It u

sual

ly r

efer

s to

som

ethi

ng h

appe

ning

or

exis

ting

at p

rese

nt ti

me

It ty

pica

lly r

efer

s to

som

ethi

ng h

appe

ning

or

ex

istin

g at

pre

sent

tim

eIt

typi

cally

ref

ers

to s

omet

hing

hap

peni

ng o

r ex

istin

g at

pre

sent

tim

e, w

hich

is u

sual

ly th

e tim

e of

ut

tera

nce

(tim

e of

spe

akin

g)“W

ith s

tativ

e ve

rb s

ense

s, th

e pr

esen

t is

used

w

ithou

t ref

eren

ce to

spe

cific

tim

e, i.

e

ther

e is

no

inhe

rent

lim

itatio

n on

the

ex

tens

ion

of th

e st

ate

into

the

past

and

fu

ture

(…

)” (

Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p. 1

79)

It d

escr

ibes

“a

stat

e ex

istin

g at

the

pres

ent t

ime”

(B

iber

et a

l. 19

99, p

. 453

). T

he s

tate

may

:W

ith s

tativ

e ve

rb s

ense

s, it

ref

ers

to (

a pa

rt o

f) a

sta

te

that

obt

ains

at t

he p

rese

nt ti

me

I li

ve in

Ber

lin

(a)

be te

mpo

rary

I w

ant a

pac

ket o

f cri

sps

I th

ink

you

mig

ht b

e w

rong

Two

and

thre

e m

ake

five

(b)

span

ove

r a

long

er p

erio

dH

e do

es n

ot b

elie

ve in

har

d w

ork

Ple

a by

lead

ers

as c

ivil

war

gri

ps B

osni

a

Tabl

e 4.

1 sh

ows

the

com

posi

tion

of

muc

igel

pro

duce

d by

…(c

ontin

ued)

68 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

Mea

ning

/use

of

the

pr

ogre

ssiv

e as

pect

With

dyn

amic

ver

b se

nses

it re

fers

to

“a s

ingl

e ac

tion

begu

n an

d co

mpl

eted

ap

prox

imat

ely

at th

e m

omen

t of s

peec

h”

(Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p. 1

80)

“(…

) th

e si

mpl

e pr

esen

t can

rep

ort o

n an

ac

tion

ongo

ing

at th

e tim

e” (

Bib

er e

t al.

1999

, p. 4

54)

Her

e co

mes

you

r m

othe

rT

here

he

goes

It is

use

d to

exp

ress

situ

atio

ns w

hich

are

in

prog

ress

at a

par

ticul

ar p

oint

in ti

me,

us

ually

for

a li

mite

d tim

e

With

dyn

amic

ver

b se

nses

, the

tim

e of

the

si

tuat

ion

coin

cide

s w

ith th

e

time

of s

peak

ing

I pr

omis

e to

let y

ou h

ave

it b

ack

tom

orro

wA

dam

s st

eps

forw

ard,

trie

s to

dri

ve, h

e’s

bow

led!

The

re a

re f

our

maj

or c

ompo

nent

s of

the

mea

ning

of

the

prog

ress

ive

and

two

stro

ng im

plic

atur

es o

f th

is a

spec

t: th

e si

tuat

ion

is

Bla

ck p

asse

s th

e ba

ll to

Fer

nand

ez …

I ad

vise

you

to w

ithd

raw

It is

use

d to

exp

ress

situ

atio

ns w

hich

are

in

prog

ress

at a

par

ticul

ar ti

me.

The

mea

ning

of

the

prog

ress

ive

may

be

brok

en d

own

into

thre

e su

b-m

eani

ngs:

(a)

pres

ente

d as

in p

rogr

ess

at a

poi

nt in

tim

e or

th

roug

hout

a p

erio

d(b

) vi

ewed

impe

rfec

tivel

yb

(c)

pres

ente

d as

dur

ativ

e(d

) pr

esen

ted

as d

ynam

ic(e

) pr

esen

ted

excl

usiv

e of

its

endp

oint

s an

d th

ere-

fore

oft

en a

s in

com

plet

e (i

mpl

icat

ure)

(f)

pres

ente

d as

hav

ing

limite

d du

ratio

n (i

mpl

ica-

ture

)

(a)

the

situ

atio

n ha

s du

ratio

n(b

) th

e si

tuat

ion

has

limite

d du

ratio

n(c

) th

e si

tuat

ion

is n

ot n

eces

sari

ly c

ompl

etea

Defi

nitio

n of

sta

tive

verb

sT

hey

refe

r to

sta

ble

situ

atio

ns w

hose

“ev

ery

se

gmen

t (…

) ha

s th

e sa

me

char

acte

r as

an

y ot

her

segm

ent”

(Q

uirk

et a

l. 19

85,

p. 1

98)

and

whi

ch la

ck “

a de

fined

beg

in-

ning

and

end

poin

t” (

Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p.

204)

c, d

The

y “t

ypic

ally

den

ote

stab

le s

tate

s

of a

ffai

rs”

(Bib

er e

t al.

1999

, p. 4

58)

The

y re

fer

to s

tate

s w

hich

“ex

ist o

r ob

tain

” (H

ud-

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m 2

002,

p. 1

19),

do

not i

nvol

ve

chan

ge a

nd “

have

no

inte

rnal

tem

pora

l str

uctu

re:

they

are

the

sam

e th

roug

hout

thei

r du

ratio

n,

havi

ng n

o di

stin

guis

habl

e ph

ases

” (H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

200

2, p

. 119

), w

hich

impl

ies

that

“[t

]he

tran

sitio

ns in

to a

nd o

ut o

f a

stat

e ar

e (…

) no

t pa

rt o

f th

e st

ate

itsel

f” (

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m

2002

, p.

119)

e

Tabl

e 3.

3 (

cont

inue

d)

(con

tinue

d)

Qui

rk e

t al.

(198

5)B

iber

et a

l. (1

999)

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m (

2002

)

693.2 Traditional Descriptions

Defi

nitio

n of

dyn

amic

ver

bsT

hey

are

“fitte

d (…

) to

indi

cate

act

ion,

ac

tivity

and

tem

pora

ry o

r ch

angi

ng c

ondi

-tio

ns”

(Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

: 74)

and

ref

er

to e

vent

s “w

ith a

defi

ned

begi

nnin

g an

d en

dpoi

nt”

(Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p.

204)

f

The

y “d

enot

e ev

ents

, act

s, o

r pr

oces

ses

w

ith a

n in

here

nt im

plic

atio

n of

co

mpl

etio

n” (

Bib

er e

t al.

1999

, p.

458)

The

y re

fer

to s

ituat

ions

that

“ha

ppen

, tak

e pl

ace,

” in

volv

e ch

ange

” (H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

200

2:

119)

, and

hav

e so

me

inte

rnal

tem

pora

l str

uctu

re:

they

are

not

the

sam

e th

roug

hout

thei

r du

ratio

n,

havi

ng s

ome

dist

ingu

isha

ble

phas

es, w

hich

im

plie

s th

at th

e tr

ansi

tions

in a

nd o

ut o

f a

situ

a-tio

n ar

e (o

r m

ay b

e) p

art o

f th

e si

tuat

ion

itsel

fg, h

Use

of

the

non-

prog

ress

ive

pres

ent t

ense

to r

efer

to

situ

atio

ns h

appe

ning

or

exis

ting

at th

e tim

e of

sp

eaki

ng

With

sta

tive

verb

s, to

ref

er to

sta

tes

ob

tain

ing

at th

e tim

e of

spe

akin

g,

whi

ch m

ay n

ever

thel

ess

be “

timel

ess”

st

ates

or

stat

es o

f m

ore

limite

d du

ratio

nW

ater

con

sist

s of

hyd

roge

n an

d ox

ygen

He

does

not

bel

ieve

in h

ard

wor

k

It c

anno

t be

used

with

the

maj

ority

of

dyn

amic

ver

bs

With

sta

tive

verb

s, to

ref

er to

bot

h

tem

pora

ry a

nd lo

ng-l

astin

g st

ates

i

I w

ant a

pac

ket o

f cri

sps

Eco

nom

ists

fear

inte

rest

rat

e ri

se

With

sta

te v

erbs

, bec

ause

they

are

“in

terp

rete

d im

per-

fect

ivel

y” (

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m 2

002,

p. 1

27),

i.e

. the

ir s

ituat

ions

are

not

vie

wed

in th

eir

tota

lity

but r

athe

r w

ith f

ocus

on

som

e te

mpo

ral s

ubpa

rt

whi

ch is

con

curr

ent w

ith th

e tim

e of

spe

akin

gT

he fl

ag is

red

I li

ve in

Ber

lin

It c

anno

t be

used

with

the

maj

ority

of

dyna

mic

ve

rbs,

bec

ause

they

are

“in

terp

rete

d pe

rfec

-tiv

ely”

(H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

200

2, p

. 127

),

i.e. t

heir

situ

atio

ns a

re v

iew

ed in

thei

r to

talit

y an

d ar

e th

eref

ore

too

long

to b

e co

mpa

tible

with

th

e pr

esen

t ten

se, w

hich

ref

ers

to th

e tim

e of

ut

tera

nce

With

a r

estr

icte

d se

t of

dyna

mic

ver

bs w

hose

si

tuat

ions

are

mor

e or

less

con

curr

ent

with

the

time

of s

peak

ing

With

a r

estr

icte

d se

t of

dyna

mic

ver

bs

who

se s

ituat

ions

are

mor

e or

less

co

ncur

rent

with

the

time

of s

peak

ingj

With

a r

estr

icte

d se

t of

dyna

mic

ver

bs w

hose

situ

a-tio

ns a

re m

ore

or le

ss c

oncu

rren

t with

the

time

of s

peak

ing

I en

clos

e (h

erew

ith)

a fo

rm o

f app

licat

ion

Her

e co

mes

you

r m

othe

rI

prom

ise

to le

t you

hav

e it

back

tom

orro

wH

ere

com

es th

e w

inne

r!T

here

he

goes

I ad

d tw

o cu

ps o

f flou

r an

d fo

ld in

gen

tly

Tabl

e 3.

3 (

cont

inue

d)

(con

tinue

d)

Qui

rk e

t al.

(198

5)B

iber

et a

l. (1

999)

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m (

2002

)

70 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

Use

of

the

prog

ress

ive

pr

esen

t ten

se to

ref

er to

si

tuat

ions

hap

peni

ng o

r ex

istin

g at

the

time

of

spea

king

With

dyn

amic

ver

bsk

With

dyn

amic

ver

bs, w

hich

turn

s th

em in

to im

per-

fect

ive

verb

s (s

tate

-lik

e ve

rbs)

, whi

ch in

turn

m

akes

them

com

patib

le w

ith th

e pr

esen

t ten

se

indi

catin

g th

e tim

e of

spe

akin

g

It is

“in

man

y ca

ses

unac

cept

able

with

sta

tive

ve

rbs”

(Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p. 1

98) a

nd

“[t]

his

can

be e

xpla

ined

, in

part

, by

the

obse

rvat

ion

th

at s

tativ

e ve

rb m

eani

ngs

are

inim

ical

to

the

idea

that

som

e ph

enom

enon

is ‘i

n pr

ogre

ss’”

(Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p. 1

98)

It c

anno

t be

used

with

pur

ely

stat

ive

verb

s (a

s re

port

ed in

not

e 21

abo

ve),

bec

ause

the

prog

res-

sive

“co

nvey

s so

me

mea

sure

of

dyna

mic

ity”

(Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m 2

002,

p. 1

67)

With

som

e ve

rbs

that

see

m to

be

st

ativ

e on

es, b

ut w

hich

hav

e

neve

rthe

less

bee

n m

odifi

ed s

o th

at th

ey

rece

ive

a dy

nam

ic in

terp

reta

tion

The

nei

ghbo

rs a

re b

eing

frie

ndly

Tina

is r

esem

blin

g he

r si

ster

mor

e

and

mor

e

With

bot

h st

ativ

e an

d dy

nam

ic v

erbs

us

ually

dis

play

ing

the

follo

win

g tw

o

char

acte

rist

ics:

With

som

e ve

rbs

that

see

m to

be

stat

ive

ones

, but

w

hich

hav

e ne

vert

hele

ss b

een

mod

ified

so

that

th

ey r

ecei

ve a

dyn

amic

inte

rpre

tatio

nH

e is

bei

ng ta

ctfu

lT

hey

are

lovi

ng e

very

min

ute

of it

(a)

they

“ty

pica

lly ta

ke a

hum

an s

ubje

ct

as a

gent

(…

), a

ctiv

ely

cont

rolli

ng th

e

actio

n (o

r st

ate)

exp

ress

ed b

y th

e ve

rb”

(Bib

er e

t al.

1999

: 473

)H

e’s

star

ing

at m

e no

w

And

the

poli

ce a

re a

lway

s w

atch

ing

(b)

the

situ

atio

n th

ey r

efer

to (

be it

an

ac

tion

or a

sta

te)

may

be

prol

onge

dSa

ndy’

s st

ayin

g w

ith

her

for

a fe

w d

ays

I dr

eam

I’m

run

ning

alo

ng th

e st

reet

out

side

th

e sc

hool

By

cont

rast

, sta

tive

and

dyna

mic

ver

bs th

at d

o no

t di

spla

y th

e ab

ove

two

feat

ures

are

rare

ly u

sed

with

the

prog

ress

ive

pres

ent t

ense

Tabl

e 3.

3 (

cont

inue

d)

(con

tinue

d)

Qui

rk e

t al.

(198

5)B

iber

et a

l. (1

999)

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m (

2002

)

713.2 Traditional Descriptions

a Acc

ordi

ng to

Qui

rk e

t al.

(198

5, p

. 198

), n

ot a

ll of

thes

e m

eani

ng c

ompo

nent

s ar

e pr

esen

t sim

ulta

neou

sly

in e

very

sin

gle

utte

ranc

e co

ntai

ning

the

prog

ress

ive

b In

fac

t, H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

(20

02, p

. 163

) co

nsid

er th

e pr

ogre

ssiv

e as

a s

peci

al k

ind

of im

perf

ectiv

e as

pect

ualit

y, w

hich

invo

lves

taki

ng a

n in

tern

al v

iew

on

a si

tuat

ion

and

is

defin

ed in

mor

e de

tail

late

r in

the

sect

ion

c Qui

rk e

t al.

(198

5) s

eem

not

to o

ffer

an

exha

ustiv

e, c

ompa

ct d

escr

iptio

n of

the

stat

ive/

dyna

mic

dis

tinct

ion

amon

g ve

rbs

in a

ny s

ingl

e se

ctio

n of

thei

r wor

k. T

he c

hara

cter

izat

ions

of s

tativ

e an

d dy

nam

ic v

erb

sens

es g

iven

in th

e ta

ble

wer

e th

eref

ore

glea

ned

from

sev

eral

sca

ttere

d se

ctio

ns o

f The

com

preh

ensi

ve g

ram

mar

of t

he E

nglis

h la

ngua

ge in

a p

iece

mea

l fas

hion

d T

he la

st q

ualit

y lis

ted

here

, tha

t of

the

situ

atio

n ha

ving

nei

ther

a d

efine

d be

ginn

ing

nor

endp

oint

, is

not e

xplic

itly

ascr

ibed

by

the

refe

renc

e gr

amm

ar to

sta

tive

verb

s. I

t may

, ho

wev

er, b

e ex

trap

olat

ed f

rom

the

attr

ibut

ion

of a

n ex

actly

opp

osite

fea

ture

to d

ynam

ic v

erbs

(se

e th

e ne

xt r

ow in

the

tabl

e)e

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m (

2002

) us

e th

e te

rms

stat

e an

d oc

curr

ence

to r

efer

to s

ituat

ions

exp

ress

ed b

y st

ativ

e an

d dy

nam

ic v

erbs

res

pect

ivel

yf I

n ad

ditio

n to

the

basi

c ch

arac

teri

zatio

ns o

f st

ativ

e an

d dy

nam

ic v

erbs

rep

orte

d in

the

tabl

e, Q

uirk

et a

l. (1

985,

p. 1

78)

give

a n

umbe

r of

sem

antic

and

syn

tact

ic d

iffe

renc

es

betw

een

the

two

verb

sen

se ty

pes,

whi

ch a

re n

ot g

iven

her

e as

they

are

not

rel

evan

t to

the

peda

gogi

c ru

les

disc

usse

d la

ter

in th

e se

ctio

ng

A s

ubst

antia

l par

t of

this

cha

ract

eriz

atio

n (b

egin

ning

with

“ha

ve s

ome

inte

rnal

…”)

is a

n in

vert

ed p

arap

hras

e of

the

desc

ript

ion

of s

tativ

e ve

rbs

take

n fr

om H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

(2

002,

p. 1

19)

and

pres

ente

d in

the

prev

ious

row

of

the

tabl

e. E

ven

thou

gh th

ese

auth

ors

do n

ot e

xplic

itly

char

acte

rize

dyn

amic

ver

bs (

expr

essi

ons

deno

ting

occu

rren

ces

in th

eir

term

s) in

this

man

ner,

the

char

acte

riza

tion

is h

ypot

hesi

zed

to b

e th

e in

tend

ed o

ne a

s it

reve

rses

the

one

expl

icitl

y gi

ven

for

stat

ive

verb

sh

Just

as

the

gram

mar

by

Qui

rk e

t al.

(198

5, p

. 178

), a

s re

port

ed in

not

e 19

, in

addi

tion

to th

e ba

sic

char

acte

riza

tions

of

stat

ive

and

dyna

mic

ver

bs p

rese

nted

in th

e ta

ble,

H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

(20

02, p

. 119

ff)

give

a n

umbe

r of

sem

antic

and

syn

tact

ic d

iffe

renc

es b

etw

een

the

two

verb

sen

se ty

pes,

onl

y tw

o of

whi

ch a

re o

ffer

ed h

ere

[the

exa

mpl

es

are

Hud

dles

ton

and

Pullu

m’s

(20

02, p

. 119

)] a

s th

ey a

re th

e m

ost r

elev

ant t

o th

e pe

dago

gica

l rul

es to

be

disc

usse

d la

ter

in th

e se

ctio

n:(1

) St

ativ

e ve

rbs

do n

ot n

orm

ally

occ

ur w

ith th

e pr

ogre

ssiv

e, w

hile

ther

e is

no

such

res

tric

tion

with

res

pect

to d

ynam

ic v

erbs

:*T

he fl

ag is

bei

ng r

ed v

s. H

e is

pla

ying

tenn

is(2

) St

ativ

e ve

rbs

may

be

used

with

the

pres

ent s

impl

e to

ref

er to

a s

tate

exi

stin

g at

the

time

of s

peak

ing,

whi

le d

ynam

ic v

erbs

“re

sist

a c

ompa

rabl

e in

terp

reta

tion”

(H

uddl

esto

n an

d Pu

llum

200

2, p

. 119

):T

he fl

ag is

red

vs.

She

mar

ries

Tom

The

sec

ond

exam

ple

cann

ot b

e us

ed to

ref

er to

an

even

t hap

peni

ng a

t the

tim

e of

utte

ranc

ei B

iber

et a

l. (1

999)

do

not s

peci

fy e

xplic

itly

wha

t kin

ds o

f ve

rbs,

i.e.

whe

ther

sta

tive,

dyn

amic

or

both

, are

use

d w

ith th

e no

n-pr

ogre

ssiv

e pr

esen

t ten

se to

ref

er to

situ

atio

ns

exis

ting

at th

e tim

e of

spe

akin

g. A

n an

alys

is o

f th

e fiv

e ex

ampl

e se

nten

ces

they

giv

e (B

iber

et a

l. 19

99, p

. 453

) (t

hey

are

cite

d in

the

pres

ent p

art o

f th

e ta

ble

and

in it

s th

ird

row

) su

gges

ts th

at s

tativ

e ve

rbs

are

mea

ntj H

ere

agai

n B

iber

et a

l. (1

999)

do

not e

xplic

itly

evok

e an

y ki

nds

of v

erbs

from

the

stat

ive/

dyna

mic

dic

hoto

my,

and

onc

e ag

ain

the

dyna

mic

ity o

f the

ver

bs is

sug

gest

ed b

y th

e tw

o ex

ampl

esk

The

pro

gres

sive

gen

eral

ly c

anno

t occ

ur w

ith p

unct

ual-

type

ach

ieve

men

t ver

bs (

e.g.

kno

ck),

or,

if it

doe

s, it

is to

con

vey

a sp

ecia

l mea

ning

of

repe

titio

n: T

he b

ranc

hes

wer

e kn

ocki

ng a

gain

st th

e si

de o

f the

hou

se (

Qui

rk e

t al.

1985

, p. 2

08)

72 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

Another interesting fact is that in addition to the stative/dynamic distinction included in the table, Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 124ff) also introduce, with respect to verbs and their situations, what they call perfective/imperfective aspec-tuality, which seems somewhat puzzling in view of the relationship that they put forward between this aspectual distinction and the more traditional stative/dynamic one. They say that “[w]ith perfective aspectuality, the situation is presented in its totality, as a complete whole; it is viewed, as it were, from the outside, without ref-erence to any internal temporal structure or segmentation” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 124). With reference to imperfective aspectuality they write that “the situ-ation is not presented in its totality; it is viewed from within, with focus on some feature of the internal temporal structure or on some subinterval of time within the whole” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 124). They further say, and this is the rela-tionship between the two distinctions that they propose, that dynamic situations/verbs, if they are non-progressive, are normally interpreted as perfective ones, while stative situations/verbs as imperfective (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 124). The puzzle lies in the very introduction of the perfective/imperfective distinction, which seems superfluous given the perfect overlap between the two distinctions, i.e. the imperfective/perfective one and the stative/dynamic one. It should be noted that in the remainder of the book, perfectivity/imperfectivity is understood in CG terms.

The present discussion of selected facets of English tense and aspect should be interpreted with the awareness that some authors, including some of the very authors of the descriptive/reference grammars considered here, admit to difficulties in clearly distinguishing between tense and aspect. Quirk et al. (1985, p. 189), for instance, say that “[i]n fact, aspect is so closely connected in meaning with tense, that the distinction in English grammar between tense and aspect is little more than a terminological convenience which helps us to separate in our minds two different kinds of realization: the morphological realization of tense and the syntactic reali-zation of aspect.” This view seems to be shared by Huddleston and Pullum (2002), who regard the distinction between the perfect and non-perfect, traditionally and more commonly viewed as aspectual in nature, as a secondary-tense system (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 116). In addition, as Comrie (1976, p. 1) acknowledges, there exists “terminological, and conceptual, confusion of tense and aspect” reflected, for instance, in the use by multiple grammars, especially by those pedagogical in nature and practical in self-description, of the term tense to refer to combinations of different tenses and aspects such as the present progres-sive, for which more descriptively-oriented grammarians employ terms such as compound tenses (Quirk et al. 1985, p. 189n), composite tenses and periphrastic tenses (Binnick 1991, p. 8).14 In this book, tense and aspect are kept distinct, which is in line with the views of CG, and also serves the purpose of clarity.

The presentation of what may be referred to as a traditional pedagogically-ori-ented description of the distinction between English stative and dynamic verbs and of the interaction of the distinction with the present tense and the progressive

14 Kardela (2000, p. 73ff) offers a succinct discussion of the problems related to distinguishing between tense and aspect.

73

aspect in sentences referring to situations existing or happening at speaking time will now follow. It is based, as has already been mentioned, on two standard inter-mediate- and advanced-level practical/pedagogical grammars,15 whose selection for this purpose was justified in Sect. 3.1: John Eastwood’s (1999) Oxford practice grammar and Elzbieta Manczak-Wohlfeld et al.’s (2007) A practical grammar of English, with the descriptions included therein based, in turn, on those offered by the standard reference grammars (Quirk et al. 1985; Biber et al. 1999; Huddleston and Pullum 2002) just discussed. It should also be restated here that the two gram-mars are representative of grammar reference materials used by Polish high school and university students and teachers. With respect to the use of the present tense either with or without the progressive when talking about something which exists or is happening now, at the moment of speaking, and in particular when it comes to the choice of one of them, Eastwood (1999, p. 8ff) and Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. (2007, p. 150ff) jointly give the following rules:

1. State (stative) verbs are not usually used with the progressive [“a state means that something is staying the same” (Eastwood 1999, p. 14)]; action (dynamic) verbs may be used in progressive tenses (“an action means some-thing happening”), e.g. The flat is clean, The farmer owns the land, I’m clean-ing the flat, The farmer is buying the land (Eastwood 1999, p. 14).

2. The present progressive is used to “say that we are in the middle of an action” (Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. 2007, p.154), e.g. I’m waiting for the train, I’m get-ting the lunch ready (Eastwood 1999, p. 8), in other words, “to refer to an activity in progress at the very moment of speaking or about the moment of speaking,” e.g. I am trying to fall asleep (Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. 2007, p. 154).

3. The non-progressive present tense is normally used to refer to thoughts, feel-ings, states and permanent facts, e.g. I think it’s a good programme, Kitty likes her job, Reporting means a lot to her, Paper burns easily (Eastwood 1999, pp. 10, 12). Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. (2007, p. 155) explain why it is so: the meanings of stative verbs of the following types are incompatible with the progressive:(a) “verbs referring to passive mental states, i.e. verbs of inert cognition”

(think, believe, understand, etc.), e.g. I think it is all right, “as opposed to mental activities,” e.g. I am thinking about it;

(b) “verbs referring to more or less permanent emotions,” e.g. love, like, hate, etc.;

(c) “verbs referring to passive activities of the senses, i.e. verbs of inert per-ception,” e.g. hear, see, as opposed to listen to, look.

A part of this rule, the one referring to states and permanent facts, is worded differently by Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. (2007, p. 151): the non-progressive present refers to “general characteristics of people and things which are per-manent or are regarded as permanent,” e.g. Cracow lies on the Vistula.

15 A more detailed characterization of pedagogical grammars is offered in Sect. 4.4. As will become apparent later in the present section, pedagogical grammars also deserve the traditional-structuralist label, a view supported by Chalker (1994, p. 42).

3.2 Traditional Descriptions

74 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

4. The non-progressive present tense is used with such verbs as promise, agree, refuse, etc., e.g. I promise I’ll write to you, It’s all right, I forgive you (Eastwood 1999, pp. 10–12).

5. Sometimes a given verb may be used to refer either to a state or an action and may therefore be used both without and with the progressive, e.g. I think you are right vs. I am thinking about the problem, We have three cars vs. We’re having lunch (Eastwood 1999, p. 14). Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. (2007, pp. 156–157) explain in more detail what kinds of stative verbs may be used in the progressive and why:(a) They may have a different meaning which is compatible with the progres-

sive; the use of the progressive involves either an activity with human agency or a temporary activity, or sometimes both,16 e.g. I am thinking about it (a temporary, voluntary activity).

(b) Some sensation verbs, when used transitively, may be used in the pro-gressive, e.g. I am tasting the soup, She is smelling the roses.

(c) The progressive may be used with state verbs to imply a gradual change of a state, e.g. She is resembling her mother more and more.

6. Sometimes a state verb may be used in the progressive “to talk about a short period of time,” e.g. I like school vs. I’m liking school much better now (Eastwood 1999, p. 14).

It should be noted that the grammar by Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. (2007, p. 155) offers the following introductory statement before its discussion of the rules just reported: “[m]ost verbs admit the continuous form, and are called dynamic verbs. Verbs which do not admit the continuous form are called non-progres-sive or stative verbs.” It creates the impression that in what follows the authors are concerned merely with naming, i.e. applying labels to verbs that display cer-tain patterns of behavior, rather than with insightfully discussing patterns of use. However, as the above set of practical/pedagogical rules demonstrates, the gram-mar, together with the one by Eastwood (1999, p. 14), attempts, contrary to what the introductory statement announces, to explain usage by providing a classifica-tion of stative verbs, whose meaning “is incompatible with the continuous form.” It should also be noted that the two pedagogical grammars, especially the one by Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. (2007), give some additional rules concerning the gram-matical phenomena considered here, which are however, of marginal interest to the present discussion and are therefore not reported.

When compared with the two practical/pedagogical grammars, the three refer-ence grammars are, in general, more comprehensive, detailed and display greater explanatory power in describing the grammatical phenomena in question. Despite this, there seems to be an unequivocal affinity between the presentation of the English present tense, progressive aspect and stative and dynamic verbs offered by these and other pedagogical grammars (e.g. Folley and Hall 2003; Murphy

16 This rule is worded ambiguously in the grammar. The rules given here are partially based on an interpretation of the examples illustrating the rule.

75

2004; Hewings 2005), and the presentation of the same grammatical material by the three major reference works. First, rule 1 finds clear counterparts in the treat-ment of the progressive present tense in the grammars by Quirk et al. (1985) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002). Next, all the three reference volumes express the content of rule 2 in their characterizations of the present tense and progressive aspect. Furthermore, although the characterization of stative verbs by the refer-ence works is intended to be more abstract and more general than what is found in rule 3, which is relatively concrete in its listing of certain semantic nuances of stative verbs, the overall tone of the two accounts is the same in that they revolve around the stability of the situations conveyed by stative verbs (both of them use such terms as stable, exist, obtain, timeless, permanent, passive). The next peda-gogical rule, number 4, also seems to be derived from the reference works, as all of them mention a restricted set of dynamic verbs which may be used in the non-progressive present tense due to the fact that their situations are coextensive with the time of speaking. Next, although the descriptive grammars are not as detailed in listing the semantic features which stative verbs may adopt when transformed into dynamic ones as rule 5 [Biber et al. (1999) mention human agency in this connec-tion, though], they allow for the same possibility. Finally, both Quirk et al. (1985) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002) mention limited duration as a (possible) mean-ing of the progressive, which is a likely foundation of rule 6. In conclusion, the similarities and links between the descriptions of the grammatical material under consideration found in the major reference books and those found in the pedagogi-cal/practical grammars support the conclusion that the latter, despite being less comprehensive and explanation-oriented, are based on the former. The same degree of affinity with standard descriptive works can barely be predicated of the CG account of the same grammatical items, which is the concern of the next section.

3.3 Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs

This section offers CG descriptions of the meanings and use of the English pre-sent tense, progressive aspect, and stative and dynamic verbs. The descriptions are subject to the same exclusions which applied to the traditional descriptions and were identified in footnote 8 above. To fully appreciate the CG descriptions to be offered, the introduction to CG executed in Chap. 2 should be constantly borne in mind as some kind of background, because, quite obviously, the descriptions to be presented here make frequent use of the concepts and notions introduced there. Specifically, CG concepts to be evoked the most often are construal and such related notions as the profile/base alignment, scope and immediate scope; tra-jector and landmark; and perfective and imperfective verbs. In addition, a host of other CG concepts, most of them used to analyze processes (designated by verbs), will be employed, including constructional schemas, sequential scanning, inherent

3.2 Traditional Descriptions

76 3 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense

expansibility/contractibility, effective homogeneity, and bounding. Above all, the general spirit of CL and CG, manifested, generally, in the recognition of linkages and relationships between general cognition and language, should be brought to bear on the interpretation of the CG descriptions offered here.

The present CG account of the relevant grammatical phenomena proceeds in an order which diverges slightly, for the sake of clarity of exposition, from the order in which the same material was discussed in Sect. 3.2. First, the classes of per-fective and imperfective verbs, already introduced in Sect. 2.4.2.6, are discussed in further detail, now under the heading of lexical aspect. Then, the details of the English progressive aspect, with special emphasis on its semantics, are discussed. This is followed by the characterization of the meaning of the English present tense. Finally, the interrelated use of all these grammatical elements is explained.

At the outset, it should be made clear that there is a correspondence between the traditionally distinguished lexical aspectual distinction, that between stative and dynamic verbs, and a basic aspectual dichotomy of CG. The classes of dynamic and stative verbs and situations, as well as the Vendlerian (Vendler 1957) distinction between states, activities, accomplishments and achievements which is its basis, find their equivalents in the CG distinction between perfective and imper-fective processes/verbs, where imperfectives correspond to states, and perfectives to activities, accomplishments and achievements (Langacker 2002, p. 351n).17 However, the correspondence does not entail identity between the respective char-acterizations of the semantics of these kinds of verbs in traditional and CG accounts.

In CG, a perfective process18 typically involves change, i.e. the process’s com-ponent states are not construed as identical, and it is bounded within the temporal scope of predication (Langacker 1987, p. 258ff). It is not claimed that perfectives involve change invariably, without exception, because there is a class of perfective verbs which, at least superficially, designate homogeneous processes. Langacker’s (1987, p. 261) examples of such verbs are sleep, walk and wear (a sweater), whose processes, Langacker (1987, p. 261) says, are viewed as occurring in limited epi-sodes [these verbs seem to correspond to the class of activities in Vendler’s (1967) taxonomy]. This necessitates the inclusion of their boundaries, i.e. the beginning and end, into their scopes of predication, which may be seen as some kind of change (Langacker 1987, p. 262). Thus, even such verbs ultimately conform to the definition of perfective verbs as designating heterogeneous processes bounded in time. The essential characteristics of the semantics of perfective verbs are depicted in Fig. 3.2. The component states of a perfective process are represented by the

17 The perfective/imperfective aspectual distinction in Slavic studies is not equivalent with the CG one (Langacker 2002, p. 351n).18 As mentioned in Sect. 3.2.2, one of the traditional reference grammars, Huddleston and Pullum (2002), also introduces the perfective/imperfective verb distinction. However, their char-acterization of the two aspectual classes differs from the one offered by CG in failing to offer the specifications of the internal homogeneity/heterogeneity of the situation and in being analytically less precise and detailed.

77

bold line, which is a zigzag to stress the change that is normally involved. The line, whose every point corresponds to a single relationship in the whole series of them, extends along the time arrow to signal the evolution of the process through con-ceived time. Vertical bars at the endpoints of the line bound the process and mark its beginning and end, which are both included in the scope of predication. This is not so in imperfective processes, to be considered next.

An imperfective process is construed as homogeneous, i.e. its component states are viewed as effectively identical, it is characterized by inherent expansibility/contractibility, and it is not inherently bounded in its temporal scope (Langacker 1987, p. 258ff). Figure 3.3 highlights the relevant details and, when compared with Fig. 3.2, differences between perfectives and imperfectives. The heavy line representing a series of relationships characteristic of processes is straight, which indicates that the relations are construed as essentially the same and that no change is involved. The line is not delimited by vertical bars, as in the case of per-fective processes, reflecting the absence of inherent bounding typical of imperfec-tives. Instead, the bracketed ellipses indicate the indefinite temporal extension of the process, one portion of which, limited by the scope of predication, is profiled. This is expressed by the heavy-line part of the entire line.

At this point it should be recalled that in CG verbs of either type are regarded as generally flexible in the sense that they often have different variants or senses belonging to two different lexical aspects. This was already discussed and exemplified in Sect. 2.4.2.6. Here, one further example, already mentioned in Sects. 3.2.1 and 3.2.2, which include traditional descriptions of the relevant gram-matical elements, will be treated in CG terms to facilitate comparison with the tra-ditional descriptions and to provide further insight into the grammatical matters at hand. The example is the verb like as occurring in the sentence I’m liking school much better now offered by Eastwood (1999, p. 14). According to this author, here like is a stative verb used with the progressive to talk about a short-lasting situa-tion (Eastwood 1999, p. 14). In turn, CG claims that like in such sentences has an extended, perfective sense, because “a period of stability is regarded as a bounded episode rather than something expected to continue indefinitely” (Langacker 1991, p. 208). Such reclassifications resulting from the inherent flexibility of the members of the verb class are quite common and are readily acknowledged and explained in the framework of CG.

Fig. 3.2 Semantic pole of perfective verbs (adapted from Langacker 2002, p. 88)

t

scope

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It is known from traditional accounts that only dynamic/perfective verbs are compatible with the English progressive, while the stative/imperfective ones are not. In CG, this grammatical behavior is in fact taken as symptomatic of the per-fective/imperfective distinction in English (Langacker 1987, p. 255). Another widespread view of the progressive, as mentioned in Table 3.3, is that it takes an internal perspective on a situation, while the non-progressive views a process from an external perspective, in its entirety (cf. Langacker 1991, p. 208). This view is also essentially accepted by CG (Langacker 1991, p. 208), and, as will be presently seen, insightfully explained in the framework. Beyond these relatively uncontroversial views, CG claims that the English progressive aspect applies to perfective verbs to make them imperfective (Langacker 1991, p. 209).

This transformation from a perfective into an imperfective will now be explained and illustrated by means of a sequence of figures, which depict the rel-evant characteristics of perfective verbs and the English progressive construction. First, Fig. 3.4 introduces the pictorial CG convention used to represent perfective processes, the subelements of which were already introduced by Fig. 2.5. The circle in the figure stands for a processual trajector, the square for another focal participant, usually the landmark, while the line which joins them represents the relation between them. The sequence of several schematically expressed relations of this sort, including the initial and the terminal one, stands for a longer sequence constituting the whole process. The processual nature of this predication is high-lighted by the heavy line portion of the time arrow, which symbolizes sequential scanning characteristic of verbs. Figure 3.5 portrays the semantic value of one of the two morphemes jointly expressing the English progressive, namely –ing (the present participle). In CG it is said to designate a complex non-processual rela-tionship, which is an internal subpart of a longer process and whose component relations are viewed as effectively identical (Langacker 1991, p. 209). As can be seen in Fig. 3.5, –ing imposes on a process a restricted immediate scope, which “pushes” certain of its component relations outside the profile, the initial and ter-minal relations being among the excluded relations (Langacker 2008a, p. 120). All of them, being outside the immediate scope of predication and thus unpro-filed, lose their bold-line marking in Fig. 3.5, compared with their representation in Fig. 3.4. Another thing –ing does is to “abstract away from any differences among the focused states, thus viewing them as effectively equivalent” (Langacker 2008a, p. 121). In consequence, the highlighted relations are viewed as some kind

Fig. 3.3 Semantic pole of imperfective verbs (adapted from Langacker 2002, p. 88)

scope

t

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of a homogeneous mass, as indicated by the bracketed ellipses of Fig. 3.5. This is possible because, as Langacker (1991, p. 209) suggests, the relations are seen as representative of the whole perfective process. The last semantic feature of –ing is that it nullifies sequential scanning characteristic of all sorts of verbs, and thus turns a process into a complex atemporal relation (Langacker 1991, p. 209). This is signaled in Fig. 3.5 by the disappearance from the time arrow of heavy-lining, which contrasts with Fig. 3.4. All the above semantic features of the pre-sent participle morpheme are also expressed, albeit differently, in Fig. 3.6, which follows the conventions of Figs. 3.2 and 3.3, and is offered here for the purposes of comparison with them. It abbreviates the semantic value of –ing even more than Fig. 3.5; the heavy straight line within the immediate scope, similar to that in Fig. 3.3, stresses the effective homogeneity of the focused part of an essentially perfective process. Figure 3.7 shows the effect of combining –ing (together with a verb it attaches to) with the second element of the English progressive construc-tion, the verb be. All the verb be does in the construction is to supply sequen-tial scanning, symbolized by highlighting the portion of the time arrow included within the immediate scope. Be thus reinstates the processual character of the main verb, suspended earlier by –ing (Langacker 1991, pp. 210–211).

Obviously, the composition of a progressive structure, let alone a whole clause containing it, is much more complex than what has been mentioned here. Such composition takes place at both the phonological and semantic poles and

Fig. 3.4 Perfective process (adapted from Langacker 2008a, p. 119)

Fig. 3.5 Semantic pole of –ing (1) (adapted from Langacker 2008a, p. 121)

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is executed according to the principles described in some detail in Sect. 2.4.2.6. Thus, it involves a multitude of correspondences, is executed in a number of steps at several levels and so on. All this is taken for granted here, there being no need to dwell on the details of the whole complex process. To show the unproblematic nature of the process, just one of its aspects will be mentioned. For instance, it would be easy to describe the integration of be and –ing, given the fact that the copula is considered in CG to profile a schematic process (Langacker 2008, p. 155); for this reason there are multiple correspondences, and therefore a consider-able overlap, between the semantic poles of the two components, since both are relational and have two participants (trajector and landmark) in their bases. As said above, then, describing this and other details of the process of composition is unproblematic in CG, but is not undertaken here because of the lack of its more direct relevance to the quasi-experiment reported in Chap. 5.

The above CG analysis of the semantics of the English progressive insightfully accounts for a number of its characteristics which were mentioned earlier, and some of which are acknowledged by traditional works. First, it explains why the progressive is compatible only with perfective verbs, to the exclusion of imperfec-tives. Applying the progressive to imperfective verbs is impossible because, even

Fig. 3.6 Semantic pole of –ing (2) (adapted from Langacker 2002, p. 92)

Fig. 3.7 Semantic pole of be + –ing (adapted from Langacker 2002, p. 92)

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though languages tend to be to a certain extent redundant, in English the redun-dancy of using the imperfectivizing progressive with imperfective verbs is conven-tionally rejected (Langacker 1991, p. 208). Using the imperfectivizing impact of the progressive with perfectives, on the other hand, makes perfect sense and is def-initely not redundant. Second, CG explains in precise terms the achievement of the internal perspective on a situation associated with the progressive. This perspective is reached through the narrowing down of focus so that the endpoints of a process are no longer in it, which is, as shown earlier, due to the contribution of –ing.19 This morpheme is also responsible for the third feature of the English progressive, namely its imperfectivizing force itself. This results from –ing’s homogenization of the component relations of a process, and from its elimination of bounding, which stems from the exclusion of the endpoints of a perfective process from the immediate scope.20

At a fundamental level, the CG analysis of the English tense system, including the meaning of the present tense, is done with reference to the notion of epistemic distance and certain related cognitive models (Langacker 1991, p. 240ff). It is also intertwined with the analysis of English modality, with which it closely interacts in intricate ways (Langacker 1991, p. 240ff). The whole, complex analysis, includ-ing the interactions between the two systems, is not reported here, though, due to the irrelevance of most of its aspects to the present discussion. What is relevant and should therefore be made explicit is the prototypical value of what are usu-ally treated as present tense morphemes (zero and –s). In CG, the English present tense, if not used for special purposes, in an unprototypical manner, is thought to indicate “the occurrence of a full instantiation of the profiled process that precisely coincides with the time of speaking” (Langacker 1991, p. 250). As can be seen, the CG understanding of the prototype of the English present tense basically conforms to the traditional characterization of this tense.

At this point in the discussion it is clear how CG explains the fact that the English progressive may only be used with perfective verbs, while it is unaccepta-ble with imperfective verbs. What remains to be clarified in CG terms is the use of the perfective and imperfective verbs and the relevant grammatical elements, i.e. the English present tense and the progressive aspect, which have also been already

19 This effect of the progressive is mentioned in the reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 164) and is reported in Table 3.3. Huddleston and Pullum, however, regard this feature as an implicature, which means that it may be cancelled in some uses of the progressive, a claim that CG does not make. Also unlike CG, the reference grammar does not ascribe this feature of the progressive to the contribution of –ing, which is left without any precise analysis.20 As mentioned in Table 3.3, the descriptive grammar by Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 163) also acknowledges the imperfectivizing function of the English progressive. For some differences between its account and the CG one, which result from the respective understanding of imperfec-tivity/perfectivity, see Sect. 3.2.2. Also, Huddleston and Pullum (2002) do not ascribe the pro-gressive’s imperfectivizing effect to the semantic value of –ing, which, as stated in note 19, is left unanalyzed. This constitutes another discrepancy between Huddleston and Pullum’s (2002) and CG’s accounts.

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described within the framework of CG, to refer to situations, or processes, happen-ing or existing at the time of speaking. This may be done by answering three ques-tions concerning the use of these elements. The answers to the first two questions essentially report the analysis of Langacker (1991, p. 251ff).

The first question is why the English non-progressive present tense, when referring to something unfolding now, at the moment of speaking, may be freely used with imperfective verbs, but not with the majority of perfectives. It fol-lows from the CG definition of the present tense given above that the immediate scope of a present tense clause, i.e. the part of the base that delimits its profile, is co-extensive with the time of the speech event. This means that its duration is quite short. However, it is possible to use a present tense imperfective verb such as know in He knows it, no matter how long the process is in objective reality. This is thanks to the inherent contractibility, resulting from the lack of bound-ing, and to the effective homogeneity of imperfective processes, whose compo-nent relations coincident with the (usually short) time of speaking count as a full instantiation of the process. In other words, even if the process began a long time before the onset of the speech event and will continue long after its expiration (which is very often the case), because of the imperfective nature of the process, its time-of-speaking part is a valid sample of the process that the English pre-sent tense requires to be simultaneous with the speech time. This answers the first part of the question concerning the compatibility of the present tense with imperfective verbs. The second part pertains to the incompatibility of the tense with the majority of perfectives. This restriction follows from the fact that most of them profile, just as imperfectives, processes longer than the time of the utter-ance. Contrary to imperfectives, however, this conflict between the present tense and perfective verbs cannot be resolved, because the latter do not have the fea-tures of contractibility and effective homogeneity. For this reason, the portion of the process co-extensive with the speech event, which as a whole is longer than this event, does not count as a full instantiation of the process. For this to hap-pen, the whole bounded perfective process, including its endpoints, would have to be profiled as simultaneous with the time of speaking. Indeed, despite being relatively rare, such processes do exist, as explained in the following paragraph dealing with yet another question.

The second query, related to the use of the English non-progressive present tense with certain perfective verbs, is why and when it is possible. As to the when part of the question, CG answers that the so-called performative verbs such as promise, order and sentence may be used with the simple present tense, in spite of the fact that they are perfectives. Profiling the speech event itself, such as the act of promising in I promise to be home on time, they satisfy the requirement that the designated process, including its endpoints, be simultaneous with the speech event. This answers the why part of the initial question. Clearly, the speech act of promising is exactly as long as the time required to utter it. Obviously, perform-atives, which are compatible with the non-progressive present, constitute only a restricted set of English verbs, while the majority, to which the last question turns, behave quite differently.

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The third question is why exactly most perfective verbs in English require the progressive when used in the present tense. The answer should be quite obvious by now. It has been shown that, in contrast to perfectives, imperfectives may be freely used with the simple present. It has also been shown that the progressive aspect imperfectivizes an otherwise perfective process. The conclusion that offers itself is that perfective verbs, when combined with the English progressive whereby they become imperfective, are compatible with the present tense. As shown earlier, this cannot be said of non-progressive perfectives.

3.4 Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions in Comparison and Contrast

In this section, traditional and CG descriptions of grammatical elements are compared and contrasted, which may reveal certain potential advantages of CG over traditional descriptions in terms of their suitability for form-focused instruction. This compari-son is performed mostly on the basis of the actual descriptions, both traditional and CG-style, offered in the previous sections of the present chapter. Some similarities and differences between the traditional and CG descriptions of the tense/aspect com-pound were already noted in the course of these descriptions. For instance, in tradi-tional accounts, the verb like in the sentence I’m liking school much better now is a stative verb, while for CG like in this sentence has an extended, perfective sense. On the similarities front, both kinds of descriptions ascribe an internal perspective to the English progressive, and they see the present tense in this language as referring to speech time. Here, however, rather than focus on specific contrasts and convergences between the traditional and CG views on specific grammatical units, some generic differences and similarities between the two kinds of descriptions which may be established by examining the descriptions offered earlier in the section are considered. The major differences between them concern the degree of the arbitrariness of their rules, the inclusion in them (or exclusion from them) of the conceptual values of the described elements, the degree of their vagueness and imprecision, the existence (or non-existence) of contradictory claims when related rules are juxtaposed, and, finally, the employment or otherwise of pictorial illustrations of the meanings of grammati-cal units. In addition to these crucial differences, in the course of the comparison of the two kinds of descriptions some additional, less significant points of contrast are pinpointed, as well as some occasional similarities. Whenever reference to traditional descriptions is made, traditional descriptions of practical/pedagogical grammars, rather than descriptive ones, are meant, unless otherwise specified. Although the prop-erties with respect to which the two kinds of descriptions are contrasted have been chosen so as to shed light on their potential pedagogic utility, it has to be stressed that the comparison does not strictly evaluate the suitability (or otherwise) of these descriptions for grammatical instruction. A thorough comparison of this sort, drawing on the results of the comparison performed here, is undertaken in Sect. 4.4.1, where the rationale behind testing the applicability of CG to grammar teaching is presented.

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The first major difference between grammatical descriptions given by tradi-tional sources and those offered by CG is that traditional rules seem to be arbi-trary (cf. Chalker 1994, p. 31), while CG ones do not. Traditional accounts are claimed to be arbitrary in the sense that no general principles uniting the appar-ently unrelated rules or uses concerning a grammatical item are given (cf. e.g. Tyler and Evans 2004, p. 257; Littlemore 2009, p. 61). CG descriptions, by con-trast, usually contain statements that subsume the variegated behavior or use of a grammatical item under one principle (cf. e.g. Tyler and Evans 2004, p. 258). An example of rule arbitrariness may be found in rules 1 and 4 given in Sect. 3.2.2 which state that the non-progressive present is used with stative verbs, as well as with verbs such as promise, refuse, etc. There is nothing in the whole traditional account that links the two rules in any way, so they seem to be entirely unrelated. The CG description of the same language facts in Sect. 3.3, by contrast, follows clearly from the CG definition of the (non-progressive) present tense, which admits both imperfectives (stative verbs) as well as these perfectives which pro-file actions co-extensive with the time of speaking. This example, as well as many others not discussed here (see e.g. Bielak 2007; Turula 2011), demonstrate that traditional descriptions of the meanings and use of grammatical elements display a high degree of arbitrariness, a point of contrast with CG descriptions, which are characterized by a high degree of rule unification.

The second important difference between the two modes of grammatical descrip-tion is that traditional treatments do not attempt to elucidate the conceptual import of grammatical phenomena, while it is the essence of CG descriptions that they do. The consequence of the absence from traditional descriptions of the focus on the conceptualizations associated with grammatical items is the presence in these descriptions of often lengthy lists of “functions,” “meanings” or “uses.” These are in turn characterized by what was mentioned in the previous paragraph, i.e. a high degree of heterogeneity and arbitrariness. The set of pedagogical rules given in Sect. 3.2.2 is an example of such a list. In CG, however, where the description of the con-ceptual content of grammatical items, together with the way it is construed, is the norm, such lengthy lists of unrelated aspects of the meaning or use of a grammatical item are not encountered. This is illustrated by Sect. 3.3, where no such list is given and, instead, the conceptualizations associated with the relevant grammatical ele-ments are offered and summarized in diagrammatic/pictorial form. In sum, then, the conceptual content of grammatical units is not part of traditional descriptions, while the inclusion of such content is the ruling orthodoxy in CG descriptions.

Another crucial difference between the two sorts of grammatical description contrasted here is that traditional descriptions are characterized by a considerable degree of vagueness and imprecision, while CG ones do not exhibit this feature. An example of the inherent vagueness and lack of precision of traditional descrip-tions is that some of the rules of Sect. 3.2.2 are explicitly hedged by such lexical items as “normally” and “usually,” which is not accompanied by reference to nor characterization of “abnormal” or “unusual” cases. As a result, a thoughtful reader is left wondering what the rules leave unspecified. Another example of vagueness is found in Sect. 3.2.2, where in rule 3(a) no explanation is offered as to why the

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example verb think refers to an action in one sentence and to a state in another. In contrast to traditional accounts, from considering the CG descriptions of the rel-evant grammatical elements in Sect. 3.3, no such descriptive vagueness nor impre-cision seems apparent. Therefore, it is assumed that CG descriptions do not bear this feature to the degree comparable with traditional descriptions.

The next highly significant difference between the two sorts of descriptions can also be stated in terms of a feature characterizing traditional descriptions, but not CG accounts of grammatical phenomena. This feature is the fact that when the rules concerning a particular item are considered in total, some contradictions among them become apparent. For instance, rule 4 of Sect. 3.2.2 claims that the non-progressive present is used with such verbs as promise and refuse, and, given the fact that the actions they denote may be correctly considered as dynamic, it contradicts rule 3, which claims that the non-progressive present tense refers to “general characteristics of people and things which are permanent or are regarded as permanent” (Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. 2007, p. 151). Turning to CG descrip-tions, on the basis of the analysis of the accounts of Sect. 3.3, it seems that the existence of contradictions cannot be predicated of grammatical descriptions done CG-style. Thus, the presence of contradictory principles in traditional accounts and the absence of such contradictions from CG descriptions constitutes another difference between the two sorts of grammatical description compared in the pre-sent section.

The last major difference between traditional and CG descriptions of grammati-cal phenomena is the fact that CG makes extensive use of pictorial and diagram-matic illustrations of the semantic and conceptual values of these items, while traditional accounts do not. This has been amply demonstrated in the preceding sections of the present chapter, where the Sect. 3.3 with CG descriptions abounds in figures illustrating various semantic and conceptual nuances of the grammar being discussed, while the traditional description Sect. 3.2 does not contain any such illustrations whatsoever. One reaches the same conclusion when perusing the original sources on which the descriptions of this chapter are based; for instance, the two volumes by Langacker (1987, 1991), seminal in the field of CG, contain multiple illustrations of the sort considered here, while the three reference gram-mars (Quirk et al. 1985; Biber et al. 1999; Huddleston and Pullum 2002) and the two practical grammars (Eastwood 1999; Manczak-Wohlfeld et al. 2007) contain very few of them, none suitable for illuminating the descriptions of grammatical units focused on in this volume.21 Pictorial illustrations of the meanings of gram-matical units are thus an integral part of grammatical description characteristic of CG, while they play no, or just a marginal role in grammatical description of the traditional sort.

21 Eastwood (1999) includes numerous pictures with situations in which various grammatical units might be used. It is not done in a principled manner, though, and, moreover, the book does not contain any pictures/diagrams focusing on the meanings/conceptualizations of grammatical units.

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It has to be admitted that the major differences considered so far place CG descriptions in a rather positive light compared with traditional ones, espe-cially when their pedagogic utility is borne in mind. However, some other, argu-ably less significant differences might reverse this tendency. As an example, one might consider the terminology employed in CG accounts, which must seem much more complicated and arcane in comparison with the parlance of tradi-tional descriptions. This is obviously due to the fact that traditional terminol-ogy, by its very nature, is familiar from countless textbooks, grammars and other sources. By contrast, CG jargon, exemplified by such terms as profiling, sequen-tial scanning or trajector, is not used in the majority of mainstream sources. It has to be remembered, however, that the use of such terminology when CG analyses are presented to or discussed with learners might be restricted to a minimum or even done away with altogether and replaced with more pedagogy-friendly terms. Another, related contrast is that CG descriptions tend to be more complex and abstract than traditional ones. Although the descriptions of nei-ther kind provided earlier in the chapter are very simple, it seems that the CG account of the selected aspects of English tense/aspect is more complex, and at least certain of its parts are, definitely, more abstract. The abstractness of the CG terms/concepts mentioned above or of such notions as scope/immediate scope, bounding or inherent expansibility/contractibility is doubtlessly greater than of such traditional terms as duration, state or action. In contrast to the major dif-ferences between the two modes of description discussed earlier in the present section, the contrasts considered here, through exposing the complicated nature of CG terminology and the complexity and abstractness of its descriptions, while arguably minor in nature, turn attention to the aspects of CG descriptions which make them potentially unapproachable, or at least less so in comparison with tra-ditional accounts.

The foregoing comparison of the two sorts of grammatical descriptions which are of interest here has not revealed any important similarities between them. The only congruences which were noted concern the specifics of traditional and CG descriptions of concrete grammatical features, and not these descriptions as generic paradigms. The similarities of the latter kind seem not to extend beyond the obvious ones such as operating with (sometimes similar) linguistic/grammati-cal terminology or focusing on the meanings of grammatical elements. Rather than similarities, the comparison has exposed numerous and mostly significant differences between the two modes of description. As signaled at the outset of the section, the criteria according to which the comparison was conducted were selected with a view to revealing the potential pedagogic utility of the descrip-tions, and at this point already it is hard not to notice that the contrasts so far considered seem to favor CG descriptions in this regard. A thorough and system-atic evaluation of their pedagogic potential, however, awaits to be performed in Chap. 4. It may be noted at this point that what may, partially at least, explain the fact that CG descriptions seem to be better suited for grammar pedagogy than traditional ones is that the former have been juxtaposed here with the traditional descriptions of pedagogical/practical grammars, which probably put a premium

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on such design criteria for pedagogical rules proposed by Swan (1994) as simplic-ity and conceptual parsimony, rather than on truth or clarity. These criteria receive their proper exposition in Sect. 4.4.1.2, which follows the systematic comparison just promised.

3.5 Conclusion

The first purpose of the present chapter has been the provision of both traditional and CG descriptions of selected facets of the English present tense, progres-sive aspect and the distinction between stative and dynamic verbs. In particular, emphasis has been placed on the meanings of these elements and on how they are used, specifically on what informs the choices between competing grammatical forms made by speakers. Every grammatical feature was described twice; first, in traditional terms, and then in terms of the framework of CG. The traditional descriptions were based on several standard descriptive/reference grammars, whose accounts of the target grammar were presented in order to show that the descriptions of the same features by two example practical/pedagogical gram-mars, offered later in the form of several pedagogical rules, were basically the same in orientation, if not in scope. Some space was also devoted to justifying the use of the label traditional to refer to both the descriptive/reference gram-mar descriptions and the pedagogical/practical grammar rules based on them. The use by both of mostly traditional terminology and organization of the presented grammatical material and their descriptive rather than explanatory, as well as tax-onomic focus characteristic of structuralist accounts of grammatical phenomena were given as reasons to dub them traditional, despite the fact that those descrip-tions also rely to a certain extent on some other contemporary developments in linguistics. The presentation and discussion of the traditional accounts of the target grammar was also an opportunity to offer some generally accepted views on these grammatical features, as well as certain points of contention concerning their nature.

The CG descriptions of the selected elements of the English tense/aspect system provided in the chapter naturally relied on numerous concepts and notions introduced in Chap. 2, some of which received further exposition by being applied in descriptions of the target features. In particular, the present tense in English was claimed to designate a situation as coextensive with the time of speaking, the dis-tinction between perfective and imperfective verbs was claimed to hinge on the contrast between bounded and unbounded processes, and the progressive aspect was described as an imperfectivizing device, the function which it has because of its morphological makeup.

The second purpose of the chapter has been to compare and contrast the tra-ditional mode of description and CG as two descriptive paradigms. The most important differences between them were shown to relate to the degree of the arbitrariness of their rules, their reliance or otherwise on the conceptual values of

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the described elements, the extent to which they tend to offer vague, imprecise, contradictory statements and descriptions, and their employment or otherwise of pictorial illustrations of the meanings of grammatical elements. On all of these accounts, CG was claimed, mostly on the basis of comparing the traditional and CG descriptions offered earlier in the chapter, to fare better, i.e. its descriptions were argued to be less arbitrary, to reflect the conceptual values of the grammati-cal elements, to be less vague, and so on. It was suggested that these differences may result from the fact the two sorts of descriptions are differently positioned with respect to certain design criteria for pedagogical language rules. Both kinds of descriptions were used to design the instructional treatments employed in the study reported in Chap. 5, whose purpose was to explore the effectiveness of using CG descriptions in the language classroom in comparison with traditional descrip-tions. The comparison effected in the present chapter, which revealed, in a prelimi-nary fashion, the potential advantage of CG over traditional pedagogical grammars as an instructional tool, is frequently referred to and heavily drawn on in Chap. 4, where the potential pedagogical suitability of the two sorts of descriptions is sys-tematically compared. That chapter is generally devoted to the discussion of peda-gogical options in grammar teaching, the two sorts of descriptions constituting but two of these.

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4.1 Introduction

The ultimate focus of the present volume are the effects of teaching selected ele-ments of the English tense/aspect system described at length in the previous chap-ter. Being morphological and, to a certain degree, syntactic in nature, the targeted linguistic features thus belong unequivocally to the area of grammar. Therefore, the present chapter focuses on the theoretical positions concerning grammar teaching that have originated in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) and on instructional options which are at the disposal of foreign language teachers,1 including both methodological options and some choices in terms of pedagogical rules to be employed in instruction. At the outset, a brief clarification of the term grammar as employed here seems to be in order, given the plethora of possible per-spectives from which it may be approached and a great number of conceptualiza-tions of this notion related to these perspectives (cf. the relevant remarks and discussion by Pawlak 2006: Chap. 1; and Larsen-Freeman 2009). One of the many views of the grammatical component of language was in fact considered in detail in Chap. 2, which presented and discussed the CG conception of grammar as encom-passing not only morphology and syntax, traditionally understood to constitute the core of grammar, but also the phonological level. What is more, it should be recalled that in CG grammar also comprises at least certain parts of the lexicon and the discourse/pragmatic component, because grammar is said to shade into them in a non-discrete fashion. Despite the adoption in CG of this almost all-encompassing view of grammar, in the present chapter, whose function is to consider the pedagog-ical options in grammar teaching and to review important theoretical issues sur-rounding this field, the notion of grammar is understood in a relatively narrow sense, which is close to its traditional view. Specifically, grammar is taken to refer

1 No distinction is generally maintained in this book between foreign and second languages. Therefore, unless the contrast between them is explicitly invoked, the two terms are used inter-changeably. The same applies to the possible difference between learning and acquisition.

Pedagogical Options in Grammar TeachingChapter 4

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to the formal elements of the morphological and syntactic language subsystems, together with their semantic interpretations and use. Sometimes the semantics and, especially, the use of grammatical elements might require reference to certain prag-matic factors, so pragmatics may also be included in some limited sense in this understanding of grammar. Such a restricted view of grammar is dictated by the focus of the quasi-experiment reported in Chap. 5, which investigated the teaching of primarily morphological, and, to a lesser extent, also syntactic units of English. It is also warranted by considerations of space, as the inclusion in our understand-ing of grammar of a wider range of linguistic units would certainly inflate the pre-sent chapter to an unfeasible size. Therefore, while for many purposes it is not unjustified to subsume a much broader array of entities under the heading of gram-mar, in the subsequent discussion of grammar teaching only instruction directed at morphological and syntactic features and their meanings/use is considered. Thus, since the term form is often taken in SLA and language teaching literature to be a synonym of grammar, the term form-focused instruction is used here as an equiva-lent of grammar teaching.2

The present chapter commences, in Sect. 4.2, with a brief discussion of the con-cepts of implicit and explicit knowledge, learning and instruction, which lie at the heart of many of the theoretical positions discussed below and figure prominently in studies of form-focused instruction seeking to determine the value of specific instructional options. Subsequently, Sect. 4.3 deals with current perspectives on teaching and, to some extent, learning of the grammatical system of L2. First, Sect. 4.3.1 discusses the theoretical positions which marginalize grammar teach-ing, as well as classroom applications thereof. Next, Sect. 4.3.2 focuses on some of these major SLA theories which accord form-focused instruction an important, facilitative role in the process of acquiring grammar (Sect. 4.3.2.1) and on a range of methodological options in grammar teaching which are distinguished in SLA literature (Sect. 4.3.2.2). As the last major part of the present chapter, Sect. 4.4 completes the discussion of the instructional options at practitioners’ disposal by considering some choices they may have with respect to the nature of the ped-agogical rules to be employed in grammar teaching. In particular, Sect. 4.4.1 focuses on traditional pedagogical grammars and CG as two possible sources of pedagogical rules, makes a case for the adoption of the latter as a basis of peda-gogical grammar (Sect. 4.4.1.1), and compares the pedagogical potential of CG with that of traditional pedagogical grammars (Sect. 4.4.1.2). Subsequently, Sect. 4.4.2 offers a review of research concerning the pedagogical applicability of CG, a relatively new option when it comes to the foundation of pedagogical rules. Finally, Sect. 4.5 concludes the present chapter and offers a transition to the next one.

2 As is the case with the concept of grammar, the present authors are aware of the terminologi-cal and conceptual confusion surrounding the area of form-focused instruction and the fact that it may often cover the teaching of formal aspects of language beyond its morphosyntax (see the discussion by Pawlak 2006: Chap. 1).

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4.2 Implicit and Explicit Knowledge, Learning and Instruction

Before moving on to discuss the theoretical positions underlying form-focused instruction and the specific techniques and procedures for which they have provided an impetus, it appears necessary to explain a number of interrelated distinctions which have recently been placed at the center of attention of many SLA researchers. The distinctions have to do with the implicit and explicit nature of linguistic knowledge, and implicit and explicit learning and teaching of languages. The first two of these, i.e. those between implicit and explicit linguistic knowl-edge and learning, have their origins in cognitive psychology, where the existence of the two types of learning and knowledge as distinct phenomena continues to be somewhat of a controversy (Ellis 2009a, p. 3ff). Most SLA researchers, how-ever, assume that the distinctions are valid in the case of foreign languages and attempt to specify the nature, interactions between and ways of inducing implicit and explicit knowledge and learning of L2 (Ellis 2009a, p. 6).

The first distinction to be introduced is that between implicit and explicit knowledge of grammar, both of which are aptly characterized by Ellis (2005, p. 151). While implicit knowledge is highly intuitive and mostly procedural, explicit knowledge is typically conscious and mostly declarative. Furthermore, implicit knowledge, despite being variable, which means that it may resemble the knowledge of native speakers to different and changing degrees (Ellis 2009a, p. 12), is rather systematic. Explicit knowledge, by contrast, is much more anoma-lous and inconsistent. Next, whereas implicit knowledge is accessed in automatic processing, is used in fluent performance and is usually nonverbalizable, explicit knowledge is accessed in controlled processing, is resorted to when some diffi-culty is experienced and is typically verbalizable by means of either metalanguage or less technical language. Finally, it appears that the ability to acquire implicit knowledge of a language and its grammar diminishes as people age, while the acquisition of explicit knowledge is not so constrained, which may mean that implicit knowledge, in contrast to its explicit counterpart, may be acquired in its full complexity only within the bounds of the critical period (cf. Bialystok 1994).

As already mentioned, the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge is related to the contrast between implicit and explicit learning of languages and their grammar, which concerns the degree of awareness involved in this process. Generally, implicit learning takes place when the learner is not aware of what is being learned (DeKeyser 2003, p. 314), and explicit learning occurs when the learner is metalinguistically aware of the material which is being acquired (Ellis 2008a, p. 439). This distinction, and especially the definition of implicit learn-ing, may be seen as overly oversimplifying or even misleading, because the notion of awareness may be understood in at least two different ways. Schmidt (1994, 2001), for instance, distinguishes between awareness as noticing and awareness as metalinguistic analysis. Given that learning usually requires noticing of the target structure, as opposed to its analysis, which may or may not be present, and given

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the fact that noticing is often thought to involve at least some degree of awareness (Schmidt 1994, 2001), it follows that there is no learning which is entirely implicit (cf. Ellis 2009a, p. 7). This issue is somewhat controversial, however, because some other researchers (e.g. Williams 2005) believe that learning without con-scious noticing is possible. Since usually implicit and explicit knowledge are the products of the processes of implicit and explicit learning, respectively, the two contrasts are closely related. It should be remembered, however, that despite this relationship, the two divisions need to be treated as distinct. The following exam-ples given by Ellis (2009a, p. 6) explain why it is so:

It is possible, for example, that learners will reflect on knowledge that they have acquired implicitly (i.e. without metalinguistic awareness) and thus, subsequently develop an explicit representation of it. Also, it is possible that explicit learning directed at one lin-guistic feature may result in the incidental implicit learning of some other feature (…).

The last of the three related distinctions is between implicit and explicit instruc-tion, “with the former avoiding a direct focus on the language system and the latter supplying learners with information about the rules underlying the input” (Pawlak 2006, p. 204). It should be stressed that this distinction does not overlap completely with the one between implicit and explicit learning, although implicit and explicit instruction normally target the corresponding types of learning. While implicit/explicit instruction reflects the instructor’s (the teacher’s, material writ-er’s, course designer’s, etc.) perspective and intentions, implicit/explicit learning pertains to the learner’s perspective and experience. Once again, Ellis’ (2008a, p. 439) example illustrates the difference between the two distinctions:

(…) the teacher may provide the learners with an explicit explanation of the use of the English definite and indefinite articles but, assuming that this explanation is provided through the medium of the L2 and that the learner is not motivated to attend to the teach-er’s explanation, the learner may end up acquiring implicitly and incidentally a number of lexical items that happen to figure in the teacher’s explanation.

Necessarily brief as it is, the introduction of the three related distinctions con-cerning the implicitness/explicitness of knowledge, learning and teaching of lan-guages seems necessary here because they are frequently evoked in the remainder of the present chapter, as well as in Chap. 5. These subsequent references to the distinctions will create opportunities to further elaborate on certain aspects of the concepts involved.

4.3 Current Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Grammar

The present section reviews a number of contemporary perspectives on teaching and learning L2 grammar. These theories and hypotheses, while not exhausting the theoretical potential of contemporary SLA in general, not even with respect to form-focused instruction, are nonetheless representative of the views on

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grammar teaching dominant in the field. More specifically, the particular theoretical positions which have been selected carry important implications for teaching tar-get language forms.

When it comes to language acquisition and pedagogy, and in particular when the teaching and learning of L2 grammatical features are considered, three basic positions are attested, which seem to form a continuum (cf. Ellis 2008, p. 843). One end of the spectrum is occupied by the view that grammar instruction is by and large unnecessary and should be abandoned; theories representing this posi-tion are often labeled non-interventionist, and are discussed in Sect. 4.3.1. An intermediate view is that while this kind of instruction may not be necessary, it speeds up and facilitates the learning process. A wide range of theories which endorse this view are discussed in Sect. 4.3.2.1. The second extreme position, embraced, for instance by White (1989) and N. Ellis and Larsen-Freeman (2006) and strongly hinted at by DeKeyser (1995, 2003), is that for at least some gram-matical items form-focused instruction may be indispensable.

4.3.1 Non-interventionist Positions

The SLA theories described in the present section are all representatives of the non-interventionist stance, or, in other words, they support the so-called zero-option with respect to grammar teaching. This position originated in the context of Chomsky’s (1965) Universal Grammar and LAD (Language Acquisition Device), Interlanguage Theory (Corder 1967; Selinker 1972), studies of developmental pat-terns (i.e. orders and sequences of acquisition) in both a first language (L1) and L2, the concept of communicative competence (Hymes 1972), and the realization that traditional grammar instruction rarely translates into fluent communicative use, or the existence of the so-called inert knowledge problem (Larsen-Freeman 2003, pp. 7–8). Given these advances, some applied linguists and foreign language teachers (Newmark 1966; Dulay and Burt 1973; Terrell 1977; Krashen 1982; Prabhu 1987) claimed that grammar teaching should be abandoned and replaced with the crea-tion of communication-oriented classrooms. This was because, according to the zero-option, plentiful opportunities for communication are supposed to suffice for learners to acquire grammatical competence. Three particular non-interventionist theories, i.e. theories endorsing the zero-option, will now be discussed in terms of their tenets and the pedagogical implications they give rise to, which is followed by the presentation of the most influential of their classroom implementations.

4.3.1.1 Non-interventionist SLA Theories

The proponents of the first non-interventionist theory, the Identity Hypothesis (e.g. Newmark 1966; Ervin-Tripp 1974), also known as the L1 = L2 Hypothesis, believe that the degree of similarity between mother tongue and L2 acquisition

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is so high that these two processes are essentially the same. Numerous morpheme acquisition studies (e.g. Bailey et al. 1974; Dulay and Burt 1974a, 1974b; Larsen-Freeman 1976; Pica 1983) and other studies into developmental patterns (e.g. Ravem 1974; Meisel et al. 1981; Abrahamsson 2003) disclosed similarities between L1 and L2 acquisition which have been referred to by some as “strik-ing” (cf. Ellis 2008, p. 109). Obviously, it has to be admitted that certain L1 and L2 learner language similarities do exist. Some examples include the reliance on formulas and simplification during the early stages, and the progression through comparable developmental patterns, especially when it comes to syntactic devel-opmental sequences (e.g. negations, questions).

These similarities are the most obvious, however, at a rather general level. When it comes to the level of detail, by contrast, there are often numerous differ-ences between L1 and L2 acquisition, e.g. the degree of reliance on formulaic lan-guage is often greater in L2, and selected grammatical items often have different ranks in L1 and L2 acquisition orders. Beyond these technical differences, there are a number of obvious ones most laymen would list after a moment’s reflection. A few examples are the typical outcome of the acquisition process in terms of the level of proficiency, the presence or absence of the influence of a mother tongue or other languages acquired previously, and the typical age of acquisition. What is more, the number of variables involved in comparisons of L1 and L2 learning is so high and their nature is such that it is very hard, if not impossible, to control them. The existing comparisons of L1 and L2 acquisition have not always accounted for such variables as the learning context, learner age or learner motivation, which undermines their validity. On the whole then, the plausibility of the Identity Hypothesis is rather questionable, unless a considerable amount of qualifications are appended. However, as will be seen below, the idea derived from the hypoth-esis that instructed learning should somehow emulate L1 acquisition informed some early forms of communicative language teaching (Pawlak 2006, p. 125), and the impact of the hypothesis “is still evident in popular teaching approaches” (Pawlak 2006, p. 122).

Closely related to the Identity Hypothesis is Interlanguage Theory, according to which on their way to the mastery of a foreign language learners go through a series of approximative systems (Nemser 1971), or interlanguages (Selinker 1972), which are different from both their native language and the norms of the target language. One similarity between L1 and L2 acquisition highlighted by Interlanguage Theory is the fact that, just as the developing L1 of a child, the lan-guage of L2 acquirers is systematic and rule-governed, its errors being seen as reflections of dynamic testing of hypotheses and other creative processes, rather than as mere mistakes of imperfect learners requiring instant correction. What is more, the theory recognizes that at any given time interlanguage reflects the mor-pheme accuracy orders, which, as mentioned earlier, display considerable similari-ties in both L1 and L2. Other important influences on interlanguage are language transfer (i.e. crosslinguistic influence) (Odlin 1989, 2003; Jarvis and Pavlenko 2008), transfer of training (i.e. the impact of frequently employed drills, exercises, etc.), and some features of language acquisition which are often supposed to be

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universal (in the sense of applying to both L1 and L2 learning, irrespective of the language background of the learner) such as overgeneralization, simplification and general strategies of learning and communication. Another important contribu-tion of Interlanguage Theory is one of the processes of interlanguage development known as fossilization (Selinker 1972; Long 2003), i.e. the retention in the inter-language of erroneous forms over time. A related process is backsliding (Selinker 1972; Long 2003), i.e. falling back on erroneous interlanguage forms despite their apparent disappearance from the learner’s system. Both phenomena reflect and explain the observation that most learners fail to achieve native-like compe-tence. This is actually a point of divergence between the Identity Hypothesis and Interlanguage Theory. The latter has inspired a number of pedagogical guidelines, which will now be reviewed.

While not all, some of these proposals are similar to the ones derived from the Identity Hypothesis. Because of the belief that, in a sense, interlanguage takes care of its own development according to the built-in learner syllabus, to the extent that to which it is possible the recreation in the classroom of natural-istic learning is endorsed (cf. Ellis 1990). This suggestion may also be derived from the Identity Hypothesis, according to which L2 develops naturally given ample exposure. Other pedagogical conclusions originating in Interlanguage Theory concern learner errors. On the one hand, it is claimed that because errors reflect natural developmental processes, some other universal features of lan-guage acquisition, as well as hypothesis-testing, teachers who are aware of these factors are in a better position to make sense of the errors made by their stu-dents and should use this knowledge to refrain from immediate error correction, at least in some cases (cf. Corder 1967, 1981; Ellis 1990, p. 53). On the other hand, it is suggested that teachers who are aware of the phenomenon of fossiliza-tion should sometimes engage in remedial work (Ellis 1990, p. 53ff), which, it should be noted, in fact contradicts an extreme version of the non-interventionist position. Another pedagogical recommendation (also suggested by the Identity Hypothesis), which, however, is difficult to implement in practice, is that teach-ing should follow the natural patterns of L2 development (see also the discussion of Processability Theory and the Teachability Hypothesis in Sect. 4.3.2.1 below) (cf. Pawlak 2006, pp. 128–130). Just as in the case of the Identity Hypothesis, some of these ideas were and perhaps still are taken up in non-interventionist approaches to language teaching.

The two theoretical developments just discussed laid the foundations of the last SLA theory to be presented in this section, namely the Monitor Model, also known as Monitor Theory. Another of its major underpinnings is Chomsky’s (1965) Universal Grammar Theory and the related Universal-Grammar-based approaches to language acquisition (see White 1989, 2003). Although such approaches are often discussed as one of the major positions within the non-interventionist camp (cf. Pawlak 2006), and in spite of the fact that Universal-Grammar-oriented SLA research that they have inspired has raised very interesting issues such as the avail-ability of the innate universal principles and parameters to L2 learners or the role of L1 in the process of accessing the principles, they will not be discussed here

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in any detail. This is because the pedagogical implications these approaches have produced are similar to the ones derived from the two previously considered theo-ries as well as from Krashen’s Monitor Model. It will suffice to note at this junc-ture that in Universal Grammar (Chomsky 1986) the logical problem of language acquisition, i.e. the apparent impossibility of child language acquisition given the relative poverty of the stimulus (availability of only degenerate input), is solved by the postulation of the Innate Language Faculty (also referred to as LAD—the Language Acquisition Device), or Universal Grammar. For language acquisition to take place, this construct is thought to require only some parameter setting to be performed by the relatively meager input. These comments have been offered here because this innate basis of language will be evoked several times in the discus-sion of Stephen Krashen’s well-known theory.

The Monitor Model (Krashen 1981, 1982, 1985), which is one of the most comprehensive and influential theories of SLA, consists of five interrelated hypotheses. The first one is the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis, which differ-entiates between two modes of gaining L2 knowledge by mature learners. On the one hand, acquisition, similar to how children come to know their native language, proceeds unconsciously in spontaneous meaningful communication, and the knowledge gained in this manner may be easily deployed in this kind of interaction. Acquisition is virtually effortless because it reflects the opera-tion of the Innate Language Faculty. On the other hand, learning, explicit and effortful, results in knowledge which cannot be used in spontaneous communi-cation. The two processes give rise to the emergence of acquired and learned knowledge, which roughly correspond to implicit and explicit knowledge intro-duced earlier, and, crucially, are seen as separate in the sense that one cannot be converted into the other. This constitutes the so-called non-interface position, the most important implication of which is that learned knowledge (the oppo-site of acquired knowledge) cannot be transformed into unconscious language ability lending itself to intuitive use. However, the two kinds of knowledge can sometimes interact in L2 production, as explained by the second component of Monitor Theory, the Monitor Hypothesis, which holds that learned knowledge can monitor, or edit output if the learner’s attention is on form and if there is suf-ficient time, i.e. in controlled rather than spontaneous performance. However, for such monitoring to occur, the learner needs to know the relevant rule, be focused on accuracy and have sufficient time. The next hypothesis of the Monitor Model, the Natural Order Hypothesis, is based on morpheme order studies and other developmental pattern studies, and proposes that acquisition orders and develop-mental sequences are a constant feature of acquisition (not learning), dependent on neither the presence of instruction nor the complexity of the acquired struc-tures. Yet again, the innate principles of Chomsky’s Universal Grammar are sup-posed to be reflected in the natural order of acquisition. The next component of Krashen’s theory is based on the assumption that this Innate Language Faculty can be activated only by a certain kind of input. As the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis has it, for acquisition (not learning) to occur, the learner must be exposed to comprehensible input, i.e. input which is slightly beyond the level of

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the current state of his or her interlanguage. This kind of input is often represented as i + 1, where i refers to what the learner knows at a given point, and 1 stands for additional knowledge, which, if combined with the already existing knowl-edge, takes the learner to the next developmental stage. Input of this sort, which triggers the operation of the innate faculty, is a necessary and sufficient condi-tion for acquisition. Finally, the Affective Filter Hypothesis attempts to explain the variability of outcomes of language education, which has been observed even when the amount of comprehensible input is comparable. It does so by highlighting the role of affective factors in acquisition. The so-called affective filter, which reflects the learner’s general attitude and level of emotional com-fort, is supposed to regulate his or her access to comprehensible input. If the learner has a positive attitude, high motivation and self-esteem, and feels com-fortable in the instructional (or naturalistic) setting, the filter is set low, enabling access to comprehensible input and increasing the likelihood that it will reach the language acquisition device. If, on the other hand, the learner’s subjective experiences are polar opposites of the ones just listed, a situation which is often accompanied by anxiety and stress, the filter is raised and prevents input from being processed, ultimately hindering acquisition. To conclude this discussion of Krashen’s theory, it may be noted that although Monitor Theory has provoked a heated debate in which probably more critics than supporters have expressed their views (cf. Pawlak 2006), it has resonated with many teachers as it addresses some of their everyday concerns and intuitions, such as the lack of communi-cative fluency after many years of formal instruction, or the hunch that a lot of input is beneficial.

The pedagogical guidelines which are derived from the Monitor Model correspond in large measure to Stern’s (1992) experiential teaching strategy (cf. Pawlak 2006, p. 139), which involves the experience by learners of life-like situations requiring language use. Perhaps the most important pedagogical impli-cation is similar to what can be concluded from the consideration of the Identity Hypothesis and Interlanguage Theory, namely that the focus on formal aspects of language should be replaced with more naturalistic instructional options aimed at meaningful communication. This is because explicit grammar instruction and error correction are thought to have only marginal effects on acquisition (as opposed to learning) (Krashen 1982). Thus, precious classroom time is simply wasted if devoted to form-focused instruction, except for a small residue of rules such as the it’s/its distinction, which pose a problem even to native speakers (Krashen 2003, p. 30). What is needed instead is plenty of comprehensible input, which, impor-tantly, should be only roughly tuned, so that at least some of its parts are at the requisite i + 1 level (Krashen 1981). This means that, just as explicit instruction, implicit teaching is also dispensable. Krashen’s theory also suggests that output and interaction are to a large extent negligible in the classroom, as they are not essential to ensure acquisition. Thus, output production should never be imposed on learners, all the more so because such practices may set the learner’s affective filter high. This setting of the filter should also be prevented by ensuring that lan-guage classrooms are learner-friendly, low-anxiety environments.

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4.3.1.2 Classroom Applications of Non-interventionist Theories

There are several approaches which have implemented the non-interventionist position in the classrooms of many diverse regions of the world. The most influ-ential of them are the Cognitive Anti-Method (Newmark and Reibel 1968), immersion programs, the Natural Approach (Terrell 1977; Krashen and Terrell 1983), and the Communicational Teaching Project (Prabhu 1984, 1987). The Cognitive Anti-Method, which grew out of dissatisfaction with audiolingualism, was inspired by Chomsky’s ideas concerning the innate basis of language and renounced explicit instruction in the classroom, was not widely implemented due to what might be termed its revolutionary character at the time of its origin, the 1960s (Pawlak 2006, pp. 145–146). Immersion programs, which originated well over 40 years ago in Canada and were later implemented in many other regions of the world, are a form of content-based teaching, where languages are taught and learned through educational focus on the subject matter of other academic disciplines (Swain and Johnson 1997; Walker 2000). The Natural Approach, which may be seen as an heir of the Cognitive Anti-Method and found its the-oretical rationale in the Monitor Model, is a comprehension-based methodology adopted in the 1970 and 1980s in diverse regions of the world and still highly popular in North America (Celce-Murcia 2001, p. 8; Pawlak 2006, p. 149). The Communicational Teaching Project, which was conducted in secondary schools in Southern India in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, also highlighted the impor-tance of comprehension, but in addition it “replaced the linguistic syllabus with a procedural syllabus, which consists of tasks sequenced according to their con-ceptual difficulty and grouped by similarity [emphasis original]” (Pawlak 2006, p. 152). As can be seen from these examples of classroom non-intervention in grammar teaching, their geographical scope was rather wide.

Although there are certain differences between them, one example being the intended goals of language education ranging from basic interpersonal communica-tion skills (Cummins 1980) in the case of the Natural Approach to native-like profi-ciency in the case of many immersion programs, these practical implementations of non-intervention have a lot in common, a legacy of their zero-option orientation. Thus, all of them are in favor of, to the extent that it is possible, the recreation in the classroom of a naturalistic learning environment, for example through content-based (immersion programs) or task-based teaching (the Communicational Teaching Project). This implicates a complete exclusion, or at least extreme margin-alization, of form-focused instruction in the classroom. The insignificance of such instruction, if it is at all present, is reflected, for instance, in that it is expected to tar-get the Monitor rather than implicit knowledge (the Natural Approach), or in that it is allowed to be incidental only (the Communicational Teaching Project). The near non-presence of grammar teaching in these approaches is related to another com-monality they seem to share, namely their general approach to syllabus design. Basically, they favor the adoption of analytic syllabuses (Wilkins 1976), or Type B syllabuses (White 1988), which generally do away with the preselection and grading of the grammatical content to be taught. Specifically, they employ communicative

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syllabuses, or, in the case of the Communicational Teaching Project, a procedural (task-based) or even a process syllabus (Breen 1984), which is at least partially negotiated with learners.3 All of this goes to show that these classroom implementa-tions of the non-interventionist position are acquisition-oriented (in Krashen’s sense) and involve the adoption of the experiential teaching strategy (Stern 1992), which in their case virtually excludes grammatical instruction.

What should be noted is that these non-interventionist approaches to foreign lan-guage teaching have been relatively successful. Specifically, the often-reached con-clusion derived from the analysis of their outcomes is that the provision of abundant exposure and plentiful opportunities for meaningful exchange of information in the target language are able to equip learners of different ages with at least acceptable levels of communicative competence (Pawlak 2006, pp. 155–157), making them fluent communicators. This competence includes, among other things, the abil-ity to use some grammatical elements, which are thus acquired naturally, without recourse to form-focused instruction. However, despite their overall success, these zero-option communication-oriented classroom implementations are flawed by several imperfections, some of which are quite serious. The first and probably the most egregious problem is that they often fail to ensure high levels of grammati-cal accuracy, with learners frequently exhibiting persistent errors even after long periods of instruction (cf. Beretta and Davies 1985; Swain 1992). Obviously, what suffers from this lack of accuracy are mainly learners’ production skills, which are somehow underdeveloped and often display features of pidginization (Beretta and Davies 1985). The next major shortcoming of purely communicative approaches is that they are very often difficult to implement. First of all, it is hard to recreate naturalistic environments in instructed language settings (Ellis 1992). More spe-cifically, classrooms usually differ from natural settings with respect to discourse, as classroom interaction is in large measure made up by learner and (non-native) teacher output, which is often considerably different from language encountered out of class. Also, the patterns of classroom interaction differ in many respects from those found in naturalistic discourse. The second serious problem of implementa-tion is that the non-interventionist approaches often do not sit well in the existing educational systems and sociocultural settings (Pawlak 2006, pp. 175–176). For instance, institutionalized educational systems often include formal exams which require high levels of grammatical accuracy in the performance of tasks tapping into explicit knowledge, which, as has been shown, is not fostered by the zero-option approaches. Also, many societies, the Polish one being a good example, are not on the whole made up of individuals, teachers included, who are highly toler-ant of erroneous performance, and such tolerance is exactly what is expected in the approaches under discussion. In sum, the zero-option approaches often fail to result in high levels of language proficiency due to low levels of accuracy, and may be dif-ficult to implement due to problems with their internal and external environments.

3 A process syllabus can include a focus on form, and this feature was not adopted by the Communicational Teaching Project.

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As already signaled, it is not universally accepted that communicative language teaching without any pedagogical intervention is the best pedagogical option. In the words of Larsen-Freeman (2003, p. 78), “[t]he point of education is to accel-erate the acquisition process, not be satisfied with or try to emulate what learn-ers can do on their own. Therefore, what works in untutored language acquisition should not automatically translate into prescriptions and proscriptions for peda-gogical practice for all learners.” This view motivated the research endeavor reported in Chap. 5 and it will be amply justified and explained in the subsequent section. It is also true, though, that in the case of some areas of grammar fore-going pedagogic intervention in certain groups of learners may be recommended (cf. Hulstijn 1995; Swan 2006). One example of such a rule of grammar may be the English future perfect progressive tense/aspect pairing, which should perhaps not be taught to learners of English as a lingua franca due to its high degree of complexity and low frequency. Even if this is contested, given the limited time resources characteristic of most foreign language settings, non-intervention may sometimes be a practical necessity in the sense that it can complement instruction to a certain extent and at some times. For these reasons, it is profitable to be aware of the rationale behind the non-interventionist position and the possible pedagogi-cal implications and effects of implementing it in the classroom.

4.3.2 Pro-intervention Positions

In contrast to the zero-option endorsed by the theories so far discussed, the pro-intervention positions view pedagogical intervention as having a facilitative func-tion with respect to the acquisition of language and its grammar, or even see it as indispensable. Specifically, they represent the view that although formal instruction may in most cases not be necessary to ensure that learners acquire foreign language grammar, such instruction is able to speed up and generally enhance the process so that higher levels of proficiency are achieved. With respect to the acquisition of some areas of grammar, for instance those associated with high degrees of abstract-ness of the semantic categories involved (DeKeyser 2003), or those in the area of morphology which are low in salience and communicative value (N. Ellis and Larsen-Freeman 2006), it is even implied that instruction may be necessary. In fact, the view that at least some focus on some target language grammar is needed in the case of at least some learners when the objective is the achievement of high levels of accuracy and communicative fluency (cf. DeKeyser 1998, p. 42; Doughty and Williams 1998, p. 11; Ellis 2008, p. 900ff) seems to be currently a majority view among SLA researchers. For this reason, and because they generally motivated the research project reported in Chap. 5, a number of current SLA theories of inter-ventionist flavor together with their implications for form-focused instruction are discussed in Sect. 4.3.2.1 in considerable detail. Section 4.3.2.2, complements the discussion of the instructional facilitation of grammar learning by considering a range of methodological options available in grammar teaching.

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4.3.2.1 Pro-intervention SLA Theories

The first theoretical position concerning instructed language acquisition, including teaching and learning L2 grammar, is the Multidimensional Model later developed into Processability Theory (Clashen and Muskien 1986; Pienemann 1998, 2007), which grew out of research into acquisition orders and developmental sequences in L2 acquisition (e.g. Clashen 1980; Meisel et al. 1981). Processability Theory emphasizes the role of general cognitive processes (the processor) in language production and acquisition, as it claims that different aspects of cognitive process-ing are associated with different developmental stages. In fact, progress through developmental sequences is considered to depend on and move in parallel with incremental headway in processing abilities. Pienemann (1998) proposes the fol-lowing processability hierarchy, meant to explain movement through developmen-tal patterns:

1. No procedure (e.g. producing a simple word such as yes).2. Category procedure (e.g. adding a past tense morpheme to a verb).3. Noun phrase procedure (e.g. matching plurality as in two kids).4. Verb phrase procedure (e.g. moving an adverb out of the verb phrase to the

front of the sentence as in I went yesterday/yesterday I went).5. Sentence procedure (e.g. subject-verb agreement).6. Subordinate clause procedure (e.g. use of the subjunctive in subordinate

clauses triggered by information in a main clause).

The assumption regarding the development of the learner’s processor is related to a pedagogically important aspect of Processability Theory, the so-called Teachability Hypothesis (Pienemann 1985), according to which form-focused instruction can be successful only if the learner has attained the ability to per-form linguistic processing necessary to acquire a given grammatical feature, i.e. if he or she has reached a developmental stage close to the one where the focused grammatical unit is acquired naturally. This principle, however, does not oper-ate across the board. Specifically, it does not apply to some grammatical features which are variational rather than developmental in character, the English copula being a good example (Meisel et al. 1981), and may thus be acquired by different learners at different stages of their interlanguage development. The Teachability Hypothesis provides a basis for several pedagogic recommendations (Pienemann 1985, 1987). The most important one is that grammatical instruction should take into account developmental patterns; in particular, only these developmental fea-tures should be taught which are one stage ahead of the learner’s current stage of development, with the effect that classroom teaching should respect the learner’s in-built syllabus. Otherwise, instruction will be wasted, or, worse still, learners pushed to engage with language they are incapable of processing and producing will resort to avoidance strategies.

The criticism and practical problems related to the pedagogical guidelines based on the Teachability Hypothesis give rise to serious reservations concerning its actual application in the classroom. For instance, Pawlak (2006, p. 212) points

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to the inadequacy of our current knowledge of developmental patterns and the serious practical difficulties in establishing the stage of development of particu-lar learners (cf. Lightbown 1985). Rejecting the pedagogical guidelines following from the Teachability Hypothesis, Nunan (1994, p. 263) argues that “[m]aking salient features of the language which are currently unprocessible could be argued (…) to be one of the central reasons for undertaking formal instruction, as opposed to picking up a second language naturalistically on the street.” He notes that while learners may be unable to process a given developmental feature, which is thereby beyond their normal acquisitional grasp, they may still benefit from its teaching as the feature may be learned as part of formulaic sequences, to be analyzed or processed later (Nunan 1994, p. 266; cf. Johnston 1985). Finally, as Ellis (1997, p. 65) argues, the claims of the Teachability Hypothesis pertain to implicit knowl-edge, and not necessarily to explicit knowledge. From this it follows that explicit knowledge may benefit from instruction which does not respect developmental patterns of language acquisition. As a result of these difficulties, the Teachability Hypothesis “has never really been heeded by materials designers and practition-ers” (Pawlak 2006, p. 212), i.e. it has not been implemented on a large scale in any systematic way.

The next theory with a clear position on form-focused instruction is Skill-Learning Theory, which views instructed language learning on a par with learning other complex skills such as playing a musical instrument or swimming. Crucial to the theory is the distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge (Anderson 1976, 1983; McLaughlin 1987; Anderson 1995; McLaughlin and Heredia 1996), because learning a foreign language is seen as a transition from declarative knowledge of different aspects of language to their procedural mastery achieved through practice. Although in reality there is a considerable amount of overlap between the declarative/procedural and the implicit/explicit knowledge distinctions, the latter of which was introduced in Sect. 4.2, strictly speaking they are not one and the same (Ellis 1993; DeKeyser 2007a, p. 4, 2009, p. 121). While the implicit/explicit dichotomy has to do primarily with the level of conscious-ness (i.e. implicit knowledge is unconscious and intuitive, and explicit knowledge is conscious), the distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge has more to do with the degree of control learners have. Thus, declarative knowledge, being factual (knowledge that), is accessed and controlled in a relatively slow and effortful manner, while procedural knowledge (knowledge how) is accessed and processed in a largely automatic, effortless fashion. As signaled at the outset, in Skill-Learning Theory, language learning, the acquisition of grammar included, involves turning declarative knowledge, which is often explicit, into usually implicit procedural knowledge, so it remains to be explained how the theory con-ceives of this process.

The transition from possessing declarative knowledge of a feature to display-ing its procedural knowledge is said to involve three phases often called declara-tive, procedural and automatic (DeKeyser 2007b, p. 98) [alternatively, they may be called cognitive, associative and autonomous (Fitts and Posner 1967)]. In the declarative stage, the learner holds some knowledge of, say, a grammatical item

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as a result of, typically, receiving some verbal description of the item, or, less frequently, observing it in the input. To use a down-to-earth example provided by Pawlak (2006, pp. 207–208), in this stage the learner may know that to form an English sentence with the present perfect tense the auxiliary have needs to be fol-lowed by a past participle of the main verb, but is unable to produce such sen-tences spontaneously. As DeKeyser (2007b, p. 98) says, “[n]ext comes the stage [the procedural one] of acting on this knowledge, turning it into a behavior,” which may take the form of using the present perfect tense in controlled produc-tion. Although it does not take an overwhelming amount of effort or time, such practice, requiring careful and reflexive application of the prerequisite declarative knowledge (DeKeyser 2007a, p. 216), is likely to restructure this knowledge and “allow the combination of co-occurring elements into larger chunks that reduce the working memory load” (DeKeyser 1998, p. 49). In other words, the sec-ond stage leads to the emergence of procedural knowledge, which is superior to declarative knowledge because “[i]t no longer requires the individual to retrieve bits and pieces of information from memory to assemble them into a “program” for a specific behavior; instead, that program is now available as a ready-made chunk to be called up in its entirety each time the conditions for that behavior are met” (DeKeyser 2007b, p. 99). In the last, automatic, stage, large amounts of prac-tice, primarily communicative in nature, are required to strengthen, fine-tune and automatize the newly acquired procedural knowledge, which increases the speed of production and minimizes the error rate and the amount of attention required for processing, with the benefit that this freed attention may now be assigned to other parallel tasks or higher-level processes (DeKeyser 1998, pp. 49–50, 2007b, pp. 98–99). All of this would characterize present perfect sentences produced at this stage in spontaneous speech and for different uses with effortless manipu-lation of such related phenomena as grammatical person and verb type (Pawlak 2006, p. 208).

What is known about skill-learning has been translated into proposals of peda-gogical application (e.g. Johnson 1996; DeKeyser 1998, 2001, 2007a, 2007b). To develop declarative knowledge and initiate proceduralization, DeKeyser proposes to deploy, in the words of Pawlak (2006, p. 209) “rather traditional sentence-com-bining, fill-in-the gap or translation exercises where there is no time pressure.” The stage of automatization, by contrast, should rely much more heavily on com-municative activities involving meaningful exchange of information during which learners may nevertheless resort to the recollection of declarative rules. In fact, in Skill-Learning Theory the accumulation and maintenance of declarative knowl-edge, best developed through explicit instruction targeting explicit learning (see Sect. 4.2), is not a passing requirement which no longer applies when a given grammatical item has been automatized in speaking, for example. To appreciate the usefulness of retaining the declarative knowledge of a given grammatical fea-ture, one should consider the fact that its acquisition is skill-specific (DeKeyser 1997), i.e. if this feature has been highly automatized in, say, writing, it does not necessarily mean that it will be employed in the same fashion in spontane-ous speech. This is supported by the concept of transfer-appropriate processing

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(Morris et al. 1977), a development in cognitive psychology according to which memory retrieval is better if the cognitive processes accompanying retrieval are similar to those active during learning. In relation to skill-specificity, DeKeyser (2007b, p. 100) says that

[t]he implication [of skill-specificity] for training is that two kinds of knowledge need to be fostered, both highly specific procedural knowledge, highly automatized for efficient use in the situations that the learner is most likely to confront in the immediate future, and also solid abstract declarative knowledge that can be called upon to be integrated into much broader, more abstract procedural rules, which are indispensable when confronting new contexts of use.

It seems that what is meant here by new contexts of use are also new skills (speak-ing, writing, etc.). In sum, “Skill-Learning Theory provides a plausible theoretical justification for explicit FFI [form-focused instruction], as exemplified by the tra-ditional PPP [presentation, practice, production] procedure” (Pawlak 2006, p. 209) and, indeed, pedagogical guidelines informed by the theory highlight the need for explicit teaching of grammar followed by creating ample opportunities for prac-tice, particularly such that is communicative in nature. While such an approach is a mainstay of many, especially foreign rather than second language classrooms, there has recently been what may be called a modest revival of interest in this kind of teaching among L2 researchers (e.g. Fotos 2002; Pawlak 2006). It should also be stressed, however, that although it highlights explicit knowledge and learning, which ignores developmental stages à la Processability Theory, Skill-Learning Theory does not rule out the possibility that some grammatical features are best acquired in an implicit fashion, especially if out-of-classroom exposure and inter-action are plentiful (cf. DeKeyser 2007b, pp. 104–105).

The next theoretical position to be presented, the Noticing Hypothesis, has to do with the role of conscious attention in learning a foreign language and its gram-mar, an issue of considerable controversy in SLA (cf. Robinson 2003, p. 636ff). The hypothesis originates from the work by Schmidt (1990, 1994, 1995) inspired by his own experience as a learner of Portuguese in Brazil (cf. Schmidt and Frota 1986). The essence of the hypothesis is that “SLA is largely driven by what learn-ers pay attention to and notice in target language input and what they understand the significance of noticed input to be” (Schmidt 2001, pp. 3–4). While an earlier version of this hypothesis was somewhat stronger, claiming that there is basically no learning of foreign language form without conscious perception (cf. Schmidt 2001, p. 26), this quotation represents a weaker, contemporary version, which allows the possibility that some learning may take place without such attention, but still maintains that the bulk of learning probably requires and is definitely greatly facilitated by noticing understood as conscious attention.

Three important questions concerning the hypothesis refer to the nature, the purpose and the object of noticing. As to the first of these queries, Schmidt’s (2001, p. 5) words explain the process in a fairly precise manner.

‘Noticing’ is therefore used here in a restricted sense, as a technical term equivalent to ‘apperception’ (Gass 1988), to Tomlin and Villa’s (1994) ‘detection within selective attention,’ and to Robinson’s (1995) ‘detection plus rehearsal in short term memory.’ My

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intention is to separate ‘noticing’ from ‘metalinguistic awareness’ as clearly as possible, by assuming that the objects of attention and noticing are elements of the surface structure of utterances in the input—instances of language, rather than any abstract rules or princi-ples of which such instances may be exemplars.

While the ultimate purpose of noticing as defined by the theory is obviously learn-ing gain, the question remains how noticing might contribute to this process. Generally, Schmidt (1990, p. 132) views noticing as a process of selecting ele-ments of input for intake, which results in its processing leading to learning. As to the elements which are subject to selective attention, they are numerous and varied since learning-inspiring noticing applies to virtually every aspect of lan-guage (phonology, vocabulary, grammar, etc.) (cf. Schmidt 2001). In the area of grammar, instruction-induced noticing may be especially fruitful with respect to the elements which are not easily noticed in a natural manner, i.e. grammatical markers which are not essential for communication, elements which are non-salient and infrequent in input (Schmidt 2001, p. 23), as well as those which are concep-tually different in L1 (Doughty 2003, p. 289). What may also be noticed is the gap between the kind of language the learner is currently capable of producing and the corresponding elements in the target language input. Such comparisons are thought to be conducive to learning, as they involve the necessary interlanguage and target language processing. In sum then, the Noticing Hypothesis holds that conscious selective attention to otherwise elusive language forms facilitates their processing and acquisition.

Although it has received its share of criticism, the Noticing Hypothesis is sup-ported by numerous studies, and certainly no research to date has disconfirmed it (cf. Robinson 2003). This is why it has informed a number of pedagogical solutions in foreign language teaching. Some of them, e.g. consciousness raising (Sharwood-Smith 1981; Rutherford 1987), input enhancement (Sharwood-Smith 1993), pro-cessing instruction (VanPatten 1996), or focus on form (Long 1991), are at the forefront of current pedagogical practice.4 All of them are supposed to result in noticing and have been endorsed because of the hypothesized link between noticing and learning (cf. Robinson 2003, pp. 640–641). The Noticing Hypothesis can also be regarded as a justification for more traditional kinds of form-focused instruction, e.g. those involving the PPP sequence (Pawlak 2006, p. 216). Although, as has been shown, this hypothesis does not equate noticing with metalinguistic awareness, explicit instruction may contribute to noticing as it is capable of affecting learner expectations in such a way that attention is focused on the relevant forms and mean-ings in the input (Schmidt 2001, p. 10). In conclusion, the Noticing Hypothesis seems to explain why meaning-focused instruction alone is often unable to bring about the acquisition of language form; it stresses that in many cases such instruc-tion needs to be complemented by selective conscious attention to form, whether induced by more traditional or more contemporary pedagogical means.

4 It should be noted that consciousness raising originated even before the formulation of the Noticing Hypothesis, but it nevertheless received additional support from the hypothesis.

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Another theoretical position with a facilitative turn is the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis, according to which form-focused instruction does not necessarily result in immediate learning gain, but it is still desirable as it equips learners with the knowl-edge of grammar which is likely to be tapped when learners are developmentally ready to reap its benefits (Seliger 1979; Lightbown 1985; Ellis 1990, pp. 169–170, 1997, p. 48). What makes this possible is that conscious knowledge of some area of grammar may act as an advance organizer (Ausubel 1961) inducing a priming effect (cf. Gass 1997) by directing the learner’s attention to the relevant grammatical form when it is encountered in input. Another important consideration is that negative evidence, e.g. in the form of corrective feedback obtained from interaction, is likely to initiate the process of interlanguage restructuring with respect to a given feature, which will be ultimately completed after an incubation period,5 when further input containing positive evidence is experienced (Gass 1997; Gass and Selinker [1994] 2008, p. 331). Another argument for teaching grammar which may be impossible to acquire immediately at the time of instruction is based on research by Spada and Lightbown (1993), which shows that learners are sometimes able to use structures characteristic of acquisition stages significantly more advanced than the stage they are currently at, probably because of chunk-learning. The utterances of such learn-ers containing largely unanalyzable chunks may contribute to their overall language development by functioning in the capacity of (comprehensible) auto-input (Lightbown 1998, p. 183), attended to and processed at some later stage when they are developmentally ready to acquire a given feature. In sum, the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis suggests that although they may not be evidently and instantly effective, both explicit and implicit instruction may facilitate grammar learning in the long run by preparing learners to notice grammatical forms, by setting in motion con-structive processes in their interlanguage, and by ensuring that learners provide themselves with the requisite amount of input.

The next theoretical proposal of interest in the context of grammar teaching is Input Processing Theory, which, in the words of its major proponent, “is concerned with how learners derive intake from input regardless of the language being learned and regardless of the context (i.e., instructed, noninstructed)” (VanPatten 2002, p. 757). Intake is defined here as “the linguistic data actually processed from the input and held in working memory for further processing” (VanPatten 2002, p. 757), i.e. for further possible integration into the developing L2 system (VanPatten 2004, pp. 6–7). Although it is not a comprehensive theory of acquisition, Input Processing Theory is concerned with this process, including the acquisition of grammar, and, less directly, with grammar teaching, because it assumes that acquisition depends to a certain degree on the processing which takes place during comprehension (cf. VanPatten 2007). More specifically, this processing of input accompanying comprehension con-sists in learners’ making form-meaning connections and in their syntactic parsing. It is useful at this juncture to consider a number of principles of input processing proposed by VanPatten (1996, 2002, 2004, 2007), most of which are listed in 1–3.

5 Nunan’s (1994, pp. 266–267) gestation period seems to be an equivalent term.

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1. Learners process input for meaning before they process it for form:(a) Content words are processed before anything else.(b) Lexical items are processed before grammatical forms when both encode

the same meaning.(c) More meaningful grammatical items are likely to be processed before

less meaningful grammatical items.2. Learners’ default strategy is to process the first noun or pronoun they encoun-

ter in a sentence/utterance as the subject. The strategy may be overridden by lexical semantics, event probabilities and preceding context. Other process-ing strategies may be adopted only after the learners’ developing system has incorporated other cues (e.g. case marking, acoustic stress).

3. Learners tend to process elements in sentence/utterance initial position before those in final position and those in medial position.

From these principles, it is clear that in input processing primary attention is on meaning, and, given the assumption that working memory is of limited capacity, the process of comprehension and the attendant processing are non-optimal with respect to the acquisition of grammar, many elements of which may be ignored (so intake is impoverished), especially if their communicative value is insubstantial or redundant.

A pedagogical response to these problems is processing instruction (VanPatten and Cadierno 1993; VanPatten 1996, 2002, 2004). According to VanPatten (2002, pp. 767–768), such instruction is the only instructional treatment which, in addi-tion to identifying problem areas prior to teaching, establishes why they are problematic. Its proponents see the source of learning problems in the natural processing tendencies identified above, and, consequently, the goal of processing instruction is to improve processing strategies employed by learners in compre-hension and thus enrich their grammatical intake. This is done by manipulating input or the way attention is paid to it. In this kind of instruction, learners are typically first given some explicit information about a given grammatical item. Next, they are informed about a processing strategy which is naturally adopted but prevents establishing the right form-meaning connections during comprehen-sion. Finally, learners process a grammatical element in structured input activities, which are designed in such a way that they must focus and rely on the targeted structure if their comprehension is to be successful. There are two kinds of struc-tured input activities; in referential activities, on the basis of comprehending some stimulus material learners provide answers, which may be either right or wrong, while in affective activities, learners’ comprehension results in responses in which they express their opinions, beliefs, etc. (VanPatten 1996). As can be seen from this description, a special feature of processing instruction, which is clearly comprehension-based, is that it involves no learner output of any sort, though it is admitted that output may play a role in developing fluency or accuracy. Despite the fact that “the optimal pedagogic intervention proposed [i.e. input process-ing] may be somewhat peculiar and limited in scope” (Pawlak 2006, p. 221), it is beyond doubt that Input Processing Theory holds form-focused instruction in high esteem, as demonstrated by the existence of processing instruction.

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Another theoretical proposal which recognizes the importance of a specific kind of input in form-focused instruction is Long’s (1983, 1996) Interaction Hypothesis. Generally, it states that interpersonal oral interaction facilitates lan-guage acquisition. It holds that learning is triggered by comprehension difficul-ties which arise in such interaction, as they highlight problem areas to particular learners, often in the realm of grammar. Specifically, according to the updated version of the hypothesis, negotiation of meaning characteristic of oral interac-tion strewn with communication problems contributes to grammar learning by providing learners with both positive (i.e. comprehensible input) and negative (e.g. recasts) evidence, which promotes noticing of form (thus, it ties in with the Noticing Hypothesis), and by creating opportunities for modified output (it also ties in with the Output Hypothesis discussed below). Research has demonstrated, to a certain extent, the practical effectiveness of such negative evidence, but it has also revealed certain problems related to its use, such as the immunity of some structures to this kind of teaching or the inability of some learners to recognize negative evidence for what it is (for an overview of such research see Ellis 2008c, pp. 256–260). Another practical problem of applying the insights from the Interaction Hypothesis is that in certain instructional settings, for instance those where the L1 is shared by lower-level learners, the amount of interaction in the target language may be scant (cf. Pawlak 2004b). Despite these reservations, however, Long’s (1996, pp. 451–452) statement that “negotiation for meaning, and especially negotiation work that triggers interactional adjustment by the NS [native speaker] or more competent interlocutor, facilitates acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention, and output in productive ways [emphases original]” sounds convincing in so far as it makes the case for interaction with a competent interlocutor and it stresses the joint value of comprehension, noticing, and production.

While the role of noticing in the acquisition of grammar has already been explored in the discussion of the Noticing Hypothesis, the role of production, only touched upon here, is a crucial concern of yet another theoretical stance of pro-interventionist nature, namely the Output Hypothesis. This theoretical posi-tion grew out of the analysis of French immersion programs and was proposed by Swain (1985, 1995, 2005). As stated in Sect. 4.3.1.2, these programs demon-strated that comprehensible input was not enough for learners to achieve high lev-els of grammatical competence. Thus, the major tenet of the Output Hypothesis is that both spoken and written output facilitates acquisition, although the role of input is obviously also acknowledged. Output is thought to be essential because while input processing is largely semantic in nature, output requires greater men-tal effort as it engages the learner in grammatical, syntactic processing. In order for this to happen, some trigger of such processing is necessary; in fact, in the Output Hypothesis the first major function of output is the noticing/triggering function. Output is said to effect noticing of grammatical form, which may happen when learners notice the gap (Schmidt and Frota 1986) between the target lan-guage norm and what they produce, or when they notice the hole (Swain 1998), i.e. their inability to say in the target language what the would like to say. Noticing

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is in its turn assumed to trigger cognitive processes generating new grammatical knowledge or consolidating already existing knowledge (Swain and Lapkin 1995). Another aspect of output which is assumed by this theoretical stance to contribute to language acquisition is its often creative, ‘stretched’ nature. This is related to the concept of pushed output, which is output modified in the course of commu-nication, often as a reaction to clarification requests, so that the intended meaning is expressed more accurately, appropriately and precisely. When learners stretch the limits of their linguistic ability in this fashion, their output often performs the second major function, namely the hypothesis-testing function (Corder 1981). The learning potential of this function is well expressed by Pica et al. (1989, p. 64), who say that in modifying their output learners “test hypotheses about the sec-ond language, experiment with new structures and forms, and expand and exploit their interlanguage resources in creative ways.” The last function of output is the metalinguistic function, whose importance derives from the claim “that using lan-guage to reflect on language by others or the self, [sic] mediates second language learning” (Swain 2005, p. 478). Output performing this function, which came to be defined within the framework of Vygotsky’s (1978) Sociocultural Theory, has recently been called collaborative dialogue (Swain and Lapkin 1995), and is “dia-logue in which speakers are engaged in problem solving and knowledge building—in the case of second language learners, solving linguistic problems and building knowledge about language [emphases original]” (Swain 2005, p. 478). The con-tribution of Sociocultural Theory to the Output Hypothesis seems to lie in that it views output, seen as verbalization, as a reshaper of experience which mediates the internalization of linguistic features (cf. Swain 2005; Lantolf and Thorne 2007). With respect to pedagogical considerations, the hypothesis buttresses the widely accepted view that output is indispensable as practice in the use of gram-mar but also provides the argument that it can in fact contribute to the acquisition of the targeted features taught.

The last view of language acquisition with implications for grammar teaching and learning discussed in the present section is the connectionist perspective (N. Ellis 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008). This stance is part of a broader view of language learning and use which is emergentist and constructivist in out-look. In addition to connectionism, there are other developments of such an orien-tation, such as the Competition Model (MacWhinney 1987, 2001) or Larsen-Freeman’s (1997) adoption of Chaos Theory to account for L2 acquisition. However, only connectionism is discussed here as a representative example, also because of its selection by leading CL and CG theorists as a model of language processing, as signaled in Sect. 2.2. Connectionism assumes that language is acquired by means of the same simple learning mechanisms which are used to acquire any other kind of knowledge.6 These mechanisms, involving associative learning, are said to lead to the emergence in the brain of neural networks of

6 This focus on general learning mechanisms in language constitutes an affinity of connectionism with Skill-Learning Theory, another cognitive perspective on language acquisition which has already been discussed in the present section.

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immense complexity, consisting of numerous nodes (groups of neurons) intercon-nected with many others by means of synapses, where the strength of the intercon-nections, connection weights in other words, may vary. These interconnections, or associations between elements of the network, may represent, among others, form-meaning mappings, which are strengthened or weakened depending on input fre-quencies and other related factors. What is more, in connectionism language is usage-based (see Sect. 2.5), i.e. it is thought to emerge out of exposure to and acquisition of innumerable exemplars of various kinds of units (phonological, morphological, etc.). In N. Ellis’ (2003, p. 63) words,

structural regularities of language emerge from learners’ lifetime analysis of the distribu-tional characteristics of the language input and, thus, (…) the knowledge of a speaker/hearer cannot be understood as an innate grammar, but rather as a statistical ensemble of language experiences that changes slightly every time a new utterance is processed.

Beyond the rejection of the innate basis of grammar in the Chomskyan sense, it transpires from these words that despite its emphasis on usage-based item-learning, connectionism recognizes the development of more general categories, category prototypes, as well as rule-like representations, which boil down to regu-larities in inter-node links. It should be stressed that all these learning outcomes are stipulated to hinge on the relatively simple cognitive process of associative learning.

As other theoretical positions discussed in the present section, connectionism has been invoked in support of certain claims concerning language pedagogy and form-focused instruction. Although N. Ellis (2002, pp. 173–174) states that “to the extent that language processing is based on frequency and probabilistic knowl-edge, language learning is implicit learning,” he admits that “[t]he initial registra-tion of a language representation may well require attention and conscious identification.” Thus, it seems that the connectionist approach would favor all the teaching practices aimed at effecting noticing of form, as defined by the Noticing Hypothesis. Some of them involve at least a certain amount of explicit instruction, which may in fact be necessary in the case of fragile features (features inherently resistant to naturalistic acquisition). Such features do not naturally make it to intake because of a number of L1 and L2 factors,7 some of which, paradoxically, facilitate the acquisition of L1, but cause negative transfer in L2 learning (N. Ellis 2008). Other differences between L1 and L2 acquisition pointing to the need for some, sometimes explicit, instruction are the diminished brain plasticity and the impossibility of achieving naturalistic input frequencies in the classroom (cf. Bybee 2008, p. 233). More generally, it seems that the time-consuming nature of connectionist, frequency-sensitive, probabilistic learning (cf. N. Ellis 2005) leads the leading SLA-connectionist to the conclusion that “[l]anguage acquisition can be speeded up by explicit instruction” (N. Ellis 2002, p. 174), provided that this instruction involves numerous illustrative examples. While N. Ellis (2005) gives a

7 Factors such as contingency, salience, overshadowing and blocking are meant here. They are listed and explained thoroughly by N. Ellis (2008).

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detailed neuropsychological exposition of the mechanisms through which explicit form-focused instruction may facilitate the acquisition of implicit knowledge, it will suffice to note here that “connectionists (…) view explicit instruction as a kind of priming device which sharpens perceptions and allows learners to recog-nize and attend to the recurring patterns in the input” (Pawlak 2006, p. 227), which facilitates the assimilation of certain elements of input as implicit knowledge. It has to be borne in mind, though, that explicit instruction is viewed here as just the first step, providing the memory with data subject to subsequent implicit learning, which is enabled, for instance, by output practice. The underlying connectionist beliefs here are that “implicit and explicit systems are like the yin and the yang” (N. Ellis 2005, p. 340) and that “[c]onscious and unconscious processes are dynamically involved together in every cognitive task and in every learning epi-sode” (N. Ellis 2005, p. 340).

All of the theoretical positions discussed in this section make some contri-bution to form-focused instruction, as each of them endorses certain kinds of pedagogical intervention which are supposed to facilitate grammar learning, sometimes downplaying others. The pro-intervention stance behind these theo-ries stands in sharp contrast to the non-interventionist positions considered earlier. Cutting across this dichotomy is yet another one, which is of equal importance and has to do with the distinction between explicit/declarative and implicit/procedural knowledge presented in Sect. 4.2 and elaborated upon in the discussion of Skill-Learning Theory in the present section. This is the division between the so-called non-interface and interface positions. The proponents of Monitor Theory believe that explicit language knowledge, i.e. learned knowl-edge in Krashen’s (1981) terms, cannot be converted into implicit, acquired knowledge, no matter how much practice learners experience, which makes the Monitor Model a prime example of the Non-Interface Hypothesis. The Interface Hypothesis, by contrast, deems it possible for explicit knowledge to gradually convert into implicit knowledge, given sufficient amounts of the right kind of practice. In reality, though, it is necessary to distinguish between a strong and a weak version of this hypothesis. Skill-Learning Theory, which assumes that declarative (explicit) knowledge of grammar can be converted into its proce-dural (implicit) counterpart with the help of exposure to examples and largely communicative practice, subscribes to the strong version of the Interface Hypothesis. A weak version has been developed by Ellis (1994, 1997, 2006b), according to whom the conversion of explicit knowledge into implicit repre-sentation is possible in a direct manner in the case of variational features (i.e. such that are not developmentally constrained). Direct conversion is also pos-sible in the case of developmental features, but only if the necessary devel-opmental stage has been reached by a given learner. In addition to this direct interface, explicit knowledge may foster the development of implicit knowledge indirectly, by helping learners to notice certain grammatical features, as well as the gap between their interlanguage and the target language. Out of the theo-ries that have been considered here, the Teachability Hypothesis, the Noticing Hypothesis, the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis, Input Processing Theory, the

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Interaction Hypothesis, the Output Hypothesis and the connectionist perspective all seem to support, at least partially, the Weak Interface Hypothesis (cf. Ortega 2007, p. 229), even though they usually do not specify how the interface works in as detailed a manner as Ellis’s model, and they tend to highlight only the indirect nature of this interface.

The SLA theories just described constitute one component of the general case for the presence of form-focused instruction in the language classroom. This case has been made by many scholars (e.g. Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991; Hinkel and Fotos 2002; Pawlak 2006, 2012) who, in addition to arguments of theoretical nature, mount some persuasive empirical and pedagogical evidence that grammar teaching plays a pivotal role in language acquisition. First, gram-mar instruction has been found to speed up progress through developmental pat-terns, especially if out-of-class exposure is limited (Pavesi 1986; Mackey and Phillip 1997; Mackey 1999). Not only do instructed learners learn faster and more efficiently, but they have also been found to achieve higher accuracy levels in comparison with uninstructed learners, as revealed, for example, by Norris and Ortega’s (2000) meta-analysis of almost fifty studies in this area. This kind of gain, it has to be stressed, contributes to overall proficiency and has not com-promised learners’ communicative ability. What is more, communicative effi-ciency may also benefit from form-focused instruction, as accurate grammar use that it contributes to is essential to express certain meanings in communication (Swan 2002). Another argument for including at least some grammar teaching in educational programs is that it is the best, and perhaps the only source of nega-tive evidence in foreign rather than second language contexts. This is an impor-tant consideration in view of the fact that such evidence seems necessary to acquire some grammatical features (cf. Doughty 1998). Next, it is claimed that not all the grammatical features that learners need to acquire are present with appropriate frequency in unstructured input, so, the argument goes, grammar teaching is necessary for these items to be integrated into learners’ interlan-guage. Also, for all sorts of reasons, a lot of teachers, and, what is more impor-tant, learners, expect form-focused instruction to occur in the classroom. Such needs should be taken into account, if only to prevent disappointment and the feeling of insecurity,8 which are tantamount to negative affect adversely impact-ing the learning process. Together with the facilitative theoretical positions, the arguments considered here are the most important among those which support what is currently with all likelihood a majority view among SLA researchers, i.e. the view that form-focused instruction is needed as an important part of instruc-tion. It seems that if language education is to produce fluent and accurate lan-guage users, it may be safely assumed, as Doughty and Williams (1998, p. 11) suggest, that at least some grammar teaching is needed in the case of at least some learners.

8 “Grammar rules provide a (largely illusory) sense of security, standing out as signposts in the complicated landscape of language learning” (Swan 2006, p. 10).

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The presentation of the non-interventionist theories was followed by the consideration of some of their classroom implementations, but a different strategy is adopted here since the discussion of the pro-intervention theories and the related pedagogical guidelines is followed by the discussion of methodological options in grammar teaching. This is because, due to a general dissatisfaction with the concept of method, we seem to have entered a postmethod era, which places an emphasis on the need to choose from among different instructional options in accordance with one’s current needs and objectives (Kumaravadivelu 1994, 2005). Also, despite not forming full-fledged methods or approaches, a lot of the peda-gogical guidelines derived from the SLA theories discussed above have found their way into foreign language classrooms in the form of specific techniques and procedures which will now be discussed.

4.3.2.2 Methodological Options in Grammar Teaching

The methodological options to be discussed here, which teachers may freely choose from depending on their instructional needs, are basically various pro-cedures, techniques and activities designed to teach grammar. These options are quite numerous and varied and may be classified in different ways. Given the proliferation of their taxonomies, the choice of a particular one to be presented here is not an easy task. However, following Pawlak (2006), a decision has been made to present one classification of options provided by Ellis (1997), because it is very comprehensive, detailed, and in keeping with the actual practices of foreign language teachers. This last consideration seems to be especially impor-tant, as far-fetched taxonomies greatly divorced from actual teaching practice may reveal much about their creators, but not necessarily reflect what actually happens and what is possible in the language classroom. Ellis’s (1997, p. 77) definition of a methodological option in fact confirms his commitment to class-room realities: “[b]y methodological option I mean a design feature that results in some form of classroom activity which teachers recognize as distinctive.” Ellis’s taxonomy of methodological options in grammar teaching is represented in Fig. 4.1.

In the presentation of the options included below, space does not allow a con-sideration of the advantages and disadvantages of all of them, nor can research results concerning their effectiveness be exhaustively discussed. It should be noted, however, that although their applicability and effectiveness have been subject to quite robust research (Norris and Ortega 2000), for the most part, its results are as yet inconclusive and there is no consensus as to the most profitable techniques and procedures. However, to the extent enabled by the current state of research, the key advantages and disadvantages, as well as the effectiveness of the options which were utilized in the instructional treatment of the research project reported in Chap. 5 are discussed in somewhat greater detail.

The first major distinction among the methodological options available to practitioners is that between learner performance options, which are aimed

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at what learners do, and feedback options, whose immediate goal is providing learners with information about their use of grammatical features. Ellis (1997, p. 78) defines learner performance options as “the various devices available to the teacher for eliciting different learner behaviours that include the use of a spe-cific grammatical feature.” Because these options “include all the tasks and activ-ities which focus on a preselected linguistic feature or a set of such features” (Pawlak 2006, p. 257), they represent Stern’s (1992) analytic teaching strategy.

The division into focused communication options and feature-focused options overlaps Long’s (1991) celebrated distinction between a focus on form and a focus on forms. While the former turn learners’ attention to grammatical forms in the course of meaning-based activities, the latter, making use of a structural syl-labus, focus on isolated grammatical features in a more artificial fashion disrup-tive of the communication process. According to Long (1991), a focus on forms is informed by the assumption that learners acquire grammatical features one at a time, in a sequenced fashion, a process compared to an accumulation of entities (Rutherford 1987).

grammar teaching

feedback optionslearner performance options

feature focused

repetitionmetalinguistic focus on error

overt covert

output oriented

input oriented

focused communication

production

communication

task

comprehension

communication

task

inputenhancement

flooding

error avoiding

text manipulation text creation

error inducing

goal = explicit knowledge (CR)

goal = implicit knowledge

(practice)

direct indirect

Fig. 4.1 Methodological options in grammar teaching (adapted from Ellis 1997, p. 79)

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Focused communication options, targeting implicit and incidental9 learning and implicit knowledge,10 involve productive and receptive tasks in the completion of which learners are primarily focused on conveying messages in a fashion resem-bling naturalistic communication. Thus, a crucial requirement is that learners not be told that grammar learning is one of the objectives of a focused communication activity. Such tasks are quite difficult to design, especially when the completion of a task is expected to unconditionally require the use of a focused feature in pro-duction. Fortunately, it is easier to design communicative tasks where the produc-tive use of a feature by learners is likely due to its naturalness or facilitative effect in terms of task completion (cf. Loschky and Bley-Vroman 1990). Quite obvi-ously, comprehension communication tasks do not pose comparable problems. Pawlak (2004a) gives an example of a production communication task requiring the use of the English passive voice, in which students are expected to exchange information about their holidays on the basis of lists of prompts exemplified by a beautiful town—situated on the west coast of Italy—cut off from the world. An example of a comprehension communication task targeting relative clauses is given by Doughty (1991). In the task, learners read a text displayed on a computer screen, which contains several relative clauses, and whenever they have problems interpreting what they are reading, they can consult an instructional window with explanations of lexis and sentence structure. It should be noted that in addition to the problems already identified, another difficulty plaguing focused communica-tion options is that despite teachers’ efforts, sometimes learners may “see through” their intentions and approach tasks with an awareness of their real focus, which casts doubt on the occurrence of focused communication.

As already stated, feature-focused options aim at teaching isolated grammatical items, and are associated with intentional learning. The first division within this category is between teaching techniques and procedures aimed at developing explicit grammatical knowledge and those targeted at the growth of implicit knowl-edge. Explicit knowledge is typically fostered by explicit instruction,11 which involves learner awareness of the rules being taught (Ellis 2008a), as well as some reasoning and problem-solving (Stern 1992, p. 32). According to Ellis (1997, p. 84), the purpose here “is to teach about grammar so that learners construct some kind of conscious, cognitive representation, which, if asked, they can articulate.” This kind of teaching is sometimes referred to as consciousness raising (Sharwood-Smith 1981; Rutherford 1987), hence the CR acronym in Fig. 4.1. The distinction within the options aimed at explicit knowledge, which between direct and indirect

9 Incidental learning is the opposite of intentional learning. According to Hulstijn (2005), while intentional learning occurs when learners understand that they will be tested on the knowledge they are acquiring, in incidental learning there is no such learner awareness.10 As explained in Sect. 4.2, although in general implicit instruction targets implicit learning and implicit knowledge, and explicit instruction targets explicit learning and explicit knowledge, at least in the short run, the relationship between the two kinds of instruction and the corresponding types of learning and knowledge may be far more complex.11 See note 10 above.

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options, is especially important here as it is from among these options that choices were made in designing the study reported in Chap. 5.

Explicit instruction may be direct, or deductive. In this kind of instruction, “learners are supplied with an oral or written rule explanation, usually at the begin-ning of a lesson, and are subsequently requested to apply, complete or amend this rule in some kind of task” (Pawlak 2006, p. 267). The popularity of this kind of teaching makes it easy to think of examples; learners of English may be given a rule on the use of the present simple and present continuous tenses stating that the former is used to talk about stable habits and the latter refers to temporary habits/activities and then asked to apply this information in fill-in-the-blank or transla-tion activities. Numerous features of the explanation part of deductive instruction may be manipulated, offering a number of further choices. Some examples involve its explicitness (e.g. the teacher may present a rule in its entirety or just signal its nature), elaboration (i.e. how much time it takes to present the rule) Sharwood-Smith (1981), source of presentation (e.g. the teacher, the textbook, etc.) (Eisenstein 1980), and manner of presentation, which may be verbal (oral, written, a combi-nation of both), or in the form of gestures, tables, charts, formulas, pictures, etc. (Pawlak 2006, p. 267). Most of these options offer further possibilities; for example, if rule presentation is verbal, it may be in the mother tongue or in the target lan-guage, it may include a lot of linguistic terminology or avoid such terminology, and opt for less technical parlance. Among the advantages of explicit deductive teach-ing specialists mention the fact that it may be time-saving, as well as its ability to constitute some kind of a mental map of the material being taught and to introduce a degree of orderliness into the organization of language lessons (Thornbury 1999, p. 30; Johnson 2001). However, significant disadvantages are also associated with the deductive option; according to Thornbury (1999, p. 30), beginning a lesson with this kind of instruction may put off some learners, deductive teaching may not be very memorable, and it may promote teacher-centered instruction.

In the second kind of instruction targeting explicit knowledge, i.e. indirect, or inductive, instruction, “learners are provided with data which illustrate the use of a particular grammatical structure which they analyze in order to arrive at some gen-eralization that accounts for regularities in the data” (Ellis 1997, p. 86). The exam-ple Ellis offers involves giving learners a text with several instances of the English present perfect and simple past tenses and asking them to construct a rule account-ing for their contrasting use. Just as in the case of deductive teaching, the inductive option is not a monolithic solution but is instead a general category offering a wide range of sub-options. For instance, the language data offered for analysis may vary with respect to mode (oral, written, both) or the presence or absence of devices enhancing the salience of the target structure (Pawlak 2006, p. 271), the opera-tions on these data required from learners may range from mere identification (e.g. underlining of the target form) to rule provision (Ellis 1997, pp. 161–162), and the participation pattern may involve pair work, group work as well as lockstep (Pawlak 2006, p. 276). Strong traces of the inductive approach may also be spot-ted in certain recent pedagogical techniques such as collaborative dialogue (Swain 2000), “which encourage learners to use language communicatively to consciously

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reflect on their own and their interlocutors’ TL production” (Pawlak 2006, p. 278). Among the advantages of inductive instruction Thornbury (1999, pp. 54–55) lists its engaging, stimulating and motivating nature, the fact that it may be more mem-orable and meaningful to learners than deductive instruction, and the processing that it results in, which tends to be deeper in comparison with its deductive coun-terpart. The most important disadvantages of induction the same author mentions are the fact that inductive activities are difficult to design and time-consuming in implementation, as well as the possibility that learners will “discover” a wrong, inappropriate rule, which, it should be added, may stick in their memory.

Some research has been conducted aiming at comparing the relative effec-tiveness of deductive and inductive instruction, but its results so far are mixed, with more studies, however, showing an advantage for the deductive option. Straightforward conclusions have been prevented, among other things, by different operationalizations of inductive instruction, which may not be surprising given the wide range of sub-options existing within both the deductive and inductive catego-ries. While some studies found no difference between the results of the two kinds of instruction (e.g. Shaffer 1989; Rosa and O’Neil 1999), some others did so. The studies by Seliger (1975), where induction was operationalized as the provision of a metalinguistic rule at the end of the class, Robinson (1996), where inductive learners had to find the rule by examining input, and Erlam (2003), where induc-tion involved learners explaining their grammatical choices in semantic terms and receiving teacher feedback, are examples of research which found an advantage for deductive instruction. Only one study, Herron and Tomasello (1992), found an advantage for inductive instruction. In general, the studies reported here, which are clearly inconclusive, investigated the effects of these two options on learners’ explicit representations, but it should be borne in mind that there is a possibil-ity, already considered in the discussion of Skill-Learning Theory, the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis and connectionism (Sect. 4.3.2.1), that explicit instruction, though immediately aimed at developing explicit knowledge, ultimately results in gains in implicit knowledge, especially in the long run. When it comes to empiri-cal research concerning this possibility, results are once again mixed. While some studies involving explicit deductive instruction (e.g. Lyster 1994; Spada et al. 2006; Housen et al. 2006) found improvement in the use of target structures in free production, which is believed to reflect learners’ implicit knowledge, some others (e.g. VanPatten and Sanz 1995; Salaberry 1997; Williams and Evans 1998) failed to do so. Fotos (1993), who used inductive explicit instruction, showed that it may aid the process of noticing, which is involved in the acquisition of implicit knowledge.

The second general type of feature-focused options are procedures aiming to develop implicit grammatical knowledge. This is normally assumed to be best achieved by means of implicit instruction,12 in which learners are not aware of the rules they are being taught (Ellis 2008a), and which requires more intuitive learner

12 Again, see note 10 above.

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engagement (Stern 1992, p. 32), although these conditions are very difficult to satisfy in classroom practice. According to Ellis (1997, pp. 84–85), when exposed to implicit grammar instruction, “the learners are asked to engage in practice of some kind. In this case, the aim is that the learners should learn the target structure to the extent that they can use it not just when they are consciously attending to it but also when they are engaged in meaning-focused communication.” Pedagogical choices in implicit instruction are divided into output- and input-oriented. Output-oriented options come in many shapes and sizes and one possible distinction pro-posed by Ellis (1997) is between error avoiding and error inducing. There are many kinds of the former, most of them falling into text manipulation and text pro-duction types. Text manipulation tasks are exemplified by blank filling, sentence transformation or multiple choice activities targeting a grammatical feature. By contrast, text creation activities involve the production by learners of their own utterances containing the target feature, and may thus be similar to communicative grammar tasks, with the difference that here learners are aware of the fact that in their communicative activity they are practicing a given grammatical feature. The second type of output-oriented instructional options are error inducing activities, also referred to as garden path techniques (Tomasello and Herron 1988). The idea behind them is that inducing in learners erroneous performance associated with certain universal L2 processes such as overgeneralization, followed by feedback, may be pedagogically beneficial. In the example provided by Pawlak (2004a), learners are asked to judge the performance of actors by using adjectives from a list with which they are provided. Since the list includes short adjectives such as cute, sexy or witty followed by a long adjective such as beautiful, it is expected that learners will come up with forms such as beautifuller and beautifullest as a result of overgeneralization, which should be followed by feedback.

It should be noted that error avoiding output-oriented options, which comple-mented explicit instruction in the study reported in Chap. 5, are a typical compo-nent of the familiar PPP procedure. However, they are not held in high esteem by many SLA theorists and researchers (cf. Ellis 2002; Pawlak 2006, p. 288), which is due to the fact that empirical research (e.g. Ellis 1988; Tuz 1993) has failed to produce evidence that they may result in gains in implicit knowledge. Despite this, it seems that their presence in the majority of textbooks and educational programs is justified to a certain extent, as they may still serve a useful purpose. In particu-lar, they may contribute to the automatization of learners’ explicit knowledge of grammatical features (Pawlak 2006, p. 289), and, what is more, they may enhance learners’ control over partially acquired structures (Ellis 1998, p. 51), i.e. those which have not been fully integrated into their interlanguages and are therefore accessed with some difficulty.

The second general kind of implicit instructional options are input-oriented activities, which are defined by Ellis (1997, p. 87) as

grammar tasks that do not require learners to engage in production but instead focus their attention on specific structures and help them to understand the meaning(s) which these structures realize—to induce them to undertake a kind of form-function analysis of the structure, as this is exemplified in input that has been specially contrived to illustrate it.

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To exemplify input-oriented options, Ellis mentions an activity in which learners listen to a series of active and passive sentences, and subsequently select appropri-ate forms of sentences to match them to meanings expressed by pictures. Two spe-cial types of input-oriented activities are those involving input flooding and input enhancement. Input flooding is about ensuring high frequency of the target feature in input, for example using a lot of past tense verbs in a narrative read or listened to by learners, which is expected to result in their noticing it. Input enhancement goes somewhat further in that on top of including a lot of exemplars of a gram-matical structure, these are additionally made extra salient. This can be achieved by doing something directly to the input, underlining a given feature in a written text or stressing it in oral input for example, or by asking learners to perform a task whose completion requires focus on the feature; asking questions which turn learners’ attention to the structure is a good example. It should also be noted that the structured input component of processing instruction (VanPatten 1996) dis-cussed in Sect. 4.3.2.1 is an example of an input-oriented option.

Finally, there is a need to return to the uppermost division in Fig. 4.1 and to consider feedback options, which are “the various devices available for provid-ing learners with information regarding their use of a specific grammatical fea-ture” (Ellis 1997, p. 78). Feedback, also referred to as reactive negative evidence, corrective feedback, or simply error correction (cf. Pawlak 2012) may be overt or covert. In the former case, the learner’s attention is drawn to a grammatical error in a variety of explicit ways, some of which are distinguished by Spada and Lightbown (1993). Metalinguistic feedback involves “either a metalinguistic ques-tion designed to elicit a correct response or rule from a learner or provision of a metalinguistic rule” (Ellis 1997, p. 79). In the second kind, the teacher repeats an erroneous utterance and signals into nationally what is incorrect. Focus on error is achieved by “using stress, snapping fingers, gasping, or stating outright that the production is incorrect” (Ellis 1997, p. 80). Obviously, all these cases of overt feedback may be accompanied by a straightforward explicit correction, which may also occur on its own and is clearly the most overt form of corrective feedback. In contrast to overt feedback, covert feedback is more subtle as it simi-lar to what occurs in caretaker talk, as when an error is corrected by repeating a learner’s statement with an apparent intention to receive confirmation of its factual content. In addition to this technique, which is often called recasting (Lyster and Ranta 1997) and does not require self-correction, there are others which may be classified as more or less covert types of feedback, and which are not included in Fig. 4.1. One example are clarification requests, which are utterances such as I beg your pardon or What do you mean? used to signal lack of understanding, draw the learner’s attention to the inaccuracy and trigger some kind of output modifications (Lyster and Ranta 1997). When it comes to the relative effectiveness of different kinds of feedback and their benefits in terms of explicit and implicit knowledge, research results are mixed, with the effect that “it is difficult to use them as a basis for definitive pedagogic recommendations concerning the value of particular feedback options” (Pawlak 2006, p. 310). It seems however, that these options may have beneficial effects on both explicit (e.g. Lyster 2004; Rosa and

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Leow 2004) and implicit (e.g. Ellis et al. 2006; Pawlak 2008) learner knowledge, with much depending on such factors as the degree to which a given feature has been acquired, the learners’ proficiency level or the kind of instruction or activity being complemented by feedback (cf. Pawlak 2012).

As signaled earlier, methodological options often originate from SLA theoriz-ing. Also, they are then frequently selected by empirically-minded researchers for testing. This leads to their refinement and offers benefits to teachers and learners. In consequence, methodological options in grammar teaching constitute a wide range of instructional techniques, procedures and activities which, given the cur-rent postmethod condition and eclecticism heeded as the ruling spirit of language pedagogy, may be and often are subject to informed choices not only by language teachers, but also, increasingly, by methodologists and materials writers. These options alone, however, are not enough for successful form-focused instruction to take place. They must operate with some descriptions of the grammar points to be taught, which are provided by different grammars, pedagogical ones being fore-most among them. Therefore, the next section focuses on some choices teachers (and their students), course designers and materials writers have when it comes to pedagogical descriptions of grammar points. Specifically, in that section tradi-tional pedagogical grammars and CG, which is considered by some scholars as a worthwhile alternative to traditional descriptions, are considered from the point of view of their potential pedagogic utility (Sect. 4.4.1). Because CG is argued to be characterized by a potentially greater suitability for grammar teaching, the next section also reviews empirical research concerning the applications of CG to form-focused instruction.

4.4 Some Options in Pedagogical Grammar

According to Rod Ellis (2006a, pp. 86–87), the question of what kind of grammar form-focused instruction should be based on is one of the important issues in lan-guage pedagogy.13 Ellis (2006a, p. 87) adds that that recently this issue has not been a source of much controversy because “descriptive grammars that detail the form-meaning relationships of the language are ascendant” in language teaching. In this quote, Ellis does not make a distinction customarily made between descrip-tive and pedagogical grammars (cf. Dirven 1985, 1990; Chalker 1994; Odlin 1994a). While a descriptive grammar is intended for linguists (these grammars are sometimes called linguistic grammars) and is more in keeping with issues of lin-guistic theory, a pedagogical grammar “may be characterized as a description of language which is aimed at the foreign language learner and/or teacher, and whose

13 The discussion here pertains mainly to grammar as product (Batstone 1994a, 1994b), but it should be borne in mind that the grammatical product is supposed to reflect grammar as process, which is a more realistic view of grammar (the numerous references to the dynamic nature of grammar in Chap. 2 may be recalled), and by its very nature more difficult to pin down.

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purpose is to promote insight into, and thereby to facilitate the acquisition of, the foreign language” (Taylor 2008, p. 38). The reason why Ellis in a way conflates the two kinds of grammar is probably the fact that in practice, as demonstrated in Sect. 3.2.2, pedagogical grammars are to a large extent based on descriptive gram-mars. Sometimes, an additional distinction is drawn between theoretical and descriptive grammars, both of which would fall under the heading of linguistic grammar. If this distinction is taken into account, descriptive grammars are inter-mediate between theoretical and pedagogical grammars (cf. Leech 1994), which is supported by certain observations (see Sect. 3.2). A further type of grammars often discussed are reference grammars, which are, however, not fully distinct from the types already considered, because any kind of grammar may serve reference purposes (cf. Wächtler 1987, p. 258). Because descriptive grammars serve this purpose the most frequently, one often talks of descriptive/reference grammars, a practice adopted in Chap. 3. The picture that emerges from this discussion is thus of a continuum from theoretical to reference/descriptive to practical/pedagogical grammars, with form-focused instruction tending to rely on this half of the spec-trum which includes pedagogical grammar, the exact size of this half remaining indeterminate.

It is easy to agree with the statement that most methodologists and teachers have opted for the use of pedagogical grammars based on contemporary descrip-tive grammars (Ellis 2006a, p. 87), both of which, as has been shown, are largely traditional. While it is also true that this choice has not been subject to much con-troversy in mainstream language teaching, the theoretical underpinnings of peda-gogical grammars have been debated to a certain extent. Westney (1994), for instance, highlights a number of problems involved in relating theoretical linguistics to pedagogical formulations, and other papers in Odlin’s (1994) volume, particu-larly those by Cook (1994), Hasan and Perrett (1994), Hubbard (1994), and Tomlin (1994), discuss the relationship of pedagogical grammar with such linguistic theo-ries as Universal Grammar, Relational Grammar, Functional Grammar or Systemic-Functional Grammar. While it is true, as noted in Sect. 3.2 with respect to some descriptive/reference and pedagogical grammars, that numerous authors of gram-mars refrain from overtly listing the theories they have drawn on in the preparation of their works, some of them are less reticent in this respect. For instance, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, pp. 3–4) list traditional, Transformational, Functional, Lexical, Cognitive and Case Grammars as theories which inform their own pedagogical work. What is important for the present discussion, some of these theoretical choices have been challenged (cf. Hubbard 1994, p. 50). All of this seems to suggest, then, that the following observation by Hasan and Perrett (1994, p. 220) has been to at least some extent implemented: “[i]t seems unrealistic that the issue of pedagogical grammars can be discussed without relating the grammar to the theory of language description.” An interesting question in this connection is whether a pedagogical grammar may be based on just a single theoretical model, rather than being highly eclectic, as most pedagogical grammars which declare their theoretical inspiration seem to be. This question would probably be answered in the affirmative by authors such as Graham Lock, whose pedagogical grammar

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for teachers (Lock 1996) is mostly based on Systemic-Functional Theory (Halliday 1979, 1993). The same response would be with all likelihood given by many of those who endorse the employment of CG as a basis of pedagogical grammar. This is explained in the next section, which presents the case for CG as a basis of peda-gogical grammar and subsequently compares in a theoretical fashion the pedagogic utility of CG with that of traditional pedagogical grammars.

4.4.1 Cognitive Grammar and Traditional Grammar as Bases of Pedagogical Grammar

Prominent among those explicitly discussing the theoretical foundations of peda-gogical grammar have been a number of cognitively-oriented theoretical and applied linguists (e.g. Dirven 1989; Turewicz 2000; Langacker 2001a; Niemeier and Reif 2008). They have expressed their views in the context of the emergence of applied cognitive linguistics (Pütz et al. 2001a, b; Niemeier 2005; De Knop et al. 2010; Littlemore and Juchem-Grundmann 2010), where varied contributions of multiple strands of CL to language teaching/learning and SLA have been proposed and tested. These scholars have often challenged the traditional nature of peda-gogical grammar and have suggested that pedagogy be informed by insights from contemporary theoretical linguistics. In particular, they have proposed that CL, and especially CG, enrich or perhaps even replace more traditional approaches as a foundation of pedagogical grammar (e.g. Turewicz 2000; Tyler and Evans 2001; Achard 2004, 2008; Niemeier and Reif 2008; Tyler 2008). What emerges from their argumentation is that not only may CG as a theoretical model of language analysis and description be relevant to foreign language pedagogy, but that its suit-ability to language teaching is such that it may be in this respect at an advantage in comparison with traditional pedagogical grammars. The remainder of the pre-sent section includes two subsections. First, in Sect. 4.4.1.1, the most important arguments for using CG as a foundation of pedagogical grammar are reviewed as a rationale for testing the applicability of CG as a pedagogical tool in form-focused instruction. Then, in Sect. 4.4.1.2, the suitability of CG as a basis of instruction is systematically compared with that of traditional pedagogical grammars.

4.4.1.1 The Case for Cognitive Grammar as a Foundation of Pedagogical Grammar

It may be recalled that in Sect. 2.7 CG was compared with other cognitive approaches to grammar, which brought to light some of its potential pedagogic advantages. Some of them are elaborated on and some new ones are thoroughly discussed in the present section, which presents the case for CG as a foundation of pedagogical grammar in a detailed manner. The first major advantage of CG in the service of form-focused instruction is its unconditional insistence on the

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meaningfulness of the whole of language, including all sorts of grammatical elements. The implication of the view that “grammar subserves meaning rather than being an end in itself” (Langacker 2008b, p. 67), which seems very natural in the context of language teaching, is strong and consistent focus on grammati-cal meaning in language instruction. While this is not a new idea, it is seems that a CG-inspired approach to grammar teaching is unique in its comprehensive and detailed attention to the semantic facet of grammar, which may benefit its teach-ing. As examples one may recall from Chaps. 1 and 2 the meaningfulness of the preposition of recognized by its CG description and the detailed breakdown of the meaning of the English progressive, which includes the analysis of the semantic contributions of all of its formal components. It should be remembered in this connection that of is not ascribed any meaning by traditional grammars and that the English progressive is traditionally analyzed in much cruder semantic grain. The all-encompassing meaningfulness of grammar and the minute attention to semantic detail discussed here are supposed to make CG a beneficial contribution to pedagogical grammar. Conceptualization and pragmatic factors, which are dis-cussed next, are two special facets of the meaningfulness of grammar envisioned by CG.

The next factor facilitating the application of CG to grammar teaching is its view of meaning as conceptualization. This conception of meaning is related to the CG notion of construal, introduced and discussed in Sects. 2.4.2.2 and 2.6.2. Construal reflects the fact that a given situation may be perceived differently from different perspectives and is manifested in alternative manners of formally coding the same situation. The notion of construal and alternative conceptualizations it implies are argued by some to be a great asset when teaching linguistic creativity and flexibility (Achard 2004, 2008; Bielak 2012). One example of how this asset might be exploited is provided by Bielak (2012), who suggests that and also dem-onstrates how learners may be taught to flexibly choose between the –s possessive, which imposes a reference point construal on a situation (see Langacker 1991, p. 170ff), and the preposition of, which conceives of a situation as involving an intrin-sic relationship between two participants. Another example of how the phenomenon of construal may be used in language pedagogy is related to Taylor’s (2008, p. 56) suggestion that “the learner’s attention also needs to be drawn to the possibility of ‘breaking’ rules, just in case a special, unusual, or even bizarre conceptualization is called for.” Such transgression of rules is inherent in Taylor’s example There was a lot of cat all over the road, whose profitable exploitation in the classroom with the development of learners’ creativity/flexibility in mind would involve reference to the construals associated with count and non-count nouns. To conclude, it is the concep-tualist view of meaning inherent in CG which gives rise to the possibility of foster-ing learners’ linguistic flexibility and creativity by pointing to different construals.

Another pedagogy-friendly feature of CG is the fact that the meaning it ascribes to a grammatical item may make reference to this feature’s discourse functions and other pragmatic factors (Langacker 1987; Littlemore 2009, p. 169; cf. Bielak 2007; Król-Markefka 2007; Llopis-García 2010) related to its use. In the words of Langacker (2001a, p. 5), “cognitive grammar is contextually grounded because

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124 4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching

all linguistic units are abstracted from usage events, comprising the full contextual understanding of socially engaged interlocutors with specific communicative objectives in connected discourse [emphasis original].” It is well illustrated by the following sequence of two sentences offered by Langacker (2001b, p. 165):

(1) Harold has finished his thesis. And I was just elected pope.

The first of these sentences is a declarative clause, which is usually interpreted as an assertion. According to Langacker (2001b, p. 166), this sentence is a denied assertion in (1) because of the conventional discourse pattern of English according to which when an apparent assertion is followed by what seems to be a blatantly false assertion, the denial of the first assertion is expressed. This aspect of the CG view of grammatical meaning obviously links with the one discussed before, as the conceptual value of an element and the pragmatic factors of contextual (includ-ing discoursal), cultural and social nature are interdependent.

All the aspects of the semantics of grammar just discussed are related to the immensely important CG principle of the non-arbitrariness of grammar, or, in other words, to the motivated character of the grammatical component, which is also often considered to possess great pedagogical potential. This is radically different from the proliferation in traditional accounts of grammatical phenomena of large numbers of seemingly unrelated and unmotivated rules guiding the use of a single grammati-cal element, or the listing of one major rule accompanied by a long list of arbitrary exceptions. CG, by contrast, is usually able to offer strong motivation for the rules and to establish overarching principles uniting and conceptually motivating differ-ent uses of a grammatical construction or element. These pedagogy-friendly aspects of motivation were amply illustrated in the CG descriptions of the tense/aspect issues offered in Sect. 3.3. Another example is found in Tyler and Evans (2001), who, basically following Langacker (1991), analyze the apparently diverse temporal and non-temporal meanings/uses of English –ed (often referred to as a regular past tense marker) as motivated by the overarching semantic value that might be labeled distal. Thus, the general value captures the commonality inherent in the temporal use, where events are construed as distant in time, as well as in non-temporal uses, where distance may be ontological (If my house burned down,…) or psychologi-cal (I wanted to speak to you). Different “subrules” (or uses) are often conveniently presented in CG as constituting a radial category, which may also be done in the example under discussion, with the temporal meaning/use constituting a rule proto-type and the other ones being more peripheral members of the category (for details see Tyler and Evans 2001; Bielak 2011). It may be noted that the semantic motiva-tion espoused by CG may be integrated with certain interesting models of grammar and grammar teaching such as the grammaring model offered by Larsen-Freeman (2003). The framework highlights the importance of teaching all the three facets of a grammatical element, namely its form, meaning and use, which is hoped to result in its accurate, meaningful and appropriate employment in communication. The con-cept of motivation fits the model because the conceptual meaning of an item often motivates its contextual, pragmatically determined use. Taylor (2008, p. 39) says that “(…) a pedagogical grammar need not reduce to a listing of language-specific facts.

125

On the contrary, a pedagogical grammar will strive to present even the idiosyncratic and language-particular as coherent and systematic.” It seems that CG’s emphasis on the motivated meaningfulness of grammar meets this expectation by highlighting semantic interrelationships between various grammatical elements.

The instructional exploitation of all these features of CG, which are related to its pedagogically desirable concern with grammatical meaning, are expected to bring about concrete benefits. First, if learners are offered CG-style overarching principles motivating certain related grammatical phenomena, rather than rules and countless exceptions apparently unrelated to one another typical of traditional grammars, certainly the burden on their memory is diminished. Another three ben-efits are suggested by Boers and Lindstromberg (2006). A benefit related to the pre-vious one is that meaningful, insightful learning of grammar stimulated by the CG descriptions focusing on conceptualization, which often replaces rote memorization required in more traditional approaches, is expected to result in deep processing and deep understanding of grammatical material and greatly heighten learners’ lan-guage awareness. What is more, this kind of learning is hypothesized to result in better retention, which may also be aided by the employment of pictorial illustra-tions of grammatical meanings. Such illustrations customarily accompany the CG explanation of grammatical meanings and are supposed to engender dual coding, i.e. coding by separate visual and verbal memory codes with the effect of improved retention (Paivio 1971; Stevick 1986). Finally, this kind of teaching and learning is expected to result in positive affect, as “an awareness that a second or foreign language need not be learned entirely via a long and daunting road of blind memo-risation must be an encouraging thought to learners who recognise that large seg-ments of the target language actually make ‘sense’ “(Boers and Lindstromberg 2006, pp. 314–315). In addition to being encouraged by the application of CG to form-focused instruction, learners are also thought to actually derive some pleasure from it, because “[w]ith proper instruction, the learning of a usage is thus a mat-ter of grasping the semantic ‘spin’ it [a construal] imposes, a far more natural and enjoyable process than sheer memorization” (Langacker 2008b, pp. 72–73). If CG is adopted as a basis of instruction, even error correction may be meaning-bound as “the ungrammaticality of a sentence is to be explained in terms of the oddness, incongruity, or other kind of ill-formedness of the meaning that the sentence has, or would have, rather than in terms of the violation of some arbitrary rule of syntax” (Taylor 2008, p. 55). So, it seems that the often discouraging and uninteresting fla-vor of negative feedback may be lessened by the adoption of CG as a basis of peda-gogical grammar. In sum, if CG is to be applied to teaching grammar, its unique emphasis on the meaningfulness of this component of language is expected to result in better, deeper and more enjoyable learning as well as enhanced retention.

Some additional features of CG descriptions of grammatical phenomena, which were already identified in Sect. 3.4, are also beneficial in terms of enhanc-ing positive learner affect and learning in general. First, these descriptions are low in vagueness and imprecision, which is a result of their exacting attention to detail and comprehensiveness. Second, there are no contradictions between rules concerning different uses of a grammatical element, which again results from the

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126 4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching

precision and unified character of grammatical descriptions. It is undeniable that the absence of all of these undesirable qualities, which are often present in tradi-tional accounts, prevents the occurrence of frustration and the resulting discour-agement with respect to language learning.

Following the presentation of the pedagogical potential of CG, some characteris-tics of this approach which may be viewed as weaknesses from the pedagogical per-spective must be presented to ensure a balanced view. Two of them were already mentioned in the previous chapter (Sect. 3.4). These are the unconventional nature of CG terminology (e.g. reference point model, sequential scanning), which most learners are likely to be unfamiliar with, and the considerable abstractness of some CG concepts and meanings. They may be pedagogically disadvantageous, because learners may have to make additional effort to grasp and internalize these items in the course of learning grammar on the basis of CG. A related potential drawback resulting from the abstractness of some grammatical meanings identified by CG, as well as from their intricate nature is explicit instructional bias (cf. Littlemore 2009, pp. 160–161). It is certainly tempting to teach such meanings explicitly in order to demonstrate to learners their full complexity, which may be lost in implicit teaching. It should be noted that CG constitutes a basis for developing mostly explicit knowledge of grammar, with implicit knowledge possibly affected in an indirect manner only. Next, a potential problem is the possibility that the (often abstract) meanings and motivations postulated by CG do not reflect the cognitive representations of native speakers (cf. Broccias 2008, pp. 83–84). Although such a possibility exists, CG theorists make every effort to ensure that the constructs they propose are cognitively real, as attested by their seeking the so-called converg-ing evidence (Langacker 1999a). In fact, as may be recalled from Sect. 2.1, it is a general conviction of CL that its constructs reflect general cognitive abilities, so even though some of the notions or meanings proposed in CG are highly abstract, the assumption is that they are easily activated as they are already part of learn-ers’ implicit knowledge. Another potential liability of CG as a pedagogical tool is that, in the case of some grammatical items, there may be only weak motivation between a general meaning and a narrower one, which may be difficult to express in a straightforward manner (Boers and Lindstromberg 2006, pp. 320–1; Broccias 2008). To conclude, there exist some potential disadvantages of CG as a basis of pedagogical grammar which have to do mostly with the absorption by learners of difficult semantic content. Therefore, if instruction based on CG is implemented in the language classroom, due precautions need to be taken to ensure that these weaknesses do not excessively cripple the teaching process.

4.4.1.2 Cognitive Grammar Versus Traditional Grammar as a Basis of Pedagogical Grammar

Following the presentation of the case for the inclusion of CG descriptions in peda-gogical grammars and their employment in grammatical instruction, a systematic com-parison of the pedagogic potential of the CG treatment of grammatical phenomena

127

and their view in traditional pedagogical grammars will now be undertaken. Such a comparison was announced in Sect. 3.4 of the previous chapter, where the two kinds of descriptions were compared and contrasted. That comparison already revealed cer-tain advantages of the CG approach to pedagogical grammar over traditional gram-mar. Those benefits are included in the present comparison, which, however, is more detailed, as in addition it makes reference to the features of CG discussed in the pre-vious section. Although it may repeat some of the material presented in Chap. 3, the pedagogically-oriented juxtaposition of the two paradigms offered here seems to be in order because it is much more comprehensive. It is also warranted as it constitutes a natural bridge between the presentation of the options in grammar teaching teachers may employ, which are the focus of this chapter, and the actual use of the two models of description in the classroom empirically investigated in Chap. 5. The comparison is presented in the form of Table 4.1, which lists pedagogically important features of CG in the left-hand column and includes some exemplification of these characteristics in the next column. The following two columns contain the corresponding information on traditional pedagogical grammars. In some cases an example cell is empty, which is justified by the fact that one of the two types of grammatical description is claimed not to possess a given feature.

The preceding discussion of the hypothesized pedagogic utility of CG, which made frequent reference to the preliminary comparison of CG and traditional descriptions included in Sect. 3.4, explained in considerable detail the features of CG included in the table and supposed to benefit grammar teaching. Although it was perhaps assumed and certainly hinted at, the lesser educational potential of traditional pedagogical grammars has been explicitly touched upon much less fre-quently. Therefore, the comparison of the two kinds of grammatical description will be closed with a theoretical consideration of the disadvantageous nature of traditional pedagogical grammars with respect to form-focused instruction, at least in comparison with CG.

When their instructional utility is considered, traditional pedagogical grammars display a number of potential deficiencies. First, if the advantages of meaningful teaching and learning of grammar are recognized, traditional pedagogical gram-mar is quite obviously not maximally adequate because it foregoes the establish-ment of the meanings of some formal linguistic elements and does not analyze the meanings of others in considerable detail. It seems that it is the absence of exhaus-tive and systematic semantic analyses of grammatical phenomena that results in a considerable degree of vagueness and imprecision of traditional descriptions (cf. Tyler 2008). Next, the failure of traditional pedagogical grammars to make ref-erence to different conceptual construals may prevent teachers who rely on these grammars from teaching linguistic creativity/flexibility. Bielak (2007, 2012) iden-tifies a number of possible negative outcomes of abstaining from teaching such abilities which include learners’ lesser precision and versatility of expression, their production of erroneous or odd utterances, misinterpretation of certain utterances, as well as confusion. The next gap in the semantic repertoire of traditional peda-gogical grammars is the frequent absence of references to pragmatic meanings of grammatical elements, the awareness of which may be important in discovering

4.4 Some Options in Pedagogical Grammar

128 4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching

Tabl

e 4.

1 C

ompa

riso

n of

CG

and

trad

ition

al g

ram

mar

s as

a b

asis

of

peda

gogi

cal g

ram

mar

CG

as

a ba

sis

of p

edag

ogic

al

gram

mar

CG

exa

mpl

esT

radi

tiona

l ped

agog

ical

gr

amm

arT

radi

tiona

l gra

mm

ar

exam

ples

Mea

ning

fuln

ess

of a

ll

gram

mat

ical

ele

men

tsO

f is

mea

ning

ful:

it de

sign

ates

an

in

trin

sic

rela

tions

hip

Not

all

gram

mat

ical

ele

men

ts

mea

ning

ful

No

mea

ning

asc

ribe

d to

of

Hig

hly

deta

iled

sem

antic

an

alys

es o

f gr

amm

atic

al

elem

ents

The

ana

lysi

s of

the

sem

antic

co

ntri

butio

ns o

f th

e co

mpo

nent

s of

the

Eng

lish

prog

ress

ive:

be,

–in

g

Sem

antic

ana

lyse

s of

gr

amm

atic

al e

lem

ent

not a

s de

taile

d

No

sem

antic

ana

lysi

s of

the

com

pone

nts

of th

e E

nglis

h pr

ogre

ssiv

e an

d no

pre

cise

sem

antic

va

lue

of th

e E

nglis

h pr

esen

t ten

seG

ram

mat

ical

mea

ning

is

con

cept

ualiz

atio

n,

exis

tenc

e of

dif

fere

nt

cons

trua

ls

Dif

fere

nt c

once

ptua

lizat

ions

and

con

stru

als

of p

erfe

ctiv

e (b

ound

ing,

het

erog

ene-

ity)

and

impe

rfec

tive

(no

boun

ding

, ho

mog

enei

ty)

verb

s, e

ven

in th

e ca

se o

f se

emin

gly

stat

ive

verb

s su

ch a

s li

ke

No

conc

eptu

al v

alue

of

gr

amm

atic

al it

ems

spec

ified

No

prec

isel

y de

scri

bed

conc

eptu

al v

alue

s an

d

cons

trua

ls o

f ac

tive

and

stat

ive

verb

s, n

o

spec

ifica

tion

of d

iffe

rent

con

stru

als

as

soci

ated

with

the

stat

ive

and

dyna

mic

us

es o

f li

keD

isco

urse

and

oth

er

prag

mat

ic f

acto

rs o

ften

in

clud

ed in

the

mea

ning

of

gra

mm

atic

al e

lem

ents

The

mea

ning

s of

dec

lara

tive

clau

ses

depe

nd

on th

e m

eani

ngs

of n

eigh

bor

sent

ence

s (H

arol

d ha

s fin

ishe

d hi

s th

esis

fol

low

ed

by I

t is

very

goo

d/A

nd I

was

just

ele

cted

po

pe)

Dis

cour

se a

nd o

ther

pra

gmat

ic

fact

ors

not/r

arel

y in

clud

ed

in th

e m

eani

ng o

f

gram

mat

ical

ele

men

ts

The

mea

ning

s of

dec

lara

tive

clau

ses

do n

ot

depe

nd o

n th

e m

eani

ngs

of n

eigh

bor

se

nten

ces

Gra

mm

ar is

mot

ivat

edT

he u

se o

f th

e no

n-pr

ogre

ssiv

e pr

esen

t ten

se

with

per

form

ativ

es c

lear

ly e

xpla

ined

by

the

sem

antic

s of

thes

e el

emen

ts

Gra

mm

ar is

oft

en a

rbitr

ary

The

use

of

the

non-

prog

ress

ive

pres

ent t

ense

w

ith p

erfo

rmat

ives

not

exp

lain

ed

Litt

le/n

o va

guen

ess

and

im

prec

isio

n of

des

crip

tion

Sign

ifica

nt v

ague

ness

and

im

prec

isio

n of

des

crip

tion

Hed

ging

of

rule

s by

wor

ds s

uch

as n

orm

ally

an

d us

uall

y, n

ot f

ollo

wed

by

refe

renc

e to

“a

bnor

mal

” or

“un

usua

l” c

ases

No

cont

radi

ctio

ns b

etw

een

di

ffer

ent r

ules

/sub

rule

sC

ontr

adic

tions

bet

wee

n

diff

eren

t rul

es/s

ubru

les

The

rul

e th

at th

e no

n-pr

ogre

ssiv

e pr

esen

t is

used

with

suc

h (d

ynam

ic)

verb

s as

pro

mis

e an

d re

fuse

fol

low

ed b

y th

e ru

le th

at th

e

non-

prog

ress

ive

pres

ent r

efer

s to

gen

eral

, pe

rman

ent c

hara

cter

istic

s

of p

eopl

e an

d th

ings

Freq

uent

use

of

pict

oria

l ill

ustr

atio

ns o

f m

eani

ngFi

gure

s ac

com

pany

ing

the

desc

ript

ion

of

Eng

lish

aspe

ctIn

freq

uent

use

of

pict

oria

l ill

ustr

atio

ns o

f m

eani

ng

129

various motivations between conceptual meaning and use.14 In total, then, the absence of the conceptual and pragmatic meaning of a grammatical element char-acteristic of traditional grammars is responsible for the lack of motivation behind different uses of an item and the arbitrary nature of an excessive number of rules and exceptions (cf. Turewicz 2000; Niemeier and Reif 2008; Tyler 2008). Quite obviously, this results in greater demands on learner memory, as the rules and exceptions are too numerous, and the need for rote memorization, as there are no overarching principles uniting different rules/exceptions. This memory overload is in turn likely to lead to negative affect. Another possible effect of the unmotivated character of traditional pedagogical grammar is the inability of learners to attain deep understanding and engage in deep processing, because in the absence of motivation there is no in-depth semantic analysis, which, in turn, causes impaired retention. As already stated, the lack of motivation also leads to the proliferation of exceptions and qualifications, which, however, despite being large in number, are often not numerous enough to prevent the occurrence of contradictions. Finally, the infrequent use by traditional grammars of pictorial illustrations of grammatical meanings must be noted, which may also result, given the absence of high-level schemas, from the practical impossibility of graphically illustrating a large number of rules and exceptions characteristic of such grammars. Obviously, this is consid-ered here as a drawback because of the overall pedagogical desirability of pictorial representations related to multi-channel coding (cf. Dirven 1989). To conclude, from the perspective of their classroom application, there are a number of potential drawbacks of traditional pedagogical grammars which stem mostly from their spe-cific approach to and insufficient attention to grammatical meaning, and which, it has to be added, are not shared by CG. It also has to be said that while the exam-ples used in Sect. 3.4, Table 4.1 and in the present discussion to illustrate the potential deficiencies of traditional pedagogical grammars concern in large meas-ure English tense/aspect, very similar problems are reported by Huong (2005) and Tyler (2008) with respect to English articles and modal verbs respectively.

Just as the description of the pedagogic potential of CG was followed by a con-sideration of its weaknesses, the list of the potential educational disadvantages of traditional pedagogical grammars will be counterbalanced with some focus of what looks like their pedagogical strengths. Two such assets were noted in Sect. 3.4. First, the terminology used by traditional grammars (e.g. state, action, dynamic) is largely predictable and familiar to most learners and it therefore does not tax learn-ers’ cognition. Second, traditional descriptions of the semantics of grammatical fea-tures are relatively simple and concrete (e.g. the meaning of dynamic verbs, which refer to actions), which again makes them fairly easy to process. It will be recalled

14 Niemeier and Reif (2008, p. 326) note that in the majority of English textbooks used in Germany there is a lot of emphasis on grammatical form and use (pragmatics), while the concep-tual meaning is neglected. This may also be true of some pedagogical grammars, which, despite some emphasis on pragmatic factors in grammatical description, fail to relate them to conceptual ones, which are simply missing.

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130 4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching

that these strengths of traditional pedagogical grammars are mirror images of some of the potential instructional weaknesses of CG descriptions.

To conclude this section, it may be useful to offer a few remarks concerning how the two kinds of grammatical description fare with respect to certain criteria of evaluation, or principles of preparation of pedagogical rules. One such set of design criteria for pedagogic language rules, already mentioned in Sect. 3.4, is offered by Swan (1994). These criteria are truth, demarcation, clarity, simplicity, conceptual parsimony and relevance. Truth is related to how well a given rule reflects what is known about a given grammatical phenomenon. Demarcation requires that a rule set the limits on the use of a particular form. Clarity is usually dependent on the choice of terminology, which ought to avoid vagueness. Simplicity, which often competes with truth and clarity, is the opposite of complexity. Conceptual parsi-mony requires of pedagogical formulations to be based on concepts already familiar to learners. Finally, relevance pertains to the degree to which a given rule responds to some learner need/question. It should be apparent that these criteria overlap to some extent and, as already signaled, they may also be in conflict with one another.

The two kinds of rules of interest here, i.e. those formulated within CG and those of traditional pedagogical origin, follow these criteria differently. While CG descrip-tions, by offering detailed semantic analyses of grammatical items and revealing the motivating links between different aspects of grammar certainly do justice to truth, traditional descriptions “falsify by oversimplifying,” which is due to their commit-ment to “grammar made easy,” to use Chalker’s (1994, p. 36) words, or to simplicity from among Swan’s criteria. Heavier emphasis on truth in CG descriptions than in traditional descriptions is also evidenced by the absence of contradictions from the former and their presence in the latter. It seems that both kinds of descriptions make an effort towards demarcation, as attested by their attempts to differentiate between the use of the present simple and present progressive. The success of these attempts, however, which will not be evaluated here, may depend on the degree to which the two kinds of descriptions adhere to the truth criterion and possibly to some others. Furthermore, CG, avoiding vagueness and imprecision, seems to be committed to clarity to a greater extent than traditional grammars, in which these undesirable qual-ities have been shown to exist. As Swan (1994, p. 48) notes, there is often trade-off between simplicity and clarity, so the fact that traditional descriptions are low in clarity may result from their strong adherence to simplicity. Finally, conceptual parsimony seems to apply to traditional rules to a greater extent than to CG descrip-tions, as traditional terminology and metalinguistic constructs are usually familiar to learners, as opposed to frequently new terminology and concepts of CG. What may also make traditional pedagogical grammars conceptually parsimonious are the relatively concrete terms/concepts, whose counterparts in CG are often much more abstract. To sum up, it seems that CG descriptions adhere mostly to the criteria of truth and clarity, while traditional descriptions are more inclined in the direction of simplicity and conceptual parsimony. What also transpires from these considerations is that perhaps these different commitments to the design criteria for pedagogic rules may be responsible for the differences between traditional pedagogical grammars and CG-inspired pedagogical grammar. Out of Swan’s six criteria, relevance has not been mentioned yet, because its special character calls for a separate discussion.

131

The criterion of relevance is special because in its discussion some specific needs or problems of specific learners must be taken into account to a far greater extent than in the case of the other criteria. Therefore, caution should inform any generic classification of the two kinds of description with respect to this criterion. Obviously, much will depend on the specific grammatical item which is to be taught and on many other factors such as the L1 or age of learners. As crucial with respect to rule relevance Swan (1994) also highlights the level of learner advance-ment, which is obviously a very important consideration. Bearing in mind the large number of practical factors impinging on the design criterion of relevance which cannot be taken into account here as the discussion is generic, it may be tentatively suspected that practical grammar descriptions would be more relevant to lower level learners than to advanced ones. This provisional pronouncement receives some support from the compliance of these descriptions with the criteria of conceptual parsimony and, especially, simplicity, which is often achieved at the expense of truth, probably deemed too complex to be presented to low-level learn-ers. By contrast, CG descriptions would seem better suited to the needs of learners who are rather highly advanced, as they may be more ready to digest and benefit from more complexity, a frequent companion of truth, and from novel but enlight-ening constructs present/inherent in instructional rules.

To conclude the comparison of traditional pedagogical grammar and CG as didactic tools, it should be noted that many of the differences between them, most of which favor CG as a pedagogical solution, may result from a certain kind of deliberate design deemed suitable for (or relevant to) a certain kind of learners. Much is explained by what Swan (1994, p. 52) says: “[b]ecause it is important to focus closely on a learner’s point of difficulty and to exclude information that is irrelevant to this, it can sometimes be useful to present what is, objectively speak-ing, a thoroughly bad rule.” While these words are revelatory, one improvement seems necessary; a rule never seems good or bad objectively, but only with respect to certain criteria of evaluation, like the very design criteria of Swan’s. The con-clusion is, then, that other design criteria may strongly compete with relevance. While the view that the suitability or effectiveness of pedagogical descriptions may be judged only when their relevance is taken into account is not controver-sial, the very issue of relevance is not easy to establish, but, fortunately, it may be tested. The same is true, it may be added, of the overall suitability of traditional pedagogical grammars and CG for form-focused instruction, as the discussion in the following section will amply demonstrate.

4.4.2 Cognitive Grammar and Grammar Teaching: Pedagogical Proposals and Research Results

It should be noted that the majority, if not all of the arguments constituting the case for adopting CG as a basis of pedagogical grammar and grammatical instruction pertain to the descriptions of grammatical material offered by this theory. It seems that these descriptions are systematic, highly revealing and that they promote

4.4 Some Options in Pedagogical Grammar

132 4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching

insight into the structure and functioning of a foreign language. Given the case for CG-inspired teaching of grammar and the interest in it of many cognitively-minded applied linguists, it might be said that CG-inspired teaching is slowly emerging as a novel option in form-focused instruction. In fact, numerous researchers have expressed their high expectations concerning the application of CG to language education and have offered proposals concerning the teaching of a number of spe-cific grammatical features. A representative sample of such proposals is presented in Table 4.2. However, such suggestions, no matter how well thought out, need to be empirically tested if they are ever to be adopted by teachers and included in teaching materials. Unfortunately, at the present moment, empirical research con-cerning the effectiveness of CG-inspired form-focused instruction is scant. This is reflected in the small number of empirical studies of the application of CG to grammar teaching in Table 4.2, where they are also included, alongside recommen-dations without an empirical component. These suggestions and studies need to be discussed now, with special emphasis placed on the results of empirical research.

As can be seen from the table, the commendations of the use of CG concern the teaching of a variety of grammatical elements (e.g. nouns, mood, tense, connectors) in several languages (English, Spanish and French). Some of these proposals might in fact be said to focus on the lexicon/grammar interface, since they relate to the teach-ing of relatively concrete meanings of prepositions, phrasal verbs and count/mass nouns, whose status oscillates between the grammatical and the lexical. While all of them exploit the meaningfulness of grammar and the view of meaning as conceptu-alization (this is not explicitly worded in the table), these proposals also make use of a number of more specific descriptive concepts and analytic tools of CG, the most important of which are listed in the third column of Table 4.2. Many of the propos-als suggest the instructional employment of such core CG notions as the distinctions between bounded and unbounded regions and between the trajector and landmark, or the profile/base alignment. Still others (e.g. Llopis-García 2010; Tyler et al. 2010) make use of only general CG principles such as motivation, which are characteristic not only of CG but of the larger field of CL, and combine them with other CL notions such as radiality; they may thus be said to be only weakly linked to the specific theory of CG. In addition, some of these suggestions combine CG-derived insights with con-tributions from some other, related CL theories; Niemeier and Reif (2008) and Król-Markefka (2010b), for instance, in addition to drawing on CG exploit Fauconnier’s (1994, 1997) mental spaces to a certain extent. Beyond their descriptive focus, these instructional proposals also make some reference to strictly pedagogical issues.

It should be noted that the degree to which these proposals make explicit refer-ence to foreign language pedagogy is variable. Some of them, especially the early ones such as Twardzisz (1998), are mostly descriptive or contrastive/descriptive in orientation, with only some isolated remarks concerning the direct applicability of the descriptions to language pedagogy, or less direct to pedagogy but rather to SLA (e.g. Marras and Cadierno 2008). Most of them, however, contain more extended pedagogic recommendations with at least sample teaching materials (e.g. Niemeier and Reif 2008; Król-Markefka 2010b; Tyler et al. 2010). These materials are mostly original creations of the authors, as, on the whole, CG and CL pedagogical ideas

133

Tabl

e 4.

2 C

G a

s a

basi

s of

for

m-f

ocus

ed in

stru

ctio

n: p

ropo

sals

and

em

piri

cal t

estin

g

Stud

yG

ram

mat

ical

ele

men

t (to

be)

taug

htC

G c

onst

ruct

s (t

o be

) us

ed in

inst

ruct

ion

Em

piri

cal t

estin

g

Twar

dzis

z (1

998)

Eng

lish

coun

t/mas

s no

uns

Bou

nded

ness

/unb

ound

edne

ss

Tur

ewic

z (2

000)

Eng

lish

prep

ositi

ons,

Eng

lish

tens

e/as

pect

(p

rogr

essi

ve/n

on-p

rogr

essi

ve, p

erfe

ct/

non-

perf

ect)

, Eng

lish

mod

al v

erbs

A w

ide

vari

ety

of c

onst

ruct

s (e

.g. c

ogni

tive

mod

els,

pro

file/

base

, bou

nded

ness

/un

boun

dedn

ess)

Kur

tyka

(20

01)

Eng

lish

phra

sal v

erbs

Tra

ject

or, l

andm

ark

Ach

ard

(200

4, 2

008)

Fren

ch a

rtic

les

Con

stru

al

Ant

hana

siad

ou (

2004

)E

nglis

h te

mpo

ral c

onne

ctor

sC

onst

rual

Tyle

r an

d E

vans

(20

04)

Ove

rT

raje

ctor

, lan

dmar

k

Huo

ng (

2005

)E

nglis

h ar

ticle

s, E

nglis

h

coun

t/mas

s no

uns

Bou

nded

ness

/unb

ound

edne

ssC

G in

stru

ctio

n m

ore

effe

ctiv

e th

an tr

aditi

onal

inst

ruct

ion

in th

e sh

ort r

un

Che

n an

d O

ller

(200

8)E

nglis

h ac

tive

and

pass

ive

voic

eC

onst

rual

, figu

re/g

roun

d

Mal

dona

do (

2008

)Sp

anis

h m

iddl

e vo

ice

Con

stru

al, d

omin

ion,

act

ive

zone

Mar

ras

and

C

adie

rno

(200

8)E

nglis

h an

d Sp

anis

h ve

rbs

and

gr

amm

atic

al r

elat

ions

(su

bjec

t,

dire

ct o

bjec

t, in

dire

ct o

bjec

t)

Tra

ject

or, l

andm

ark,

act

ive

zone

Nie

mei

er (

2008

)E

nglis

h as

pect

(pr

ogre

ssiv

e/

non-

prog

ress

ive)

, E

nglis

h co

unt/m

ass

noun

s

Bou

nded

ness

/unb

ound

edne

ss

Nie

mei

er a

nd

Rei

f (2

008)

Eng

lish

tens

e/as

pect

(pr

ogre

ssiv

e/

non-

prog

ress

ive,

per

fect

ive/

im

perf

ectiv

e)

Con

stru

al, b

ound

edne

ss/

unbo

unde

dnes

s

Tyle

r (2

008)

Eng

lish

mod

al v

erbs

Mot

ivat

ion

Kró

l-M

arke

fka

(2

010a

, b)

Eng

lish

artic

les

Con

stru

al, m

enta

l con

tact

, men

tal s

pace

CG

inst

ruct

ion

effe

ctiv

e, C

G in

stru

ctio

n m

ore

effe

ctiv

e th

an

trad

ition

al in

stru

ctio

n in

the

long

run

Llo

pis-

Gar

cía

(2

010)

Span

ish

moo

d (i

ndic

ativ

e/su

bjun

ctiv

e)C

onst

rual

CG

inst

ruct

ion

effe

ctiv

e (n

o co

mpa

riso

n w

ith tr

aditi

onal

in

stru

ctio

n)

Tyle

r et

al.

(201

0)E

nglis

h m

odal

ver

bsM

otiv

atio

nC

G in

stru

ctio

n m

oder

atel

y ef

fect

ive,

CG

inst

ruct

ion

mor

e

effe

ctiv

e th

an tr

aditi

onal

inst

ruct

ion

4.4 Some Options in Pedagogical Grammar

134 4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching

have not yet made it to mainstream teaching sources (very infrequent exceptions, e.g. the textbook on English phrasal verbs by Rudzka-Ostyn (2003), only confirm this fact). The pedagogical guidelines and sample materials offered by the vast majority of the sources discussed here are tentative; all but four of them, which are discussed in more detail below, are followed by a caveat that research is needed to test the proposed descriptions and teaching tools. Another notable feature of these instructional proposals is that most of them endorse explicit presentation of metalin-guistic information to learners. Furthermore, some of them suggest combining this kind of instruction with or integrating it into some well-defined methodology. One example is Llopis-García (2010), who suggests combining CG-derived descriptions with processing instruction (see Sect. 4.3.2.1), and another is Achard (2008), who is for integrating CG-based pedagogy into the Natural Approach (see Sect. 4.3.1.2) as an example of a communicative methodology. While the majority of these pedagog-ical proposals offer teaching guidelines and materials to be used as part of explicit form-focused instruction, very few of them, as already remarked, have attempted to subject these guidelines and materials to empirical testing.

The research project by Huong (2005) is one of two studies testing the effec-tiveness of teaching English articles with the use of CG-based materials and com-paring it with the effects of instruction based on pedagogical rules of traditional nature. Further similarities between this study and the one by Król-Markefka (2010a, b) are that both were quasi-experiments and taught articles to speakers of languages which do not have them in their grammatical inventories, namely Vietnamese and Polish. Huong (2005) used explicit deductive instruction in both experimental groups (receiving CG-inspired and traditional instruction), which was in the format of lectures, and which was followed by some exercises assigned as homework. Huong (2005) gives no information as to the nature of these exer-cises, nor does he specify whether the participants were offered any feedback on their completion. The tests consisted of gap-filling and error correction, so they have to be interpreted as measures of mostly explicit knowledge. The results of the study were rather straightforward. The CG group improved significantly on the immediate posttest, but this gain disappeared by the time of the delayed posttest. The traditional group stayed at more or less the same level throughout the study.

Results which point to a partial advantage of CG-based instruction over tra-ditional instruction were also yielded by the second study concerned with teach-ing articles. Similarly to Huong (2005), Król-Markefka (2010a, b) exposed her participants in a CG group and traditional instruction group to explicit deductive teaching of English articles. This was followed by a certain amount of controlled practice in the form of fairly traditional activities such as gap-filling, translation, etc. The pretest and two posttests were in the form of gap-filling tasks, so again they appeared to mostly tap the participants’ explicit knowledge of articles. The two types of treatment turned out to be effective in the short run, but the gains were maintained on the delayed posttest only in the CG group. This prompted Król-Markefka (2010b, p. 228) to conclude that CG-based instruction is more effective than instruction based on traditional materials, a result which she ascribed mostly to the meaningfulness of CG descriptions of English articles. Despite the fact that

135

her study did not include a test which could be considered as a measure of mostly implicit knowledge, Król-Markefka (2010b) also concluded that explicit deduc-tive instruction containing plenty of metalinguistic information resulted in implicit knowledge gains in the case of the CG-instruction group, especially as measured by the delayed test, which, she assumed, in large measure elicited her participants’ implicit knowledge. She was able to assume that the interlanguage of many of her CG participants had undergone restructuring related to the processes envisioned by the weak-interface position because of such factors as their gradual improvement from the pretest to the immediate posttest to the delayed posttest, the U-shaped pattern of the development of their accuracy, and, especially, the results of a retro-spective task administered after the delayed posttest, which suggested that numer-ous participants did not use their explicit knowledge on that posttest.

The study by Tyler et al. (2010) involved a control group and two experimen-tal groups which received instruction concerning selected English modals. While the treatment in one of these groups was based on CG [it also exploited the con-cept of force dynamics (Talmy 1988; Sweetser 1990) developed in the broader area of CL], the other group received traditional teaching. In both cases instruction included teacher-fronted presentation and discussion, as well as a range of other activities such as miming, collaborative dialogue (see Sect. 4.3.2.1), dialogue crea-tion, and practice with the use of computer software. From this, it appears that instruction was explicit, probably with a predominance of deduction and some elements of induction, with a fair amount of controlled practice. The design of the study involved a pretest and an immediate posttest, which were in the form of multiple-choice tasks. The CG group significantly outperformed the traditional instruction group on the posttest, which performed similarly to the control group with no instruction at all. However, the gains of the CG group are considered by Tyler et al. (2010, p. 45) as moderate, and there was no delayed posttest which could have shown the persistence of the positive effects of the CG treatment.

The next study, in contrast to all the ones considered so far, did not include a group with treatment based on traditional descriptions of grammar. However, the design of the study by Llopis-García (2010) also included two experimental groups and a control group. Both of the experimental groups received instruction concerning the Spanish mood based on CG, because the study was not interested in comparing the effects of CG-inspired instruction with instruction based on tra-ditional pedagogical grammars. The treatment in both groups was based on CG, but at the same time it was inspired by processing instruction (VanPatten 1996, 2002, 2004; see Sect. 4.3.2.1). As the first element, it included explicit deductive instruction in both groups, which also concentrated on processing problems. The second part was different in the two groups; the first one completed a series of structured input activities (see Sect. 4.3.2.1), while the other what Llopis-García (2010) calls structured output activities, which were also “based on correct pro-cessing of form-meaning connections” (Llopis-García 2010, p. 88), a move which extends, and, it seems, in a way violates certain assumptions of processing instruc-tion. Llopis-García (2010) does not spell out the nature of the measures used in the pretest and in the two posttests, but it seems that they included both structured

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136 4 Pedagogical Options in Grammar Teaching

input and structured output activities. The analysis revealed that both groups improved significantly from the pretest to the immediate posttest, and that this gain was maintained on the delayed posttest. The control group did not achieve this kind of significant progress, which allowed Llopis-García (2010, p. 88) to conclude that processing instruction with both structured input and structured out-put components combined with CG-inspired explicit instruction has a very posi-tive impact. However, given VanPatten and Oikennon’s (1996) claim that it may be mainly the structured input phase of processing instruction, and not the explicit instruction part, which is responsible for acquisition, the alleged value of the CG component in Llopis-García’s (2010) study must be treated with caution.

In conclusion, it appears that research findings concerning the effectiveness of CG-inspired form-focused instruction are not straightforward. CG instruction has generally been revealed to be effective, with the important caveat that this effec-tiveness may be either moderate (Tyler et al. 2010) or that it may not withstand the test of time (Huong 2005). The comparison of the effects of grammatical instruc-tion based on CG descriptions with instruction based on traditional pedagogical grammar is even more problematic. Sometimes CG instruction produced better results only on immediate posttests (Huong 2005), and in other cases its superior-ity was manifested only on delayed posttests (Król-Markefka 2010b).15 What is interesting, Król-Markefka’s (2010b) study also revealed some deleterious influ-ence of traditional instruction on the use of English articles by her participants. It may also be noted that the studies reported here were concerned with only a very limited range of grammatical features. Another limitation is the absence from all of them of distinct measures of explicit and implicit knowledge, and, with the exception of the study by Król-Markefka (2010a, b), of attempts to interpret the results in terms of these two kinds of representation. The mixed results and, espe-cially, the paucity and narrow scope of research on the usefulness of CG descrip-tions in language pedagogy make it clear that more of such research is needed.

4.5 Conclusion

In anticipation of the study to be presented in Chap. 5, the present one focused on the options in grammar teaching available to teachers, as well as to other parties involved in the process of language education such as materials writers, syllabus designers, etc. In the first place, an attempt was made to disambiguate the intricate and interrelated concepts of implicit and explicit knowledge, learning and instruc-tion. Next, a number of currently prominent theoretical positions concerning gram-mar teaching and acquisition with their roots in SLA were discussed. These included several of the so-called non-interventionist positions, namely the Identity Hypothesis,

15 Król-Markefka (2010b, p. 166) also reports research by Augustyn (2006), who found that there was no statistically significant difference between the effects of CG and traditional teaching of Italian articles.

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Interlanguage Theory and Monitor Theory, which advocate the abandonment of gram-mar teaching, as well as some of their prominent and influential classroom applica-tions, such as the French immersion programs in Canada, the Natural Approach and the Communicational Teaching Project. Given the shortcomings of non-intervention and its implementations, subsequently, a range of the so-called pro-intervention theories and hypotheses were discussed. These were Processability Theory, Skill-Learning Theory, the Noticing Hypothesis, the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis, Input Processing Theory, the Interaction Hypothesis, the Output Hypothesis and connec-tionism. What they all have in common is that they favor grammar teaching of some kind with respect to at least some grammatical features and at least at some points in the process of acquisition; therefore, important pedagogical guidelines they give rise to were also discussed. Next, a wide range of methodological options in form-focused instruction was reviewed, with special emphasis on these which were actu-ally employed in the study reported in Chap. 5. They included some feature-focused options, namely deductive and inductive instruction aimed at the development of explicit knowledge of grammar, some practice options aimed at implicit knowledge, specifically output-oriented options such as text manipulation, as well as some overt feedback options. Because of their employment in the study conducted by the present authors, they were not only discussed in general terms and exemplified, but, in addi-tion, the most important of their advantages and drawbacks were presented, as well as their potential utility as revealed by research. Subsequently, the case for CG as a basis of pedagogical rules was presented, which was followed by the comparison of the pedagogic suitability of CG and traditional pedagogical grammars. These were included because traditional pedagogical grammar and CG constitute two further options in grammar teaching, a well-established and a novel one, respectively. The novelty of CG as a basis for pedagogical rules prompted the presentation of a number of recent theoretical proposals, as well as some of the recent empirical research, con-cerning its application to grammar teaching.

As already stated, the present chapter has prepared ground for the next one, which includes a detailed account of a study concerned with testing the applica-bility of CG to form-focused instruction and comparing the effects of its applica-tion with those of relying on traditional pedagogical grammars. In the first place, the decision to conduct the study, which involves a quasi-experiment testing certain forms of form-focused instruction, was based on the facilitative (pro-intervention) positions inherent in the aforementioned SLA theories, and on the serious problems inherent in the non-interventionist positions and their applications, all of which were discussed in this chapter. What motivated the present authors’ interest in CG-inspired grammatical instruction was obviously the strong case for CG as a founda-tion of pedagogical grammar, also presented here in great detail. Furthermore, the implementation of grammar teaching in the quasi-experiment required a number of choices from among the methodological options in form-focused instruction, thor-oughly reviewed in the chapter as well. Finally, the paucity and inconclusive results of the existing research on the effectiveness of CG as a basis of pedagogic rules, especially when compared with instruction based on traditional pedagogical gram-mars, provided further motivation for conducting the study.

4.5 Conclusion

139

5.1 Introduction

Generally speaking, the previous chapters have introduced the theory of CG, pre-sented the theory’s descriptions of certain grammatical phenomena, compared these descriptions with traditional grammar descriptions of the same features, and considered the theoretical positions on and instructional options in teaching for-eign language grammar. In this chapter, these somewhat diverse issues will con-verge in the account of a study which explored the effectiveness of form-focused instruction based on CG descriptions of certain grammatical phenomena of English. First, in the course of the study certain constructs of the theory of CG, introduced in Chap. 2, were applied in teaching. Second, the teaching components of the study focused on the grammatical elements whose detailed descriptions were offered in Chap. 3. Third, the theoretical positions on grammar teaching, which were considered in Chap. 4, motivated certain choices made in the research and provided a frame of reference for the interpretation of its results. Finally, also reviewed in Chap. 4, the instructional options in grammar teaching constituted a bank of techniques and possibilities from among which certain choices were made in the design of the study.

In Chap. 4, which constitutes a link between the more theoretical Chaps. 1 and 2 and the research project reported in the present chapter, the rationale behind teach-ing grammar in general and a strong case for employing the insights of CG in for-eign language pedagogy were presented. This is why the research project reported here attempted to develop teaching ideas and materials for using CG in form-focused instruction and to test the effectiveness of applying them in the foreign language classroom. Additionally, in Chap. 4 the CG descriptions of grammatical elements were also juxtaposed and compared with mainstream traditional descrip-tions of a pedagogical sort, which highlighted the possible pedagogical superiority of CG descriptions, at least in certain respects. Therefore, the study also set out to compare the effects of using these two kinds of descriptions in pedagogical prac-tice aimed at English grammar. To foreground the CG and traditional pedagogical

Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom: Teaching English Tense and Aspect

Chapter 5

J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8_5, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

140 5 Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom

grammar origins of the descriptions, the instructional treatments which were based on them and were administered in the course of the study are called cognitive and traditional, respectively.

In particular, the study reported in the present chapter1 tested the effects of teaching the meanings, use and additionally the form of certain facets of the English tense/aspect system, known from traditional pedagogical sources as the present simple and the present continuous, which was based on the CG and tradi-tional descriptions. These descriptions were included in Chap. 3, which also offered an account of stative (imperfective) and dynamic (perfective) verbs. These verb classes also figured prominently in the present study’s instructional treatment as this lexical-aspectual distinction interacts closely with the present simple and progressive. What was primarily targeted by the pedagogical intervention were the meanings and use of the relevant grammatical elements, but their forms were inev-itably also taught to a certain extent as it is impossible (and undesirable) to focus on the semantic and pragmatic aspects of grammatical features and at the same time totally ignore their form (cf. Widdowson 1998; Larsen-Freeman 2003, p. 44).

The details of the study are presented in a relatively standard manner and order. First, in Sects. 5.2–5.7, the methodology used is thoroughly discussed, including the provision of the research questions addressed and a detailed description of the cognitive treatment. The details of this treatment were thought to be worthy of an extended discussion because of the novelty and rarity of form-focused instruction based on CG. One of these methodological sections, namely Sect. 5.3, discusses a pilot study conducted two and a half years before the study proper, with special attention paid to the changes introduced to the design of the main study on the basis of the analysis of the pilot. Subsequently, Sect. 5.8 presents the results of the study and the discussion thereof. This is followed by Sect. 5.9, which summarizes the research findings and offers some additional analysis of the results as well as lists the limitations of the present research.

5.2 Research Questions and Experimental Design

As already mentioned, the study set out to explore the effectiveness of form-focused instruction based on CG and compare its effects with the effects of teaching the same grammatical features based on its traditional pedagogical descriptions. In more specific terms, it sought to address the following research questions:

1. Is grammar teaching based on CG descriptions of grammatical elements effec-tive and is there a difference between the effects of CG-inspired form-focused

1 A concise description of the study including certain aspects of its design, participants, target forms, instructional treatment, handling of data as well as results an their discussion (restricted to the results of the entire written test) appeared in Bielak and Pawlak (2011).

141

instruction and the same kind of instruction based on traditional pedagogical descriptions in both the short and the long run?

2. Is CG-inspired grammar teaching equally effective (or ineffective) with respect to controlled and free production (explicit and implicit knowledge) and within the first category, with respect to receptive and productive knowl-edge, and how does it compare in these respects with traditional instruction?

3. Is grammar teaching based on CG more effective when administered to more advanced learners compared with less advanced ones?

With respect to research question 1, the study was interested in the differences between the two sorts of instruction in terms of their overall effectiveness as well as the durability of their effects. More emphasis was laid on exploring the effects of CG-inspired teaching, with instruction based on traditional descriptions serving mostly in the capacity of the standard of comparison. As explained in greater detail in Sect. 5.7, mostly quantitative and also qualitative techniques were used in order to find answers to these research questions, as well as to discuss and explain the findings.

The study reported here took the form of a quasi-experiment with a pretest–posttest design. More specifically, the assessment procedure consisted of a pretest, given one week prior to the treatment, an immediate posttest (posttest 1), given one week after the treatment, and a delayed posttest (posttest 2), administered 3 weeks after the treatment, as specified in Table 5.1. The inclusion of a delayed posttest was dictated by the need to consider not only the possible short-term effects of the two instructional treatments, but also any effects that might be more removed in time.

The study involved exposing two experimental groups to two different instruc-tional treatments aimed at improving their control and use of the English pre-sent tense and progressive aspect to refer to situations/states happening/existing at the time of speaking. The two kinds of treatment, called cognitive and tradi-tional, employed instructional materials devised by the present authors, and were delivered by one of them. The treatment lasted approximately 80 min (almost the duration of two scheduled classes, i.e. 90 min) and was based on traditional peda-gogical grammars in one experimental group, and on CG descriptions of the rel-evant material in the other. Besides, a control group was included in the design and execution of the quasi-experiment.

All the participants filled in a background questionnaire where they provided information about the length of their prior English instruction, their out-of-class

Table 5.1 Research schedule Week Procedure

Week 1 PretestWeek 2 Treatment (70–85 min)Week 3 Posttest 1Week 4 Posttest 2 followed by

background questionnaire (including questions on the treatment in experimental groups)

5.2 Research Questions and Experimental Design

142

exposure and other similar issues. The questionnaire distributed among the mem-bers of the two experimental groups included an additional section which asked them whether they had previously received any instruction on the grammatical elements taught in the treatment, and was also concerned with the participants’ perceptions of and attitudes towards the treatment they received in the course of the study and with their evaluation of their understanding and the ability to use the target grammatical features. Because of this last component, the questionnaire was completed by the participants immediately after posttest 2, as illustrated in Table 5.1.

At the request of one of us the two regular school teachers of the three intact classes which constituted the two experimental groups and the control group agreed not to teach the target grammatical features for the duration of the study. This was necessary because the second part of the testing procedure, the elicited imitation test, was conducted with small subgroups consisting of some members of the three major groups, and when one subgroup was tested by the researcher, the rest of the participants attended regular English classes. In the design of the study, an attempt was made to ensure conformity to other important methodologi-cal requirements identified by Pawlak (2006, p. 75). Therefore, a control group and pre- and post-tests were included. Some other of these stringent guidelines, like adequate information about the design or clearly reported findings were also attempted to be met.

5.3 Pilot Study

As signaled in Sect. 5.1, the study reported here, which was conducted in the autumn of 2010, was piloted in the spring of 2008 in the same institutional setting. The pilot included 46 participants who resembled the participants of the study proper (see the next section) in all important respects, i.e., they were at a compa-rable level of proficiency, exhibited similar kinds of motivation, had comparable out-of-class exposure, attended four intact classes in the same school, and so on. The presentation of the most important conclusions drawn from the pilot study and the modifications in the design of the study they engendered awaited this point, because certain features of the study proper described in the preceding sections may now be shown to have resulted from the analysis of the pilot and its results. In fact, the consideration of the pilot prompted the present authors to introduce a number of important changes to the design of the study, which affected mostly its treatment and testing instruments.

In the pilot study, both kinds of treatment were conducted without the use of Power Point presentations, while the study proper, as will be shown in Sect. 5.6, employed such presentations. In the pilot, the delivery of the cognitive and tradi-tional treatments relied on the aid of a traditional blackboard and chalk, which was a source of certain disadvantages. First, even though some example sentences were put on the blackboard before the treatment classes, because of the necessity to

5 Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom

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write, and especially to draw certain schematic pictorial representations in chalk, some parts of the treatment sessions turned out to be quite time-consuming. As a result, it was necessary to rush the final parts of the treatment. Also, the use of chalk and the blackboard with the group receiving the cognitive treatment allowed the employment of only highly schematic drawings, which still were not of very good quality and undoubtedly their clarity was also inferior in comparison with computer-generated pictures. These disadvantages resulted in the decision to rely on Power Point presentations in the study proper, which was also facilitated by the installation of the necessary equipment in the classrooms where the study was conducted in the period between the pilot and the study proper.

In addition to the explicit presentation of the target forms and the controlled practice and feedback sessions, the pilot study also included a more spontaneous practice component. It had to be removed from the study proper, however, as its execution turned out to be excessively time-consuming, and as a result it prevented the cognitive treatment from being completed within the limit of 90 min, which, as will be shown in Sect. 5.5, had to be respected. Obviously, given the fact that the treatment was expected to have some impact on the participants’ implicit knowl-edge, it would have been desirable to leave the free practice component in the treatment, but the danger of exceeding the time limit in the cognitive treatment had to take precedence, as it would have also made the two kinds of treatment unduly different from each other. The other modifications of the design of the pilot con-cerned the testing instruments and the manner in which the testing was conducted.

The next modification which was introduced in the wake of the pilot affected both the treatment and tests, and it consisted in the removal from the teaching materials and tests of certain subcategories of perfective verbs. These were verbs whose perfectivity depends not so much on a change they refer to, but rather solely on the boundedness of the processes they designate. This subclass of per-fective verbs, which includes the verbs walk, sleep and wear already mentioned in Sect. 3.3, was excluded from the study’s focus as the non-prototypicality of its members made dealing with them in the treatment quite time-consuming. This was undesirable, as, once again, there was a danger of exceeding the time limit in the classes including the cognitive treatment. The concern for not violating the time limit in this treatment also prompted the inclusion in both the materials and tests of only these perfective verbs which referred to actions of clearly visible physical/energetic manifestation and designating clearly definable changes. The pilot study made it clear that such verbs, being likewise more prototypical for the class of perfectives, were also easier and faster to deal with in the treatment in compari-son with less prototypical verbs such as revise (for an exam), for example. Verbs like this one, lacking salient physical/energetic manifestation and change, were revealed by the pilot study to be much more time-consuming to deal with, and were therefore excluded from the study proper. Thus, at the end of the day, the study dealt explicitly with only highly prototypical perfective verbs due to the time limitations which had to be respected.

Certain modifications of the written test were necessitated by the fact that the level of difficulty of the pilot study tests turned out to be too low, which resulted

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in high written pretest means in all the groups, some of which exceeded 70 % of the maximum number of points. As this left plenty of room for deterioration but too little room for improvement on subsequent tests, the written tests used in the study proper were made more difficult by means of two changes. First, as will be explained in more detail in Sect. 5.7, approximately 60 % of verbs used in the written test, which were key elements of the target structures, were verbs not pre-viously included in the instructional materials. This was a change from the pilot study, where only about 35 % of the verbs were novel to the participants in the sense just defined. Second, the pilot study included only one productive knowl-edge component, namely the gap-filling task, and in the study proper it was com-plemented by the addition of the translation task, which was predicted to be the most challenging of all the three tasks because it required the most autonomous employment of the target features. Judging by the results of the pretest in the study proper, which are presented in Sect. 5.8, the modifications inspired by the con-sideration of the results of the pilot proved to be successful, as they did make the written test more difficult.

When it comes to the oral test, whose details are included in Sect. 5.7, major modifications were introduced between the pilot study and the study proper in order to eliminate certain disadvantages of the original design of the test. In the pilot study, the oral elicited imitation test was conducted with every participant on an individual basis. Specifically, while the rest of the group were taking part in a regular class with their teacher, in the back of the room one of the present authors conducted the oral test with individual participants who came over to take part in it one by one. What is more, the stimulus sentences were not pre-recorded, but were instead read out loud by the test administrator. This was done to speed up the implementation of the test; the use of computer equipment to play the sentences would have taken a little more time, which was to be avoided due to the already lengthy implementation of the test caused by its execution on an individual basis. This manner of conducting the test presented certain disadvantages. First, even though care was taken to read the stimulus sentences in the same manner and at the same speed for every participant, some variation with respect to their deliv-ery must have taken place. What is more, interacting with the test administrator face to face, the participants often expected him to repeat the sentences or even to explain their meanings, as often manifested by their comments and requests. It was also felt by the researchers that some participants were simply inhibited by the necessity to perform what they saw as a difficult task in front of an out-side party, who, on top of everything, was recording their responses. This often resulted in their purposeful silence. By contrast in the case of some other partici-pants, the slightly stressful situation might have had a favorable effect, as they felt pressured to perform the task to the best of their ability. As explained in Sect. 5.7, in contrast to the pilot study, in the study proper the oral test was conducted with groups of several participants, and the stimulus sentences were pre-recorded and played to the participants by means of a computer and a pair of speakers, all of which was expected to eliminate the disadvantages associated with the original setup of this test.

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Whereas the modifications of the original design of the oral test associated with and resulting from the consideration of the pilot study probably improved the test in certain important respects, it seems that they also created their own problems. While the use of pre-recorded stimulus sentences and computer-audio equipment to play them during the test eliminated the variable delivery of the sentences, for reasons to be specified in more detail in Sect. 5.8.2, where the results of the oral test are discussed, the quality of the auditory facet of the sentences probably suf-fered due to the unavailability of high-tech equipment. Also, even though in the study proper the anxiety and inhibition some participants experienced may have been relatively low-level or non-existent due to the fact that they did not reproduce the stimulus sentences in a face-to-face setting with the test administrator, some other participants probably did not feel pressured enough to actually attempt the reproduction of the sentences, as evidenced by the discussion of the results of the test in Sect. 5.8.2. All in all, the conclusions drawn from piloting the oral test were used to modify this test considerably, which was obviously intended to improve the test, but at the same time negatively affected the quality of the stimulus sen-tences and the performance of some participants.

5.4 Participants

The participants of the study were 50 grade one and two senior high school stu-dents, 15 of whom were males and 35 females. They were members of four sepa-rate intact classes, which received 2 h of English instruction weekly and were taught by two different teachers. The background questionnaire, administered immediately after the last posttest, revealed that on average they had had 5.18 years of instruction in English. However, there was a lot of variation among the participants in this respect, as revealed by the data in Table 5.2. The table divides the participants into two experimental groups, one receiving the cognitive treatment and the other the traditional treatment, and the control group, and in each group the participants are symbolized by numbers and ordered according to rising years of previous instruction.2 These ranged from 0.5 to 11 years when all the groups are considered, but, nonetheless, very short and very long periods of prior instruction were relatively rare, as 36 participants (72 %) had had between 3 and 9 years of instruction. What is more, the participants also varied with respect to the number of hours of instruction they had received in the schools they had attended before enrolling in the senior high school in which the study was con-ducted. Such a high degree of variation when it comes to previous instruction the participants had received, which makes them a typical mixed-level group, may be considered as a weakness of the present study. While it has to be admitted that

2 The numbers symbolizing individual participants in Table 5.2 are not haphazard and reflect their ordering in the charts of Figs. 5.21 and 5.22 included in Sect. 5.8.1.4.

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more uniformity among the participants would have been desirable, pretest scores, which were usually comparable in all the groups and which are to be discussed in detail in different subsections of Sect. 5.8, condone the execution of the study with this group of participants, which was also a practical necessity. The issue of differ-ent periods of previous instruction is returned to in Sect. 5.8.1.4, where it is consid-ered in terms of intra-group variation.

The participants were much more uniform when it comes to such factors as extra-curricular instruction, out-of-school exposure and the reasons for which they were learning English. The vast majority of them had no English instruction outside of school; only 4 participants (8 %) admitted to attending some additional courses or tutorials either at the time of or before the quasi-experiment. This fact, while defi-nitely not desirable from the point of view of the subjects’ acquisition of English, was certainly welcomed by the present authors as it meant that the likelihood of out-of-class exposure unduly affecting the results of the quasi-experiment were minimal. A somewhat larger number admitted to receiving any kind of outside exposure (8 participants, 16 %), but it was rather insignificant as the majority of them only lis-tened to and sometimes attempted to translate song lyrics, and occasionally watched some films and read some Internet sites in English. Within this small group, one person sometimes interacted with her English friends, another one helped her par-ents talk with their business partners in France, and yet another one tried to have

Table 5.2 Years of previous English instruction for participants in all groups

Cognitive treatment Traditional treatment Control group

ParticipantYears of instruction Participant

Years of instruction Participant

Years of instruction

3 1.5 7 0.5 10 14 1.5 15 0.5 2 4.58 1.5 5 1 4 4.51 3.5 12 1 13 4.59 4 6 1.5 1 57 5 10 1.5 8 5

10 5 3 3 9 52 6 4 3 14 55 6 14 3 5 66 6 1 4 11 6

12 7 2 4 3 713 7 11 4 7 820 7 13 4 12 911 8 8 6 6 1019 8 9 621 817 916 9.518 1014 1115 11

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a weekly 1 h speaking session with her English teacher aunt, which was a single case of regular access to considerable amounts of English in the whole group of par-ticipants. As to their motivation, an overwhelming majority displayed instrumental motivation, as revealed by their pointing to the necessity to learn English for school progression and for general professional and social life purposes. One person mani-fested a stronger interest in the English language by expressing a wish to become a translator/interpreter. In addition, several participants wrote that they liked this lan-guage and several others stated that they studied it because it was easy.

As already mentioned, the participants attended four intact classes, and as the study required only three groups, the two smallest classes were treated as one group for the purposes of the study. As a result, there were three groups of participants, the first two of which were selected as experimental. The first of these was labeled the traditional group (TRAD), as it later received instruction based on traditional peda-gogical grammars, and the second one was dubbed the cognitive group (COG), as its instruction was based on the CG descriptions of the relevant grammatical fea-tures. The decisions as to which of the three groups (two intact classes and one group comprising two intact classes) were to become different instructional groups was not random, but was guided by the consideration of the size of their member-ship. The decision to designate the largest group combining two intact classes as COG (n = 21, 3 males and 18 females), reflected the desire to have a novel kind on instruction applied to and tested on the largest possible group of participants. In addition, the second largest group was designated as TRAD (n = 15, 4 males and 11 females). Finally, the smallest group was designated as the control group (CTRL, n = 14, 8 males and 6 females).

5.5 Choice of Target Forms

The decision to focus in the course of the present study on the meanings and use of the English present tense and progressive aspect, as well as stative (imperfective) and dynamic (perfective) verbs, was motivated by practical, pedagogic and theo-retical factors. Because there was an intention to explore the effects of CG-based form-focused instruction at a somewhat lower level of advancement in comparison with some previous studies (e.g. Huong 2005; Bielak 2007), and because we are (and were at the time of the study) employed at a university English Department, we could not conduct the present research at our own institution, and instead had to seek permission to run a quasi-experiment in a high school. A permission was obtained from one school, but only on condition that instructional treatment not be overly long so that it did not unduly interfere with the educational process specified by the curriculum. In practice, it meant that instructional treatment had to be confined to two 45 min classes, and there was no other choice but to com-ply with this requirement. But even if the permission to run a longer experiment, with longer treatment sessions, had been obtained, probably a decision would have been made to still restrict the duration of the treatment in the same or very

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similar manner. This is because, as we learned when we had conducted the pilot study 2.5 years prior to the study proper (see Sect. 5.3), school life is fraught with unexpected changes to the regular schedule, which are brought about by various festivals, anniversaries and cultural events. In fact, the scheduling of the pilot study had had to be modified several times because of unforeseen ceremonies and out-ings, and therefore at the phase of the scheduling of the study proper we attempted to take into account all the possible changes to the regular timetable of which there was even a faint possibility. Furthermore, the instructional treatment had to be kept relatively short to minimize the odds that it would be unexpectedly interfered with. For such reasons of practical nature, the target forms taught in the course of the study had to be relatively simple and amenable to instruction in 1.5 h.

Consequently, the decision to teach the progressive and non-progressive pre-sent tense was made, as these grammatical elements are relatively simple, at least when compared with other elements of the English tense/aspect system such as the combinations of the two English tenses (present and past) with both the pro-gressive and the perfect aspects and with modal verbs. Moreover, the choice of the instructed features was further restricted by focusing on the present tense with or without the progressive to refer to situations existing or happening at speech time. This decision excluded from consideration and instructional treatment many other uses of these combinations of the present tense and the progressive/non-progressive aspect such as the habitual present tense or the emotionally-colored present progressive frequently used to express criticism or annoyance. When it comes to the use of the two tense/aspect pairings to refer to the time of speak-ing, certain verb types also had to be excluded from the pedagogical interventions of this study, as already signaled in Sect. 3.2 (note 8). In particular, verbs which are best categorized as intermediate between stative and dynamic, such as the so-called stance verbs (e.g. sit, live) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 205ff), verbs of bodily sensation (e.g. hurt, tickle) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 203) and the verb look were not covered by the instructional treatment as their use in the progressive and non-progressive present tense is characterized by apparent arbitrariness. To be sure, CG sees this use as motivated, but its exposition would have stretched the treat-ment designed for this study to an unacceptable size. In addition, even the kinds of dynamic verbs (see Sect. 3.2.1) used in the linguistic examples in the treatment as well as in all the tests were restricted. The treatment and tests excluded activities (atelic verbs), and they only included achievements and accomplishments (telic verbs), both of which have a more clearly defined beginning and end in compari-son with activities. This was done because achievements and accomplishments are easier to account for with the use of the boundedness/unboundedness distinction used in the cognitive treatment (see Sect. 3.3), as described in Sect. 5.6.2. Had the instruction and the tests also included activities, the treatment, and especially its cognitive version, would have had to be extended to accommodate these less pro-totypical dynamic/perfective verbs. Although such decisions obviously prevented the presentation of the relevant grammatical elements in greater complexity, they enabled the design of time-compact instructional treatments for both of the experi-mental groups, as required by the practical concerns just reported.

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In addition to considerations of practical nature, pedagogical concerns and theo-retical issues also influenced the choice of the target forms, which, together with their meanings and use, were supposed to constitute a challenge to the participants of the study. First, prior to the quasi-experiment, the participants’ two regular English teach-ers informed one of us that the majority of the participants displayed problems with correct, meaningful and appropriate use of the present simple and progressive not only in spontaneous but also in controlled production. Second, there are considerable differences between English and Polish, which was the participants’ native language, in the area of grammar under consideration. Contrastive analysis shows that while English has both lexical and grammatical aspect, Polish lacks the latter, and, what is more, there is no complete overlap between the aspectual categories of the two lan-guages (cf. Fisiak et al. 1978). What is also obvious even to beginner language learn-ers, the number of pedagogical grammar “tenses” (tense/aspect pairings such as the present perfect progressive) in English is much higher than the number of tenses in Polish, which basically has three tenses: past, present and future. These kinds of interlingual differences are likely to engender language transfer, which is often nega-tive, i.e. it gives rise to inappropriate language use and errors (Odlin 1989; Ringbom 2007; Jarvis and Pavlenko 2008). One example of a possible error made by Polish learners of English resulting from the differences between the two languages in the area under consideration is under differentiation when it comes to the use of the tense/aspect pairings and the resultant underproduction of the progressive and its rela-tively complex morphology. Another example of interference in this area, especially when it comes to past reference, is the fact that Polish learners of English tend to associate Polish imperfective verbs,3 which express duration (Banko 2002, p. 170), with the English progressive, which may also express duration, but which cannot, in contrast to Polish imperfectives, indicate a step in a narrative (Sharwood-Smith 1974; Lenko-Szymanska 2007). While there is no available research with respect to English-Polish tense/aspect transfer specifically in the case of present time reference, it may be expected that the fact that the two competing tense/aspect pairings in English (the non-progressive present and the progressive present) correspond to only one pairing in Polish (only imperfective verbs may be used with the Polish present tense) will be a source of some kind of negative transfer. Third, some of the target structures, namely the present progressive, are formally complex, and some are not characterized by transparent form-meaning-function relationships. To appreciate the latter, one needs to consider the diverse meanings and functions of the present pro-gressive and the present simple; the second of these tense/aspect pairings, in addition to referring to states existing at speech time, may also be used to designate future events (as specified by timetables) as well as past events (the so-called historical pre-sent). Furthermore, it has been found out that even if learners are able to produce verb phrases containing tense and aspect markers which are morphosyntactically well-formed, they often use them inappropriately, i.e. in contexts and situations not

3 As stated in note 17 in Sect. 3.3, the perfective/imperfective aspectual distinction in Slavic studies (and languages) is not the same as the CG classification of verbs using the same terms.

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allowed by the target language (Bardovi-Harlig 1995). All of these considerations pointed to the difficulty of the target features in terms of either explicit or implicit knowledge, thus creating grounds for a pedagogical intervention in this area.

It should be stressed that the grammatical elements the teaching of which was investigated in the present study are quite difficult to acquire implicitly. First, some of the grammatical elements selected for instructional focus, especially the third person present tense –s ending, are not especially salient in perception. Furthermore, some of them are also semantically redundant; for example, the meanings of the progressive and non-progressive present tense are often clear from the context and from the meanings of the verbs with which are used. Both the low salience and semantic redundancy offset the positive effects that the rela-tively high frequency of these grammatical elements in input may have on their implicit acquisition. With reference to learners’ implicit representations, it may be also useful to consider some of the rich body of research concerning tense/aspect developmental patterns. When the morpheme order studies are considered (Bailey et al. 1974), the picture of the targeted forms’ difficulty is mixed, because while the progressive is acquired by L2 learners relatively early (stage 2), the third per-son –s is learned rather late (stage 9 out of 10 stages). In terms of the processabil-ity hierarchy, tense/aspect elements are acquired rather late, i.e. in the fifth stage, as they require the sentence procedure checking agreement between the subject and the verb (see Sect. 4.3.2.1).

In addition to the above considerations, which point to a relatively high level of difficulty of the target forms in terms of implicit knowledge, there is some addi-tional interesting research concerning the acquisition of tense and aspect, which leads to similar conclusions. This research is concerned with the stages and orders which have been found to uniquely guide the acquisition of tense and aspect, rather than other areas of grammar. Bardovi-Harlig and Comajoan (2008, p. 388) report three general stages in the acquisition of tense and aspect: the pragmatic stage, in which learners rely on simple universal mechanisms such as chronology in narratives, the lexical stage, in which lexical items such as temporal adverbs are employed to express temporal and aspectual meanings, and the morphologi-cal stage, when tense and aspect ultimately emerge. What complicates learners’ progression along this pattern of stages is the fact that the morphological stage is itself not uniform and may be subdivided into a number of substages. For example, the proponents of the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen and Shirai 1994, 1996; Shirai and Andersen 1995) have shown that particular kinds of tense and aspect mark-ing spread across the whole tense/aspect system in a gradual manner. To consider one particular example, the progressive has been shown to spread gradually onto verbs of different lexical aspect; it first occurs with activities, then with accom-plishments, and finally with achievements (for details of lexical aspect in English see Sect. 3.2.1) (Bardovi-Harlig 2000, p. 237; Bardovi-Harlig and Comajoan 2008, p. 389). Taking into account the fact that most if not all the participants of the study were not highly advanced learners of English, the consideration of the devel-opmental patters of tense and aspect acquisition, as well as the earlier discussion of the difficulty of these forms, it was concluded that there was a need to teach them

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and to attempt to make them part of the participants’ both explicit and implicit knowledge. This conclusion was supported by the results of the pretest adminis-tered at the beginning of the study, in which the participants made a considerable number of errors when tested by measures of both explicit and implicit knowledge.

On the basis of all of these considerations, a decision was made to teach for the purposes of the study the meanings and use of the English present tense with or without the progressive aspect to refer to situations happening or existing at speech time. In addition to teaching certain crucial facets of the present tense and the progressive aspect, this also required some instructional focus on the distinction between stative (imperfective) and dynamic (perfective) verbs, as the choice between the progressive and non-progressive present tense, or the present continuous and present simple, to use the terminology familiar from traditional practical grammars, is strongly related to the verb’s lexical aspect (for more information on all of these grammatical features, see Chap. 3). Because most structural syllabuses, which are normally employed in the Polish educational system, introduce the simple present and present progressive tenses very early, and given the fact that the majority of the participants had had at least several years of previous English instruction, it was very likely that they were familiar with the formal aspects of the target structures, even if they had not practiced them to a desirable extent. The assumed familiarity was in fact confirmed by the participants’ two regular teachers. Therefore, the decision was made that the experimental treatment focus mostly on the choice between the two pedagogical combinations of tense and aspect, which resulted in the semantic and, to a certain extent, pragmatic aspects of the structures being at the centre of attention, and form focused upon only incidentally in the feedback provided by the instructor.

5.6 Instructional Treatment

Out of the existing methodological options in form-focused instruction, for the present study a combination of learner performance and feedback options was selected. As to learner performance options, feature-focused techniques were employed whose goal was, in the short run, primarily the participants’ explicit knowledge. In addition, these techniques were mostly inductive in nature. It might be said that some elements of deduction were included as well, because the par-ticipants were simply told some facts about the target grammar, especially in the cognitive treatment, which was done not to exceed the time limit imposed on the treatment by the length of the classes.

There were several reasons why explicit teaching of the meanings and use of the target language was used in the study. One important reason was that these mean-ings and uses were not very well understood by the participants, as demonstrated by the results of the pretest. Next, as shown in Sect. 5.4, some of the participants of this study must be considered low-level learners, and for this reason, given the facts concerning the developmental patterns in the acquisition of tense and aspect reviewed earlier, these participants may not have been ready to acquire the target

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features implicitly. Furthermore, it is often suggested that, in contrast to second language contexts, explicit methodological options are to be preferred in foreign language settings due to the scarcity of out-of-class exposure associated with these contexts. Since the study took place in the Polish educational context, which is a prime example of a foreign rather than second language setting, it was assumed that the participants did not have much out-of-class exposure, which was in fact con-firmed by the analysis of their questionnaires, as discussed in Sect. 5.4. This sug-gested that explicit options might be a preferred choice here. Another consideration which prompted the present authors to opt for an explicit methodological option is that numerous cognitive linguists (e.g. Hudson 2008, p. 110; Tyler 2008, p. 457), when expressing their views on language pedagogy, conclude that the major value of the detailed meaning-based analyses of grammatical items developed in CL is their enlightening character which can mostly be exploited in pedagogy by its explicit presentation. Therefore, given the fact that the major purpose of the study was to test the pedagogical effectiveness of CG-based descriptions, it made sense that explicit instruction should be employed. In addition, this kind of instruction was also deemed suitable for the second kind of treatment, the traditional one, since recent research has pointed to the overall effectiveness of explicit form-focused instruction (cf. Norris and Ortega 2000). In sum, the decision to rely on explicit instruction in the study’s treatments was dictated by the consideration of the partici-pants’ knowledge and level of advancement, the educational context of the study, the nature of CG descriptions and the general effectiveness of this teaching option.

It should be remembered that even though the treatment was explicit, “the goal of explicit instruction is not just explicit knowledge, but rather implicit knowl-edge, with explicit knowledge seen just as a starting point” (Ellis 2008a, p. 440). This is because, as predicted by such general theoretical positions as the Interface Hypothesis, as well as more specific theoretical developments such as Skill-Learning Theory or the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis and almost all the other pro-intervention theories discussed in Sect. 4.3.2.1, explicit instruction of the kind employed in the study may also result in gains in implicit knowledge. It must be concluded, therefore, that this kind of representation was targeted by the treatment, too, if only indirectly, despite the fact that the methodological options employed were explicit.

The study employed explicit instruction of a mostly inductive sort due to the fact that this kind of instruction tends to be more motivating than its deductive coun-terpart. This consideration was especially important in connection with the cogni-tive treatment because of the relatively large amount of novel conceptual content it included; had all of it been taught deductively, the participants might have felt overwhelmed by too much unfamiliar information imposed on them by an outside party, i.e. one of the present authors, who, while not being the participants’ regular teacher, administered the treatment. Induction therefore served to involve the par-ticipants in the educational activities of the treatment. It should be added that the inductive approach employed in the treatment of both experimental groups was of a rather special nature as it resembled at times a kind of teacher-guided dialogue with the participants described by Turewicz (2004), which Pawlak (2006, p. 273) compares to scaffolded interaction developed within Sociocultural Theory (Lantolf

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2006; Lantolf and Thorne 2007). While perhaps not every taxonomist would adopt this view, according to Pawlak, this technique is an extension of the inductive approach to form-focused instruction. The nature of the teaching employed will become apparent later in the section, where the procedures and techniques used in the course of instructional treatment are considered in substantial detail. Although, as stated in Sect. 4.3.2.2, several empirical studies were able to show an advan-tage for deductive instruction over its inductive counterpart, a mostly inductive option was selected for the present study because of the important considerations just given. Also, it should be recalled from the aforementioned section that research concerned with the relative merits of the two options is not conclusive.

In addition to explicit instruction of the sort just described, the treatment in both experimental groups involved a practice component and an accompanying explicit feedback component. The practice was output oriented and error avoid-ing and took the form of several text manipulation tasks, which were of the same kinds as those included in all the tests. As the participants completed the tasks and presented their responses, they were offered some feedback in the form of meta-linguistic remarks, repetition, focus on errors and corrective recasts. It should be noted that this last kind, which involves reformulating learners’ erroneous utterances with the correct form highlighted by prosody (Ellis 2008a, p. 443), is considered by some specialists (e.g. Ellis 2008a) as a more explicit, and by some others (e.g. Long 2007, Chap. 4) as a more implicit option. In sum, then, the instructional choices made for the present study were based on the value of explicit and inductive teaching, as well as their suitability from the point of view of certain features of the present study.

The two experimental groups received their instructional treatment during reg-ularly scheduled high school classes. While the regular teacher of a given group was present in the classroom, the instructor delivering the treatment was one of the present authors. Although the CG treatment and the traditional treatment were different in essence, they employed exactly the same language data and were oth-erwise as similar as possible, with the aim of minimizing the number of vari-ables in the study. While all the linguistic examples presented during both types of treatment were obviously in English, all the metalinguistic comments and other instructions were in Polish, which was necessitated by the fact that prob-ably most learners would have found instruction in English too demanding. The duration of treatment sessions was originally intended to be the same in TRAD and COG. However, the pilot study had made it clear that the cognitive treatment, which required a more detailed discussion of the semantics of the grammatical elements taught, had to be approximately 15 min longer than the 70 min treat-ment in TRAD.

The experimental participants received a specially prepared handout, which included some examples of the target structures as well as some spaces where the members of COG and TRAD were later told to make different notes concerning these structures. The first part of the cognitive treatment handout, included in its entirety in Appendix A, was identical with the entire handout received by TRAD, included in Appendix B, but in addition it contained a separate page with certain

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pictorial representations not used in the traditional treatment. Instruction in both groups was also aided by two different Power Point presentations, whose printouts are included in Appendices C and D, and which were, just as the handouts and the two kinds of treatment in general, prepared by the present authors. The presenta-tion used in the cognitive treatment was much longer, as it contained, in addition to exactly the same linguistic examples which were used in the presentation used in the traditional treatment, supplementary material in the form of figures. Pictures and dia-grams were used in abundance in the cognitive treatment because they are a natural and integral part of CG descriptions, as demonstrated in Chaps. 1 and 2 and stated in Sects. 4.4.1.1 and 4.4.1.2. The traditional treatment did not employ pictorial repre-sentations due to the unavailability thereof, and the practical impossibility of creating any suitable material of this sort which could facilitate the teaching of the relevant grammatical features. In what follows, the presentation of the cognitive treatment is much more detailed than that of the traditional treatment. This is because in contrast to the standard pedagogical rules based on traditional pedagogical grammars, which are much more straightforward and familiar from countless textbooks, the cognitive treatment was novel and much more complex, necessitating its more detailed presen-tation as a rare example of pedagogical practice based on CG.

Before attention is turned to the two kinds of tretment, because this group did not receive any treatment in the course of the study, some information needs to be given about English-related activities of CTRL which were simultaneous with the treatments of COG and TRAD. During this time (1 week), the group attended its regular English classes in which it covered the standard coursebook. As already stated, the regular teacher of the group agreed not to cover any mate-rial related to the target forms and not even to mention them in class at that time. It may therefore be assumed that while the two experimental groups underwent instructional treatment CTRL did not receive any exposure to the target forms.

5.6.1 Traditional Treatment

As already stated, the first part of the treatment in TRAD took the form of fea-ture-focused, explicit, and mostly inductive grammatical instruction. Its purpose was the encouragement of the participants’ discovery of the standard pedagogical grammar rules concerning the meanings and appropriate use of the present simple and the present progressive tenses when reference is made to a situation or state of affairs happening or existing at the time of speaking. This means that instruc-tion targeted the choice between the two tenses. With some prompts from the instructor, and using the handout, whose three tables are reproduced in Fig. 5.1, as well as looking at a number of slides (for the Power Point presentation used in the traditional treatment see Appendix D), the participants discovered the follow-ing pedagogical grammar rules concerning the target area of English grammar:

• When we talk about a situation happening or existing at the time of speaking, we use the present simple tense with stative verbs, which refer to states (e.g.

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thoughts and feelings, nothing is changing in a state); and we use the present continuous with dynamic verbs, which refer to actions (something is happening, something is changing in actions) (see rules 1, 2 and 3, Sect. 3.2.2).

This rule was written down below the first table in the handout, as it refers to the examples in that table. The table is also reproduced in slides 3, 4 and 5 of the Power Point presentation used in the traditional treatment.

• Some verbs have different meanings in the sense that a given verb form sometimes refers to a state, and sometimes to an action. Such verbs may be called stative-dynamic verbs. When they refer to a state, the present simple is used when we talk about a situation taking place at speech time, and if they refer to an action, the present continuous is used (see rule 5, Sect. 3.2.2).

This rule was written down below the second table in the handout, as it described the behavior of the verbs included therein. The same table is also included in slides 6 and 7.

• When we talk about a situation taking place at speech time and we use a verb referring to an action consisting in speaking, the present simple is used (see rule 4, Sect. 3.2.2).

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.

Jerry and Jane understand me now.

Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.

The box contains two pairs of shoes.

I don’t recognize this man.

Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.

Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.

Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.

The gate is opening.

I am not cleaning my room.

Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.

We apologize for what happened yesterday.

We thank you for the invitation.

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.

This tea smells very nice.

Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.

Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.

Jerry is weighing his son now.

Fig. 5.1 Traditional and cognitive treatment: tables of examples

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This rule pertains to the examples in the third table in the handout, below which it was written down by the participants. The table is also included in slides 8 and 9.

The second part of instructional treatment in both experimental groups was in the form of three text manipulation tasks, included in Appendices A and B, which had the same form as the three tasks which made up the written test, described in more detail in Sect. 5.7. At this point, it will suffice to note that these were a binary-choice, gap-filling and translation tasks and that their function was creating an opportunity for the participants to practice the use of the target grammar. The activities were monitored by the instructor, who, if need arose, offered some overt feedback in the form of metalinguistic remarks, repetition, corrective recasts and focus on errors. It should by now be obvious that the errors made by the partici-pants in this part of treatment were either in the area of form or, more frequently, in the area of use, in the sense that an inappropriate tense/aspect pairing was often selected. The feedback in the treatment offered to TRAD obviously reflected the nature of the descriptions of the target grammar by traditional pedagogical grammars.

5.6.2 Cognitive Treatment

Similarly to the traditional treatment, the first part of the instructional treatment offered to COG was in the form of feature-focused explicit, predominantly induc-tive form-focused instruction and it was geared towards the participants’ discov-ery of the major CG principles regulating the use of the target features. Whenever it was possible, the cognitive treatment was identical with the treatment received by TRAD, but it has to be admitted that the similarities pertained mostly to the linguistic examples which were used, and the fact that both kinds of treatment involved a Power Point presentation, while the specific pedagogical rules were altogether different.

First, the participants looked at the title slide and slide number 2, which included most of the examples used in the treatment grouped in the three tables, which were also included in the handout (see Fig. 5.1). They were told that the two tenses, the present simple and present continuous, may be used to talk about the present time, i.e. about situations existing or taking place at speech time, as illustrated by the examples. After making sure that the participants understood all the examples in the handout, their attention was turned to the first of its tables, which contained a number of examples with stative verbs used in the present sim-ple in one column (e.g. Jerry trusts his girlfriend, The box contains two pairs of shoes), and a number of examples with dynamic verbs used in the present progres-sive (Jerry is building a castle, The gate is opening, etc.) in the other column. It was acknowledged that verbs used in the present simple cannot be used in the pre-sent progressive when we talk about a present situation, and vice versa. The partic-ipants were told that an attempt would be made to discover which verbs should be used with which tense. Then, they were asked to look at slide 4, whose content is

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reproduced in Fig. 5.2,4 and they were told that the present tense was generally used to refer to the time of speaking, i.e. the very short time, approximately 1, 2 or several seconds which it takes to utter a sentence, e.g. the Polish sentence Siedze na krzesle (I am sitting on a chair). This reflected the CG view of the present tense, according to which it is used to mark a given situation as exactly coexten-sive with the time of speaking (see Sect. 3.3). Then, the participants’ attention was turned to slide 5, reproduced in Fig. 5.3, and they were told that, since the present tense covers such a short period of time, it may be likened to a keyhole. This is because a keyhole allows one to view a very small subpart of a space one is look-ing at, just as the present tense allows one to focus on a very small, or, rather, short, subpart of time which is constantly passing. This idea was inspired by a technique proposed by Niemeier (2005b). Next, to remind the participants that the two tense/aspect pairings are used differently, they were shown slide 6, whose contents are given in Fig. 5.4.

The next slide the participants were shown (number 7), depicted in Fig. 5.5, turned their attention to an example of a verb which, when reference is made to a situation existing or happening at the time of speaking, is used with the present simple, namely the verb trust. The pictorial representation of its meaning in the sentence Jerry trusted his girlfriend, if it is assumed that Jerry started trusting his girlfriend on 1 January and ceased to do so on 31 December, shows that it refers to a series of situations between these points in time consisting in Jerry holding certain favorable beliefs about his girlfriend’s worth, goodness or reliability. In the figure, this general belief in the girlfriend’s overall integrity is pictorially represented as a belief in her piousness, which is just an example which might be easily replaced with many others, but was selected since it was quite easy to represent in pictorial form. Next, at the instructor’s request and with his guidance, the participants arrived at the conclusion that it is also

4 It should be noted that in Figs. 5.2 and 5.3 the Polish equivalent of the heading THE PRESENT TENSE is given in parentheses (CZAS TERAZNIEJSZY), and that the Polish word zdanie (sentence) refers to the example sentence in the figure.

Fig. 5.2 Cognitive treatment: the present tense

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Fig. 5.3 Cognitive treatment: the present tense as a keyhole

Fig. 5.4 Cognitive treatment: the present tense as a keyhole and the use of tense/aspect pairings

Fig. 5.5 Cognitive treatment: the verb trust (1)

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possible to use the verb trust to refer to any shorter period from within the whole of the time during which Jerry trusted his girlfriend, and an example of such a period was given in slide 9, reproduced in Fig. 5.6.5 The participants agreed that such shorter periods might be thought of as keyholes, because they allow a view of only a restricted subpart of a given process. This idea was illustrated in slide 10, reproduced in Fig. 5.7, as well as in another slide, where the keyhole was larger, as it included a longer subperiod of the entire process of Jerry trusting his girlfriend. In Fig. 5.7 the area outside the keyhole is shaded, because sentences such as In the period between 15 March and 30 April, Jerry trusted his girlfriend, if we know that the actual period of trusting was longer, highlight or allow mental access to only a short subperiod, while obscuring the rest of the whole situation. At this point, it was recapitulated that verbs such as trust may be used to refer to the whole length of the situation they are

5 Not all the slides used in the presentation are reproduced here. For the whole Power Point pres-entation see Appendix C.

Fig. 5.6 Cognitive treatment: the verb trust (2)

Fig. 5.7 Cognitive treatment: the verb trust and the keyhole

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associated with, but also to any of its subparts. This part of treatment intended to con-fer to the participants, in a pedagogy-friendly manner, the CG view of imperfective processes as homogeneous and inherently contractible/expansible (see Sect. 3.3).

The purpose of the next sequence of steps was to make the participants aware of the fact that imperfective (stative) processes are inherently unbounded in their temporal scope (see Sect. 3.3), which makes them compatible with the non-pro-gressive present tense, and again, this had to be done in a manner pedagogically suitable for the group of mixed-level learners which included some low-level ones. The participants looked at slide 13, depicted in Fig. 5.8, and were asked whether the endpoints of the process designated by trust are important in the sense that there is some kind of change between the beginning of the situation and the end of it. The conclusion was that there was no change between these endpoints, which were therefore not very important. Thus, the instructor pro-posed that the timeline representing the process should better begin and end with dotting, and not with vertical lines, to highlight the non-essentialness of the end-points of the process. This was illustrated by slide 15, represented in Fig. 5.9.

The figure, which pictorially represents the meaning of trust when used in the non-progressive present tense, in addition introduced further important elements of

Fig. 5.8 Cognitive treatment: the verb trust and the question of the importance of the endpoints of its situation

Fig. 5.9 Cognitive treatment: the verb trust in the present simple

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the cognitive treatment. It reminded the participants that it is possible to use the pre-sent simple with verbs such as trust when reference is made to a situation existing at speech time and was aimed at helping them understand that such verbs are com-patible with this tense because even though the keyhole associated with the tense, being very small (short), does not include the endpoints of the process, it does not constitute a problem since the endpoints are not very important in the case of such verbs. Following this, the participants looked at slide 16, which included the first table from their handout, and wrote down the following rule below the table:

• Stative verbs may be used in the simple present because their endpoints are not important/relevant (the verbs do not describe change), so we can view their situ-ations through the (small/short) keyhole of the present tense.

Then the participants’ attention was drawn to slide 17, reproduced in Fig. 5.10, which included a pictorial representation of the meaning of the verb build, as used in the sentence Jerry built a castle, with the assumption that the action took place between 8 o’clock and 12 o’clock. It should be remembered that build is one of the verbs requiring the present progressive when reference is made to a situation happening at the time of speaking. Following this, with the instructor’s guidance, the participants noticed that it is not possible to refer to any subpart of the whole process of building the castle expressed by this sentence by using the sentence itself. This conclusion was expressed by slide 19, shown in Fig. 5.11. The same

Fig. 5.10 Cognitive treatment: the verb build (1)

Fig. 5.11 Cognitive treatment: the verb build (2)

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conclusion is expressed in Fig. 5.12, which shows the contents of slide 20, with the additional conceptualization of the shorter time span as a keyhole. In addition, other slides were used to demonstrate the same idea using longer subperiods and larger keyholes. Subsequently, it was recapitulated that verbs such as build may be used to refer only to the whole length of the situation they are associated with, and, unlike verbs such as trust, they cannot refer to a freely chosen subpart of the whole situa-tion they designate. In this manner, the CG view of perfective processes as hetero-geneous and not inherently contractible/expansible (see Sect. 3.3) was conveyed to the participants, once again in what seemed to be an instruction-friendly rendition of the relevant CG analyses.

In the next step, it was necessary to familiarize the participants with the fact that perfective (dynamic) processes are inherently bounded in their temporal scopes (see Sect. 3.3), and, as was the case earlier, this had to be done in a manner suitable for this mixed-level group of participants. They looked at slide 23, repro-duced in Fig. 5.13, and thought about whether the endpoints of the process sym-bolized by build are important in the sense that there is some significant change between the beginning and the end of the situation. They concluded that indeed there was an important change between these endpoints, since at the beginning the castle did not exist, only the building materials were available, and at the end of the process a complete castle was inexistence. Consequently, it was proposed that the timeline for this verb should begin and end with vertical lines, to highlight

Fig. 5.12 Cognitive treatment: the verb build and the keyhole

Fig. 5.13 Cognitive treatment: the verb build and the question of the importance of the endpoints of its situation

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the importance of the endpoints, between which there was a qualitative difference. This was illustrated by slide 25, represented in Fig. 5.14, which also demonstrated that verbs such as build cannot be used with the simple present, because the key-hole associated with the present tense, which is several seconds long at most, is too small (short) to accommodate the whole process of building the castle. The major problem here is that the keyhole of the present tense cannot include the important endpoints of the process. After this, the participants looked at slide 26, which included the first table also found in their handout, and wrote down the fol-lowing rule below the rule they had written down previously:

• Dynamic verbs cannot be used in the simple present, because their endpoints are important/relevant (these verbs describe a change between these endpoints), so we cannot view their situations through the keyhole of the present tense since the endpoints are outside of it.

Thus, the participants got to know that the boundedness of (non-progressive) per-fective verbs and the fact that they lack inherent homogeneity make them incom-patible with the present simple. Obviously, these CG views on certain facets of English tense and aspect were communicated to them in more pedagogy-friendly parlance, as has just been shown.

Next, the participants were reminded of the differences between the verbs which require the present simple and those which require the present progressive (they looked at slides 27–29, for the slides see Appendix C), and after this they looked at slide 30, reproduced in Fig. 5.15. At this point, they were told that when the present progressive is used rather than the present simple with verbs such as build, the endpoints of the process cease to be important, and we are not interested in the change that occurs between them. The comparison of the two timelines in Fig. 5.15 makes this clear, as does the picture in Fig. 5.16, which reproduces the slide (slide 31) which was shown next. This picture further demonstrates that the progressive aspect used with dynamic verbs is compatible with the present tense.

Fig. 5.14 Cognitive treatment: the incompatibility of the verb build with the present simple

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Next, the participants looked at the first table in their handout again and wrote down the following, third, rule below it:

• Dynamic verbs may be used in the present continuous, because in this tense their endpoints are not important/relevant, so we may view their situations through the keyhole (of the present tense).

This was the instructional rendition of the CG account of the imperfectivizing function of the progressive aspect and its interaction with the present tense and lexical aspect (see Sect. 3.3).

Subsequently, the participants looked at the second table in their handouts (see Fig. 5.2) and it was inductively established on the basis of its examination that there are some verbs which have two different senses, one of which is stative and the other dynamic, and, depending on the sense we are dealing with they are used either with the present simple or progressive when reference is made to a present situation. A note to this effect was made below the table. Finally, the participants’ attention was turned to the last table in their handouts (see Fig. 5.2), as well as to slide 36,

Fig. 5.15 Cognitive treatment: the verb build with the non-progressive and progressive aspect

Fig. 5.16 Cognitive treatment: the verb build in the present progressive

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reproduced in Fig. 5.17,6 and the following regularity was established and written down below the table:

• When reference is made to the time of speaking, verbs referring to actions which consist in speaking are used in the present simple, because these actions are as long as the time it takes to utter one sentence, so they are exactly as small (short) as the keyhole of the present tense.

This expressed the CG description of the compatibility of the so-called performa-tive verbs with the non-progressive present tense, as discussed in Sect. 3.3.

The second part of instructional treatment in both experimental groups took the form of three text manipulation tasks (see Appendices A and B). They were briefly described at the end of the Sect. 5.6.1, so the description will not be repeated here. It should be noted, however, that the feedback in the cognitive treatment was dif-ferent from the one in the traditional treatment in that it reflected the CG descrip-tions of the target forms. The next section, focusing on how the study’s data were gathered and analyzed, also sheds more light on the text manipulation tasks used in both treatments because they had the same form as the tasks making up one of the tools of data collection, namely the written test.

5.7 Instruments and Procedures of Data Collection and Analysis

The testing instruments which provided the data for the present study evaluated both controlled and spontaneous use of selected facets of English tense and aspect took the form of a traditional written discrete-item grammar test and an oral elic-ited imitation test. These testing instruments were intended as measures of explicit and implicit linguistic knowledge respectively. A measure of explicit knowledge

6 Just as in some of the earlier figures, in Fig. 5.17 the Polish word zdanie (sentence) refers to the example sentence in the figure.

Fig. 5.17 Cognitive treatment: the verb promise in the present simple

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was deemed to be necessary because instructional treatment in the two experimen-tal groups was mostly of an explicit sort, which is known to affect explicit repre-sentation in a rather straightforward manner. A measure of implicit knowledge was also used because, as discussed at length in Sect. 4.3.2.1, it is very likely that the two kinds of knowledge interact. While explicit instruction is likely to immedi-ately result in the formation of explicit representation, provided the assumptions of the interface position, such explicit representations may have a direct or less direct bearing on the development of implicit knowledge. What is more, in most cases, the ultimate purpose of form-focused instruction is the development of learners’ interlanguage, i.e. fostering their implicit knowledge of the grammatical system of the target language (Ellis 2008b), which may be deployed in an intuitive, auto-matic fashion in fluent spontaneous communication. In addition, measures of both kinds of representation are considered by many SLA researchers (e.g. Doughty 2003; Ellis 2009b) as necessary in experimental and quasi-experimental research. It follows from such considerations that the decision to design for the purposes of the present study both a traditional written test and an oral elicited imitation test as measures of explicit and implicit knowledge resulted from the desire to detect as many of the potential effects of the treatment as possible.

The distinction between these two kinds of knowledge was already intro-duced in Sect. 4.2 as one of the key issues frequently discussed in recent SLA and applied linguistics literature. The debate concerning the distinction between the two kinds of linguistic knowledge has in fact generated some controversy. One of the controversial issues, discussed at length in Sect. 4.3.2.1, is the existence and the nature of the interface between the two kinds of knowledge. Another, the ques-tion whether the two kinds constitute a rigid dichotomy or whether they form a continuum, is not directly relevant to the present discussion.

Yet another controversy, which is of much greater interest here, is the possibility of distinguishing between these two sorts of knowledge in practical terms. On the one hand, there are those who, like DeKeyser (2003), maintain that we may not be able to empirically distinguish between them. The reason is that explicit knowledge, if proceduralized to a high degree, may also be tapped in spontaneous language use, which is generally supposed to reflect only or mostly our implicit abilities. On the other hand, researchers such as Hulstijn (2002) and, especially, Ellis (2005, 2006b, 2008b), have leaned towards the view that it is possible to develops separate meas-ures of these two kinds of linguistic knowledge. Ellis (2005) designed two sets of tests concerned with a number of grammatical features of English hypothesized to measure the two kinds of knowledge and administered them to a large group of par-ticipants. The test set predicted to tap implicit knowledge included an oral elicited imitation test of the kind used in the present study. Ellis performed principal com-ponent factor analysis of the test scores, which produced two factors, with scores from the set of tests predicted to measure implicit knowledge loading on one factor, and scores from the set predicted to measure explicit knowledge loading on the sec-ond factor. These two factors were interpreted as corresponding to the two kinds of knowledge, and the tests in the two sets were as a result concluded to be fairly good measures of either explicit or implicit knowledge.

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On balance, then, the present authors conclude that while it may not be possible to devise grammatical measures which reflect either explicit or implicit knowledge in their pure form (cf. DeKeyser 2003, p. 319), some measures are much more suited to elicit one kind of knowledge than another. While, in the light of Ellis’ work, oral elicited imitation tests seem to be fairly valid measures of implicit knowledge, standard grammatical tests such as binary-choice, gap-filling and translation tests are generally considered as measures of mostly explicit knowl-edge (Purpura 2004, p. 45; Pawlak 2006, p. 343).

Because it was intended as a test of mostly explicit knowledge, the written measure administered for the three subsequent tests, i.e. the pretest, posttest 1 and posttest 2, whose three versions A, B and C are included in Appendix E, was of a rather traditional sort and consisted of three parts. The first one, being a binary-choice, or selected response test, in which the participants had to choose between a present simple and a present continuous verb phrase as part of a sentence or a longer exchange, tested their receptive knowledge of the relevant structures. The other two parts may be classified as constrained constructed response tasks and they tested mostly productive knowledge. The first of these required the provision of the correct form of the base form of the verb given in parentheses, again as part of a sentence or a slightly longer exchange. However, since the test instruction specified that the participants should provide either the present simple or the pre-sent continuous form of the verbs, this task may also be said to partially correspond to the selected response type. In the third part of the written test, also a measure of productive knowledge, the participants read a sentence or a longer exchange written in Polish and then had to complete the English translation of this material, which contained a gap. Gaps always included the verb phrase, and, to ensure that the participants used the types of verbs whose behavior in the present tense was targeted by the instructional treatment, the base form of the verb to be used was also provided. In addition to the verb phrase, usually a few other words such as the subject or an adverb of frequency had to be provided as well, which was sup-posed to make the activity resemble free production to whatever small extent. The written tests included glossaries with the Polish equivalents of the English lexical items which were predicted to cause comprehension difficulty to at least some par-ticipants, who could also ask the test administrators to translate some other items whose equivalents were not provided. As can be seen, the written test, which was completed within the time limit of 20 min and the administration of which was executed by one of the present authors with the help of the participants’ regular teacher, focused mostly on the controlled use of the target grammar in both recep-tion (binary-choice test) and production (gap-filling and translation tests).

While it is relatively easy to tap learners’ explicit knowledge, measuring implicit knowledge poses many more problems. It would seem that such knowl-edge is best measured on the basis of free production, but the problem here is that it is hard to devise unrestricted production tasks which elicit particular grammatical structures (cf. Loschky and Bley-Vroman 1990; Erlam 2009). One way to overcome this problem is the use of an oral elicited imitation test, a solu-tion adopted in the present study. However, if such a test is expected to create

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“conditions that are conducive to the retrieval of implicit language knowledge” (Erlam 2006, p. 467), it needs to conform to certain important requirements identi-fied by Erlam (2006). First of all, such a test must be reconstructive in the sense that test takers cannot rely on rote repetition to imitate stimulus sentences. This may be achieved by making testees attend to the meaning of the stimulus sen-tences rather than to their form, and by making sure that imitation begins after a certain time lapse after hearing the sentences. Also, there should be some time pressure on test takers when they imitate stimulus sentences. All of these require-ments were attempted to be met in the elicited imitation test designed for this study.

For certain reasons of logistics, the oral tests always took place after the written tests. The first oral elicited imitation test in each group was preceded by a short training session, which modeled the activity for the participants and gave them a chance to practice it on the basis of four example stimulus sentences. The oral imitation test consisted of 10 sentences, five of which were grammatical, and five of which were ungrammatical. Obviously, all of the sentences contained the tar-get structures, and the source of ungrammaticality was always the use of an inap-propriate tense/aspect pairing, given the lexical aspect of the main verb. Taking into account the claim by Gallimore and Tharp (1981) that grammatical elements placed in sentence initial position are easier to imitate than those in sentence final position which are in turn easier than those in the middle of a sentence, which res-onates with the claims forwarded by the Input Processing Theory about the ease of processing (see Sect. 4.3.2.1), the target structures were placed in the middle in all the stimulus sentences. The tests designed for the study, in particular the three sets of stimulus sentences, together with special test sheet the participants received, are included in Appendix F. In order to make sure that they focused on meaning rather than on form, the participants were told that this part of the test was a question-naire concerning their knowledge, beliefs and opinions about their parents. They were informed that they would hear 10 sentences concerning their parents, and that after hearing each sentence they were to first decide whether the sentence was true or not true for them or whether they were not sure and that they should mark their answer on the test sheet. After marking their answers, which was supposed to focus their attention on the meanings of the stimulus sentences and also to result in the required time delay between hearing the input and imitating it, the participants were required to repeat the sentences in correct English. The assumption was that in addition to the ability of imitating the grammatical sentences, their assimila-tion of the requisite knowledge into their implicit knowledge stores would enable them to correct the ungrammatical sentences. The repetition was to begin at the present author’s reckoning, to make sure that it did not start earlier that 3–4 s after the stimulus. The purpose of this solution was to ensure that rote repetition was not used and it was based on McDade et al.’s (1982) observation that participants could not repeat a sentence they did not understand after a 3-second delay, which meant that rote repetition is impossible after a lapse of 3–4 s. The stimulus sen-tences the participants imitated, whose delivery by one of the present authors was pre-recorded using a standard digital voice recorder, were played on a computer

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and amplified by a pair of speakers. The test was completed under time pressure as its administrator (one of the present authors) presented every next stimulus sen-tence at a relatively fast pace. The participants’ oral responses were recorded with the help of standard digital voice recorders.

All the tests employed in the present study were designed with great care with the purpose of making them very much alike in all important respects, and espe-cially when it comes to their level of difficulty. Every test, and every major sub-component of every test, contained exactly 50 % of items where the present simple was the right response, and 50 % of items where the present continuous was the right response. By the same token, every component of the written test contained exactly the same number of declarative, negative and interrogative verb phrases with the target features. What is more, every major part of this test was the same as the other parts when it comes to the lexical aspect and the general semantics of the verbs which had to appear in correct responses. It was especially important with respect to stative (imperfective) verbs, the semantic subtypes of which are often distinguished in teaching materials, because it was possible that some partic-ipants had been familiarized with one subtype to a greater degree than with others. Therefore, exactly one verb from every of the following subclasses distinguished by Greenbaum and Quirk (1990, p. 55) was included in every major part of the written test and in every oral test: states of “being” or “having,” intellectual states, and states of emotion or attitude. In addition, the oral tests and the different parts of the written test contained exactly one performative verb, and two verbs which are commonly used with two senses, one of which is stative and the other dynamic (e.g. have as in have a car and have dinner). All these efforts were intended to make all the tests as much alike as possible.

It should be added that in every component of the written measure approxi-mately 40 % of individual verbs subject to testing were verbs which had occurred in the instructional treatment. In the oral tests, the proportion of verbs from the treatment was also stable, and amounted to 80 % of verbs which had occurred in the treatment. The number of new verbs, in the sense that they had not occurred in the treatment materials, was much lower in the oral test due to the fact that this test was predicted, on the basis of the pilot study discussed in more detail in Sect. 5.3, to be much more challenging to the participants than the written test.

Despite all the efforts aimed at making all the tests alike in all important respects, there was still no guarantee that the three versions of the written and oral tests were exactly the same with respect to the level of their difficulty. Therefore the split-block procedure was employed in order to ensure exactly the same levels of difficulty of the pretest and the two posttests for the three groups. Thus, three written tests (A, B and C) and three oral tests (also A, B and C) were devised and beyond the efforts already described care had been taken to make them as similar as possible in terms of their length, layout, and so on. The three groups, COG, TRAD and CTRL, were each divided into three subgroups which can be referred to as COG 1, COG 2, COG 3, TRAD 1, TRAD 2, and so on. For the pretest, COG 1, TRAD 1 and CTRL 1 took Test A; COG 2, TRAD 2 and CTRL 2 took Test B; while COG 3, TRAD 3 and CTRL 3 took Test C. On each subsequent test, i.e. posttest 1 and posttest 2, tests A, B and C

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were shuffled so that everybody took a test he or she had not taken before. This pro-cedure ensured the same levels of difficulty of the pretest and the two posttests for the totalities of COG, TRAD and CTRL.

The maximum possible score for the written test was 72 points, as each of the three components of every test included 12 items, each of which was worth maximally 2 points. In the binary-choice part, 2 points were awarded for the right response, and the choice of the incorrect answer or no answer resulted in no points being given. For the other two components, partial-credit scoring was used, which was intended to credit partially correct answers, rather than equate them with totally incorrect ones. Specifically, 2 points were awarded if the supplied verb phrase was both formally correct and appropriate, even if some minor spell-ing mistakes which did not substantially change the meaning of the verb phrase were present. One point was given if the form of the verb phrase was inaccurate in a certain way (e.g. if there was a problem with the auxiliary as in she don’t weigh or with word order in a question as in why he is shaving?), but it was still clear which tense/aspect pairing, the present simple or the present progressive, the test taker had meant and if that was the right choice. No point was given if the tense or aspect had been wrongly chosen, or if the form of the verb phrase was entirely incorrect, making it impossible to tell which tense/aspect pairing had been intended. It should be noted that the provision of such forms as the base form of the verb instead of the third person –s form, or providing just the –ing participle rather than this participle with the auxiliary be were not considered as partially correct responses. Even though they resemble the correct forms to a high degree, learners of English often use them as overgeneralized forms which supplant a wide range of verbal structures (cf. Arabski 1979), and it was therefore impossible to tell in the cases in which they were provided whether the right tense/aspect pairing had been intended by a given participant. Obviously, if no answer was provided, no points were awarded, either.

In the oral test, there were 10 stimulus sentences, and the maximum number of points to be scored was 20, as one correct and appropriate imitation of the tar-get structure form in a single sentence could have earned a participant 2 points. In the process of scoring, the correctness and appropriateness (in terms of the selection of the right tense/aspect compound) of the verb phrase only was taken into account. Beyond the right agreement between the subject and the verb, the correct or otherwise imitation of the rest of the stimulus sentence was not eval-uated. Partial-credit scoring similar to that adopted for the written measure was used, with the obvious difference that spelling deficiencies were not possible here. Instead, another problem sometimes occurred. On some occasions, some partici-pants had provided a verb different from the one occurring in the stimulus sen-tence. Whenever this happened, the verb was treated as if it were the right one if it was at the same time semantically close to the verb it supplanted and if it had the same lexical aspect (e.g. if … people believe my father was used instead of … peo-ple trust my father). Otherwise, no points were awarded.

The numerical data obtained from both tests were subjected to quantitative anal-ysis which involved calculating the means and standard deviations for whole groups

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on the three tests. This was supplemented by determining the statistical significance or lack thereof for the differences both within and between groups by conducting general linear model analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with repeated measures with treatment as a between-subjects variable and test time as a within-subjects variable on the groups’ raw scores and simple one-way ANOVAs of the scores obtained by the groups on a particular test. When warranted by statistically significant results, a one-way ANOVA was followed by the Bonferroni post hoc test, which is a rather conservative one (Howell 2007; Larson-Hall 2010, p. 276), or by the Games-Howell test, which is recommended when variances are not equal (Howell 2007). The tests were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 19 for Windows). The significance value was set at p ≤ .05 for all analyses. The following tentative guidelines by Cohen (1988) were used for inter-preting effect sizes: ηp

2 > .01 = small, ηp2 > .12 = medium, and ηp

2 > .26 = large.The next data elicitation instrument used in the study was a background infor-

mation questionnaire, which was in Polish rather than in English to ensure full comprehension on the part of the participants. As mentioned in Sect. 5.2, the ques-tionnaire the experimental subjects filled in included, in addition to a background information section completed also by controls, a section concerned mostly with their perceptions of and attitudes towards the treatment they had received and their appraisal of their understanding of and ability to use the target features follow-ing the treatment. The questionnaires completed by the two experimental groups, included in Appendices G and H, were almost identical, except for the fact that the version received by COG included one question (item 5) not used in the other version, concerned with the clarity and helpfulness of the pictures used in the cognitive treatment. Except for the first question in this part of the questionnaire, which asked the participants whether they had previously received any instruction concerning the grammatical elements taught in the treatment, all the others were Likert-scale items where the responses ranged from 1, which meant strong disa-greement, to 5, which meant strong agreement. Responses 2 and 4 stood for disa-greement and agreement respectively, while response 3 expressed indecision. As already signaled, the questionnaire was administered after posttest 2 and before its completion the participants were emphatically told that their attitude towards treat-ment was inquired about for research purposes, and that any attitudes should be freely expressed, whether they were favorable or otherwise.

The first query in the attitudes-and-opinions part of the questionnaire was in the form of the following yes/no question: ‘Have you studied the relevant grammati-cal material earlier?’ If the response was positive, further open-ended questions inquired about the manner in which the material had been taught/learned. What followed was a sequence of numbered statements, with which the participants could agree or disagree more or less strongly or could have no opinion about. These decisions were manifested by choosing one of the Likert-scale responses from 1 through to 5, where marking 1 indicated strong disagreement and choos-ing 5 meant strong agreement. Most of these statements were followed by an open-ended question inquiring about the details of a given issue. The statements and open-ended questions were elaborations of the following general question,

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which preceded them: ‘What do you think about the manner in which the use of the present simple and present continuous to talk about situations happening at the time of speaking (at present) were presented?’ This question required no separate response.

The statements and open-ended questions were as follows:

1. I liked this class. What did you like, and what didn’t you like?2. This class was interesting. What was interesting, and what wasn’t?3. Everything was comprehensible, clear. What was comprehensible, and what wasn’t?4. This class was easy. What was easy, and what was difficult?

The next statement was included in the questionnaire received by COG, but not in the one filled in by TRAD, as it concerned the pictorial representations utilized in the cognitive treatment only. Therefore, double numbering of the subsequent items is used, with the first number reflecting the numbering of the item in COG’s ques-tionnaire, and the second number, included in brackets, reflecting the numbering used in TRAD’s questionnaire.

5. The pictures and graphs used in class were clear and useful.6. (5). Now I understand how these tenses are used.

If you don’t understand something, write what it is.7. (6). I can use them correctly now.

The next question required either a yes or a no response.8. (7). Did you study this grammatical material on your own at home, after

class? If your answer is yes, write how and how long.

The last item, number 9 (8), was an invitation for the participants to provide other comments concerning the classes in which the treatment had been delivered.

Some of the numerical data from the questionnaire, namely the responses to the Likert-scale items, were subjected to quantitative analysis which involved calculat-ing the means and standard deviations for different items from the questionnaire for different groups. This was supplemented by determining the statistical signifi-cance or lack thereof for the differences between the responses particular items received from different groups, which was done by means of independent sam-ples 2-tailed t-tests. Just as previously, the significance value was set at p ≤ .05. The following guidelines based on Cohen (1988) were used for interpreting effect sizes: d > .10 = small, d > .35 = medium, and d > .65 = large. In addition, as the questionnaire also invited the participants to answer some open-ended questions and to provide comments, qualitative analysis of some of these data complemented the quantitative analysis.

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5.8 Results and Discussion

The results of the study are presented in several steps. In the first major step, the effects of the two kinds of treatment on the participants’ performance on the written test, tapping the participants’ explicit knowledge, are presented and discussed. This is split into four subsections, the first two of which present the results of the entire written test and of the two components of this test corre-sponding to receptive and productive knowledge of the explicit sort. The next subsection discusses these results, while the fourth one offers some discussion of individual variability in the scores achieved by the participants on the writ-ten measure. The second major step involves the presentation and discussion of the results of the oral test, which was intended to tap the participants’ implicit knowledge. In the last major step, the results of the questionnaire are presented and discussed.

5.8.1 Participants’ Performance on the Explicit Knowledge Test

As evidenced by the pretest data presented in Tables 5.3, 5.6 and 5.7, there were some intergroup differences between pretest means for the entire written test, as well as for the two subparts of the whole of this test which measured receptive (binary-choice test) and productive knowledge (gap-filling and translation test). Because of this, one-way ANOVAs were conducted on each of these pretests to check whether these differences were significant and ascertain that all the subsequent effects were due to the study’s interventions and not simply results of an original inequality in scores. These ANOVAs yielded no main effect for group for the various written pretests: the entire written test (F(2, 47) = 1.01, p = .37), as well as two of its subcomponents considered separately, i.e. the receptive knowledge test (binary-choice test) (F(2, 47) = 1.36, p = .26), and the productive knowledge test (gap-filling and translation tests) (F(2, 47) = 0.75, p = .47). It was therefore concluded that any inter-group differences in subse-quent analyses were not due to prior differences among the groups. The results of these tests were also the basis of the assumption that that original between-group differences were insignificant and therefore not responsible for differen-tial progress, deterioration or lack of either different groups might experience on subsequent tests.

5.8.1.1 Results of the Entire Written Test

Table 5.3 shows the mean scores and standard deviations for the three groups, COG, TRAD and CTRL, on the written test, which measured accuracy and appropriateness

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in the use of the relevant tense/aspect pairings in both reception and production over three testing sessions. The means the groups achieved on these explicit knowledge tests are also plotted in Fig. 5.18 for easier inter-group comparisons. These data reveal that all the groups improved from the pretest to posttest 1, although the scores of the two experimental groups rose much more sharply than those of CTRL; COG improved by 7.26 points, TRAD by 11.14 points, while CTRL by mere 3 points. As will be presently shown by the statistical analyses, the increase in the scores of both experimental groups was of statistical significance, which cannot be said of the improvement of CTRL. It has to be emphasized that when the two experimental groups are compared, this initial gain was greater in the case of TRAD. While the improvement of the two experimental groups does not come as a great surprise, given the fact that CTRL had received no instruction in the area of grammar which was tested, this group’s progress may be a little surprising and should be probably attrib-uted to the practice effect related to the experience of test-taking. The performance of CTRL on posttest 2 was very similar to that of TRAD, in the sense that both groups deteriorated minimally, CTRL by 0.47 of a point and CTRL by 0.07 of a point, from posttest 1. This means that the moderate gain of CTRL and the more pronounced gain of TRAD were basically maintained on posttest 2. This is different from the gains of COG, which were not just maintained but kept increasing from posttest 1 to posttest 2, to yield an improvement of 4.6 points. This increase will be shown to have closely approached statistical significance. In the long run, between the first and the last

Fig. 5.18 Means for all groups on the written test (both receptive and productive knowledge)

5 Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom

Table 5.3 Means and standard deviations for all groups on the written test (both productive and receptive knowledge)

Groups

COG (n = 21) TRAD (n = 15) CTRL (n = 14)

Test M SD M SD M SD

Pretest 30.80 11.36 26.86 4.01 28.57 5.69Posttest 1 38.06 15.81 38.00 13.65 31.57 9.71Posttest 2 42.66 15.10 37.53 13.29 31.50 7.30

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test, CTRL improved just by 2.93 points, while the gains of TRAD and COG were much greater and quite similar to each other, 10.67 and 11.86 points respectively. As demonstrated below, only the pretest–posttest 2 improvements of TRAD and COG reached statistical significance, while the moderate improvement of CTRL did not.

A repeated-measures ANOVA with one between-subjects variable (treatment group) and one within-subjects variable (time of test) was performed on the raw scores of the three groups using a general linear model, and its results are given in Table 5.4. This test yielded the interaction of treatment group with time of test of statistical significance, with F(4, 94) = 2.51, p < .05, ηp

2 = 0.09, as well as sig-nificant main effects for time of test, with F(2, 94) = 20.30, p < .001, ηp

2 = 0.30, and no significant main effects for treatment, with F(2, 47) = 1.73, p = .18, ηp

2 = 0.06. These data mean that different treatment conditions resulted in sig-nificantly different scores at different times, which might have been predicted by the differential progress of the three groups revealed by the consideration of their means. It should be noted that the statistically significant results just reported are characterized by effect sizes which have to be regarded as either small (interaction of treatment group with time, ηp

2 = 0.09) or large (time, ηp2 = 0.30). In the case

of the effect size of the interaction of the treatment condition with time, which is close to but below the conventionally established medium value, this means that the results have to be treated with caution; their overall significance, however, was taken to be non-negligible. Given the fact that the pedagogic interventions used in the study took only between 70 and 85 min of classroom time, the significant result of a moderate effect size, which meant that the interaction of time and treat-ment accounted for only 9 % of the total variability in scores, might still be taken to reveal the potential of the pedagogic interventions. In the case of the time factor, the reported effect size meant that this factor predicted 30 % of the variance in the dependent variable, i.e. test scores.

To further explore the effects of the two kinds of treatment on the written measure scores, a series of one-way ANOVAs and ANOVAs with repeated measures for different groups were run. A one-way ANOVA found a statisti-cally significant effect when it comes to the differences between the groups on posttest 2: F(2, 47) = 3.19, p = .05, ηp

2 = 0.11. Since the test of homogene-ity of variances was statistically significant, a Games-Howell post hoc test was

Table 5.4 Repeated measures ANOVA of the written test scores across the two treatment and one control condition and the three testing sessions (receptive and productive knowledge)

Source df F p ηp2

Between subjectsGroup (COG, TRAD, CTRL) 2 1.73 .18 0.06Error 47Within subjectsTime 2 20.30 <.001 0.30Time × group 4 2.51 <.05 0.09Error 94

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used, which revealed a significant between-group contrast involving COG and CTRL (p < .05). This contrast must have resulted from the fact that the steep pretest–posttest 1 progress registered by both TRAD and COG was continued from posttest 1 to posttest 2 only by COG (improvement by 4.6 points), while both CTRL and TRAD generally stayed at their posttest 1 level. Furthermore, ANOVAs with repeated measures found statistically significant discrepan-cies between different test scores of COG, with F(2, 40) = 17.47, p < .001, ηp

2 = 0.46, and of TRAD, with Greenhouse-Geisser correction F(1.40, 19.61) = 8.01, p < .01, ηp

2 = 0.36. In addition to significance levels, these results indicate that the time factor accounted for at least 36 % of the total vari-ance in scores, which is a definitely large effect size. A summary of these sig-nificant and near-significant time differences, as revealed by repeated-measures ANOVAs’ pairwise comparisons, as well as of the sole statistically significant between-group difference, are provided in Table 5.5. It should also be added that there were no statistically significant differences over time in the scores of CTRL. What appears from these analyses is that both kinds of treatment had a pronounced effect on the scores of both experimental groups, resulting in their significant improvement from the pretest to posttest 1, as already demonstrated by the increase in their means. This rising trend was also maintained on the delayed posttest, as the differences between the pretest and posttest 2 were also significant in the case of both of the experimental groups. Especially interest-ing, though, is the fact that only COG displayed a pronounced rising tendency from posttest 1 to posttest 2, which revealed a very strong trend towards sta-tistical significance. As already signaled, this substantial increase (4.6 points) was responsible for the existence of the significant difference between posttest 2 scores of COG and CTRL. It should be recalled that at the same time TRAD did not improve at all, losing instead a negligible 0.47 of a point.

Table 5.5 Summary of statistically significant and near-significant between- and within-group differences on the entire written test (receptive and productive knowledge)

Between-group Within-group

PretestPosttest 1Posttest 2 COG > CTRLCOG Pretest < Posttest 1*

Posttest 1 < Posttest 2 (p = .056, near-significant difference)

Pretest < Posttest 2***TRAD Pretest < Posttest 1**

Pretest < Posttest 2**CTRL

*p < .05**p < .01***p < .001

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At this point, it is possible to begin to address in a preliminary fashion the first research question of the present study. With respect to the effectiveness of form-focused instruction based on CG, the foregoing analyses suggest that it may be at least moderately effective with respect to explicit grammatical knowledge. This follows from COG’s significant improvement from the pretest to posttest 1, from the pretest to posttest 2, as well as from its nearly significant improvement from posttest 1 to posttest 2. This conclusion is also supported by the statistically signif-icant difference between the scores of this group and those of controls on posttest 2. The conclusion concerning the effectiveness of grammar teaching based on CG is made cautiously, as evidenced by the qualification of the possible effectiveness of CG-based teaching with the adjective moderate, because there were no statisti-cally significant differences between COG and CTRL on the immediate posttest. It should be remembered, however, that the treatment to which the participants were exposed was rather short for such a complex and inherently difficult area of English grammar as tense and aspect. The fact that the cognitive treatment was highly limited, even when the restricted area of English tense/aspect focused on in the present study is considered, may have prevented its results from having a more pronounced effect. As to the permanence of the effects of CG-inspired teach-ing, it may be concluded that they were indeed durable, as not only were COG’s immediate gains maintained, but they were actually improved from posttest 1 to the delayed posttest. When it comes to the comparison between the effects of grammar teaching based on CG and those based on traditional pedagogical gram-mars, the data so far considered provide no evidence of any major differences, as both kinds of treatment resulted in comparable gains in terms of the use of the target structures in controlled reception and production. It should be remembered, however, that comparable gains were brought about by treatments which did not have exactly the same duration, with COG’ treatment being approximately 15 min longer.

Despite the absence of any significant differences between the effects of the two kinds of treatment, a subtle difference in terms of the pattern of progress they induced is hinted at by the results so far considered. As suggested by the general pattern of improvement of the two experimental groups (see Fig. 5.18) and by the existence of a nearly-significant difference between COG’s posttest 1 and posttest 2 scores, as well as the absence of such a difference in the case of TRAD, it is pos-sible that cognitive treatment, in comparison with its traditional counterpart, tends to result in growth in mostly explicit grammatical knowledge which is initially less sharp, but more sustained in the long run. The possible differences between the effects associated with the two kinds of treatment will be further explored and dis-cussed after the results of the two kinds of intervention on the participants’ recep-tive and productive explicit knowledge as separate constructs have been discussed, which is done in the subsequent section.

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5.8.1.2 Results of the Receptive and Productive Knowledge Tests

While Table 5.6 shows the mean scores and standard deviations for the three groups on the binary-choice part of the written test, which tapped the participants’ use of the present simple and present progressive with reference to the time of speaking in reception, Table 5.7 provides the same kind of data for the gap-filling and transla-tion components of the written test, which required the use of the same features in controlled production. The means the groups achieved on these receptive and pro-ductive knowledge tests are also plotted in Figs. 5.19 and 5.20. As was the case with the entire written test, on these two components both experimental groups improved from the pretest to posttest 1 much more than CTRL, which in both cases regis-tered only a minimal rise in scores. While on the receptive knowledge task CTRL rose only by 0.21 of a point, COG improved by 1.09 and TRAD by 4.13 points. As demonstrated by the statistical analyses which will be presently described, only TRAD’s pretest–posttest 1 progress reached statistical significance. On the produc-tive knowledge component, there was quite a similar pattern, with the difference that the gains of the two experimental groups were much more alike: CTRL gained 2.75 points, while COG and TRAD gained 6.19 and 7 points respectively, with the improvement of both of these groups being of statistical significance. On the basis of these data, it is clear that the initially greater gain of TRAD in comparison with COG noted earlier with respect to the entire written test was mainly due to COG’s relatively weak improvement on the receptive knowledge measure. Between post-test 1 and posttest 2 COG improved by 1.86 points on the receptive test and 2.72 on the productive test. These improvements, although not statistically significant, are markedly different from either minimal gains or minimal losses experienced by the other two groups: TRAD lost 0.53 of a point on the binary-choice task and gained

5 Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom

Table 5.6 Means and standard deviations for all groups on the binary-choice task (receptive knowledge)

Groups

COG (n = 21) TRAD (n = 15) CTRL (n = 14)

Test M SD M SD M SD

Pretest 14.38 3.44 12.80 3.00 14.57 3.27Posttest 1 15.47 5.56 16.93 6.04 14.78 3.09Posttest 2 17.33 4.61 16.40 5.47 13.92 3.07

Table 5.7 Means and standard deviations for all groups on the gap-filling and translation tasks (productive knowledge)

Groups

COG (n = 21) TRAD (n = 15) CTRL (n = 14)

Test M SD M SD M SD

Pretest 16.42 8.84 14.06 3.47 14.00 5.75Posttest 1 22.61 11.80 21.06 9.12 16.78 8.91Posttest 2 25.33 11.23 21.13 8.25 17.57 5.84

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0.07 on the productive tasks, while CTRL lost 0.86 and gained 0.79 on the same two components respectively. The picture which emerges from these analyses of the score means for the two components of the written test is quite similar to what was observed for the entire test. In particular, while ultimately both experimental groups registered comparable gains from the pretest to posttest 2, with TRAD gaining 3.6 and 7.07 and COG gaining 2.95 and 8.91 on the receptive and productive tasks respectively, in the case of both components TRAD’s initial improvement was of somewhat greater magnitude, to be subsequently replaced by leveling off, whereas COG kept increasing from posttest 1 to posttest 2. Almost all of these gains attained by the experimental groups reached statistical significance, the exception being the receptive knowledge progress of TRAD. The details of the statistical analyses which were performed will now be offered.

A repeated-measures ANOVA with one between-subjects variable (treatment group) and one within-subjects variable (time of test) was conducted on the raw scores the three groups obtained on the binary-choice component using a general

Fig. 5.19 Means for all groups on the binary-choice task (receptive knowledge)

Fig. 5.20 Means for all groups on the gap-filling and translation tasks (productive knowledge)

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linear model. The results of the analysis are offered in Table 5.8. It yielded statisti-cally nearly significant results for the interaction of treatment group with time of test, with F(4, 94) = 2.37, p = .058, ηp

2 = 0.09, as well as significant main effects for time of test, with F(2, 94) = 4.58, p < .05, ηp

2 = 0.08, and no significant main effects for treatment, with F(2, 47) = 0.66, p = .51, ηp

2 = 0.02. It should be noted that the effect sizes for the near-significant interaction of group and time and the significant effect for time were small. However, just as in the case of the entire written test, this must be interpreted against the relative shortness of the pedagogi-cal intervention employed by the study. It should also be noted that the effect size for time for the binary-choice component (ηp 2 = 0.08) is much smaller that the corresponding value for the entire written test (ηp 2 = 0.30). Therefore, a larger effect size should be expected of the effects for time for the second component of the written test, i.e. the productive knowledge test, which is in fact borne out in the report of the results of this component later in the section. To further explore the somewhat inconclusive results of the receptive knowledge test, a series of one-way ANOVAs and ANOVAs with repeated measures for different groups were run.

Among these tests, ANOVAs with repeated measures found statistically sig-nificant differences between the performance of COG, with F(2, 40) = 3.85, p < .05, ηp

2 = 0.16, and of TRAD, with F(2, 28) = 4.69, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.25,

on different binary-choice tests. The details of these significant time differences revealed by repeated-measures ANOVAs’ pairwise comparisons are given in Table 5.9. It should also be added that there were no statistically significant differ-ences over time between the scores of CTRL. As in the case of the entire written test, it may be concluded that both kinds of treatment had a considerable effect on the scores of both experimental groups on the receptive explicit knowledge test, which resulted in their significant improvement over time. The two groups

Table 5.8 Repeated measures ANOVA of the binary-choice task scores across the two treatment and one control condition and the three testing sessions (receptive knowledge)

Source df F p ηp2

Between subjectsGroup (COG, TRAD,

CTRL)2 0.66 .51 0.02

Error 47Within subjectsTime 2 4.58 <.05 0.08Time × group 4 2.37 .058 0.09Error 94

Table 5.9 Summary of statistically significant within-group differences on the binary-choice test (receptive knowledge)

Group Within-group effects

COG Pretest < Posttest 2*TRAD Pretest < Posttest 1*CTRL

*p < .05

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did not improve in parallel, though. What is apparent from the analysis, as well as from the plot in Fig. 5.19, COG kept improving in a gradual manner from the pretest through to posttest 2, and this is why a statistically significant difference existed only between its scores on these two receptive knowledge tests. TRAD, by contrast, improved more steeply, and therefore significantly, from the pretest to posttest 1, but, due to its subsequent deterioration, no significant difference was found between the pretest and posttest 2 in the case of this group. As is clear from the analysis of the entire written test offered in Sect. 5.8.1.1 and as will be attested by the subsequent consideration of the productive component, this is the only case of a difference between the two experimental groups involving a signifi-cantly better improvement of TRAD from one test to another in comparison with COG. One possible explanation of this fact is that the traditional treatment had an immediately more facilitative influence on the participants’ explicit knowledge of a receptive sort in comparison with the cognitive treatment. Another possibility is that the relatively steep improvement of TRAD on the receptive measure was at least partly due to the fact that, despite their having been no significant differ-ence between the scores of TRAD and COG on the receptive knowledge pretest, TRAD’s initial mean score on this test was lower than that of COG, which may have created more room for TRAD’s immediate improvement. It should also be remembered that the steeper improvement of TRAD on this component was not as strong as to translate into the same kind of a difference between the two experi-mental groups in the results of the entire written test.

A repeated-measures general-linear-model ANOVA with one between-subjects variable (treatment group) and one within-subjects variable (time of test) was also conducted on the three groups’ raw scores obtained on the gap-filling and transla-tion tasks, i.e. on the productive component of the written test. The results of this analysis are offered in Table 5.10. It yielded no statistically significant results for the interaction of treatment group with time of test, with F(4, 94) = 1.54, p = .19, ηp

2 = 0.06, and no significant main effects for treatment, with F(2, 47) = 1.95, p = .15, ηp

2 = 0.07. However, significant main effects for time of test were found, with F(2, 94) = 23.81, p < .001, ηp

2 = 0.33. Just as expected, the effect size for the significant time effects (ηp

2 = 0.33) was much higher in the case of this com-ponent than in the case of the receptive knowledge component (ηp

2 = 0.08). This

Table 5.10 Repeated measures ANOVA of the gap-filling and translation tasks scores across the two treatment and one control condition and the three testing sessions (productive knowledge)

Source df F p ηp2

Between subjectsGroup (COG, TRAD,

CTRL)2 1.95 .15 0.07

Error 47Within subjectsTime 2 23.81 < .001 0.33Time × group 4 1.54 .19 0.06Error 94

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effect size is high by Cohen’s (1988) standards and it should therefore definitely not be neglected as it indicates that the time factor accounted for 33 % of the total variance in test scores. To further explore these results a series of one-way ANOVAs and ANOVAs with repeated measures for different groups were run.

Two ANOVAs with repeated measures found statistically significant discrepancies between different test scores of COG, with F(2, 40) = 18.63, p < .001, ηp

2 = 0.48, and of TRAD, with Greenhouse-Geisser correction F(1.26, 17.70) = 8.31, p < .01, ηp

2 = 0.37. In addition to significance levels, these results indicate that the time fac-tor accounted for at least 37 % of the total variance in the scores of the members of COG and TRAD. A summary of these significant time differences rendered by the ANOVAs’ pairwise comparisons is given in Table 5.11. It should also be added that there were no statistically significant differences over time between different test scores of CTRL. What appears from these analyses is that both kinds of treatment had a considerable effect on the scores of both experimental groups, leading to their significant improvement from the pretest to posttest 1. This rising trend was also maintained on the delayed posttest, as the differences between the pretest and post-test 2 were also significant in the case of both experimental groups.

When the performance of the three groups on the two components of the written test is considered, there appears to have been only one substantial difference, that is the already mentioned relatively steep, in comparison to COG, pretest–posttest 1 improvement of TRAD on the receptive measure, which was not registered in the case of this group’s productive measure scores. Other than that, the performance of the three groups on the two components was quite similar, and resembled their performance on the entire written test. An attempt to explain this difference, which will address part of research question 2, is made in the subsequent section, where the other aspects of this question, as well as research question 1, are tackled.

5.8.1.3 Discussion of Test Results

The results of the entire written test were succinctly discussed at the end of Sect. 5.8.1.1, and the last paragraph of the previous section also briefly interpreted the results of the two components of the test. However, a full-blown analysis and discussion of the results of the entire test as well as of its components awaited

Table 5.11 Summary of statistically significant within-group differences on the gap-filling and translation test (productive knowledge)

Between-group Within-group

COG Pretest < Posttest 1***

Pretest < Posttest 2***

TRAD Pretest < Posttest 1*Pretest < Posttest 2*

CTRL

*p < .05***p < .001

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this moment. The raw data and especially their statistical analyses presented in the last two sections support the conclusion, already signaled therein, that the two kinds of treatment affected the written test scores of the two experimen-tal groups in quite similar ways, with only some moderate differences between the effects of these two treatments. First, both experimental groups, in contrast to CTRL, improved significantly over time in the case of each of the tests. Their improvement followed somewhat different patterns, though. Immediate improve-ment was moderately better in the case of TRAD, which was revealed by its generally greater gains between the pretest and posttest 1 on the entire test, as well as the significant difference between its scores on the pretest and posttest 1 on the receptive knowledge component, which was absent in the case of COG. By contrast, delayed improvement seemed a little steeper in the case of COG. This is evidenced by the significant difference between its pretest and posttest 2 scores on the receptive measure, which was not paralleled by TRAD’s results, and, especially, by the near-significant difference between its posttest 1 and post-test 2 scores on the entire written test, again not detected in TRAD’s progress. While this tendency might also be said to receive support from the existence of the significant posttest 2 difference between the scores of COG and CTRL, which was not accompanied by a parallel difference involving TRAD, such a conclu-sion should be treated with great caution. Given that both experimental groups improved significantly from the pretest to posttest 2, the lack of a statistically sig-nificant difference between TRAD and CTRL on posttest 2 was probably due to the fact that TRAD’s initial pretest scores had been lower than the scores of COG, or both COG and CTRL, depending on the component. Thus, in its improvement, TRAD had to first make up for the difference between itself and the other groups, which, although not great and not statistically significant, may have resulted in its inability to ultimately differ significantly from CTRL on either of the post-tests. Despite the caution with which the significant difference between COG and CTRL on posttest 2, and the lack of such a difference between TRAD and CTRL, must be approached, the tendency for COG to keep improving after posttest 1 is clear from the inspection of the plots in Figs. 5.18, 5.19 and 5.20, and from the consideration of the near-significant difference between its entire-test scores on posttest 1and posttest 2. Simultaneously, the same plots and the lack of a similar posttest 1-posttest 2 difference for TRAD show that this group tended to register all of its major gains between the pretest and posttest 1, and to level off after the latter. To sum up, then, and to address research question number 1 once again, the improvements of both experimental groups were generally substantial and durable, although they reached that state in somewhat different manners. TRAD improved more than COG, and much more than itself later on, immediately after the treatment and especially when it comes to its receptive knowledge, while COG registered much greater delayed gains than those of TRAD, which were nev-ertheless generally less impressive than its own earlier gains, except for the recep-tive test, where the group improved a little more after posttest 1 than after the pretest. Even though definitive answers may not be found, it is certainly worth attempting to explain these trends.

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When it comes to the overall effectiveness of form-focused instruction based on CG, which is the concern of research question 1, on the basis of the results of the study this kind of teaching has been deemed to be at least moderately effec-tive. Obviously, it is the general case for this kind of instruction presented in Sect. 4.4.1.1, which must be evoked as an explanation. In particular, the embrace-ment by CG descriptions of the meaningfulness and non-arbitrariness of grammar, in this case the meaningfulness and motivated character of the English present tense, the progressive aspect and the perfective and imperfective aspectual catego-ries explained in terms of the construals associated with these features, as well as the hypothesized deep processing and understanding of these phenomena caused by such semantic-laden grammatical descriptions are likely to have contributed to the development by COG of the requisite language awareness. As mentioned earlier (see Sect. 4.4.1.1), this kind of deep cognizance of grammatical material is likely to result in enhanced retention, as are the multiple pictorial representa-tions characteristic of CG grammatical descriptions, which were used to illus-trate the grammatical meanings focused on in the cognitive treatment. As to the pictures employed in COG’s treatment, there is in fact some direct evidence, to be presented in Sect. 5.8.3, that the subjects in this group found them useful and enlightening, most probably due to dual coding to which they contribute. All these features of grammatical instruction employing CG descriptions may be evoked to account for its facilitative effects and also for their durability. When considering the effectiveness of CG-based instruction, and especially when comparing it with that of teaching based on traditional rules, it has to be remembered, though, that the cognitive treatment used in the study was approximately 15 min longer than the traditional treatment.

The favorable effects of instruction based on traditional pedagogical gram-mars and their durability, which were revealed to have been comparable to these of CG-inspired instruction, also require some explanation. This facilitative effect of instruction based on traditional descriptions is not consonant with the numer-ous potential disadvantages of this kind of teaching identified in Sect. 4.4.1.2. What may have outweighed the drawbacks of grammatical descriptions used in traditionally-oriented form-focused instruction such as their vagueness or arbi-trariness is their relative simplicity, which was also predicated of traditional gram-matical descriptions in Sect. 4.4.1.2, and will also be confirmed by the analysis of the questionnaire performed in Sect. 5.8.3. Given the fact that the treatment deliv-ered in the course of the study was relatively short, which may have precluded or hindered proper explicit presentation and assimilation of complex material, the simplicity of the grammatical descriptions of the traditional instructional option may have been an advantage. It seems that the relatively successful employment of traditional descriptions by many generations of teachers, the success manifesting itself at least with respect to the development of their students’ explicit knowledge, capitalizes on exactly this feature.

When it comes to the comparison of the effects of CG-inspired form-focused instruction with the effects of teaching based on traditional grammatical descriptions, it was found out that these two instructional options may produce

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comparable results in the short, and especially in the long run, as both resulted in considerable gains in terms of explicit grammatical knowledge of the participants of the study. The lack of any major difference between the effects of these two kinds of instruction may be somewhat surprising given the expectation that teach-ing based on CG descriptions might be superior to instruction based on traditional descriptions expressed in Chap. 4. One possible explanation is that the cognitive treatment, which was shown by the results of the questionnaire to have been quite complex and challenging to the participants of the study (see Sect. 5.8.3), was not maximally relevant to this particular group of learners. The term relevance is used here in Swan’s (1994) sense, referring to one of the design criteria for pedagogi-cal rules, which means that a rule, as well as treatment which exploits it, is rel-evant to the extent to which it responds to the needs of particular learners (see Sect. 4.3.1.2). Given the fact that overall COG was not a high-level group, the cog-nitive treatment may have been simply too complex and challenging to this group, despite the fact that it relied on pedagogy-friendly, simplified renditions of the rel-evant CG descriptions. What may support this claim is the fact that COG’s atti-tudes towards its treatment were less favorable in comparison with the same kinds of attitudes in TRAD, as revealed by the results of the questionnaire presented in Sect. 5.8.3. By contrast, the traditional treatment, which will be shown to have been relatively simple and with the sizeable elements of which, as the question-naire reveals (see Sect. 5.8.3), the participants in TRAD were already familiar, did not pose a comparable challenge, and might thus have been more relevant to the needs of these low-level learners. This explanation of the comparable effects of the two kinds of treatment, referring to their degree of relevance to the needs of the participants, would thus still not exclude the possibility of CG-based instruction being superior to traditional instruction, given that it is administered to a group of learners to whom it is more relevant. Clearly, this is just a hypothesis, given the fact that at this point there is not enough research investigating the effects of CG-inspired instruction with respect to learners at different levels of advance-ment. It should be noted, however, that three out of four research projects reported in Sect. 4.4.2, which (partially) successfully implemented CG-based teaching in the classroom, included participants, the vast majority of whom were above the intermediate level of advancement. Also, as will be seen in the next section, more advanced members of COG seem to have benefited from the cognitive treatment to a higher degree than less advanced ones. It ought to be added that when comparing the effectiveness of the two instructional options, the fact that the cognitive treat-ment was approximately 15 min longer, a feature resulting from its greater com-plexity, should not be forgotten.

Yet another explanation of basically the same effect of the two instructional options has to do with the forms the use of which was targeted by the two kinds of treatment. While the cognitive treatment concerned with the appropriate use of the target forms made use of their nuanced semantic values, in this particular case there was no need to refer to highly pragmatic considerations such as dis-course functions. It is possible that this is the area where CG has the most to con-tribute to form-focused instruction. If so, it is perhaps the case that grammatical

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features whose description would be greatly facilitated by the inclusion of prag-matic information benefit most when subject to CG-inspired teaching, because, as stated in Sect. 4.4.1.2, such information rarely figures in traditional grammatical descriptions. If this turned out to be a justified suspicion, the fact that appropri-ate use of the target area of English grammar did not depend heavily on proto-typically pragmatic factors would explain why there was no significant difference between the effects of the two instructional options tested by this study.

Another possible explanation of the comparable effects of the two kinds of treatment resembles the one proposed by Tyler et al. (2010, p. 46) to account for the moderate effects of cognitive teaching of English modals they found in the course of their study. Not especially impressive results of CG-based teaching revealed by the present study, which were similar to the effects of the traditional treatment, may have been due to the fact that the treatment in COG was relatively short and was restricted to the teaching of selected aspects of a handful of gram-matical features. It might be argued that had the treatment been longer, and had it covered a wider range of grammatical features, or even the same features, but in finer detail, its effects, assuming a parallel extension of the traditional treatment, might have been more impressive than those of the traditional treatment. This assumption is supported by the fact that CG offers a highly comprehensive and unified view of language, where basically the same constructs closely related to basic cognitive abilities are used to characterize multiple, often seemingly remote grammatical phenomena, which are thus shown to be motivated. It therefore seems plausible that this conceptual unity as a characteristic of teaching based on CG may achieve its full potential only if CG-inspired teaching is implemented over more extended periods and covers a wider range of features and their uses.

For instance, as was shown in Chap. 2, the notions of boundedness and unboundedness, which CG evokes to account for the difference between perfective and imperfective verbs as well as for certain semantic effects associated with the present participle and therefore with the progressive, are also at the foundation of the mass/count noun distinction, as made by the theory. Moreover, because of their association with the –ing form of the verb, these notions are also evoked in CG to describe all the other applications, or uses, of this form, e.g. the choice between the present participle and the base form after verbs of perception (I saw him smoke/smoking a cigar) or the use of the progressive with the past tense (I was working yesterday at 5) and modals (I will be waiting for you). The consideration of the multitude of grammatical constructions in the teaching of which the notions of boundedness and unboundedness may be used suggests that if all of them were to be taught with the help of CG, this process might be greatly facilitated, as learn-ers who once grasp the nature of the boundedness/unboundedness distinction, which, admittedly, may require some extra effort and time in comparison with tra-ditional teaching of the same features, may subsequently enjoy its benefits by sim-ply applying it to many different areas of grammar. This focus on the underlying semantic motivation behind a range of diverse, yet related grammatical elements and their uses is expected to make the learning easier in comparison with tradi-tional instruction, which would place heavier demands on learners by necessitating

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their assimilation of new, unrelated (arbitrary) analyses or rules pertaining to each of all these different grammatical features and their uses. However, just as in the case of the previous explanation, no definitive pronouncement may be made here at this point as currently there are no large-scale and long-term studies testing the effects of CG-inspired instruction across a range of grammatical features sharing a common semantic base. It should also be noted that a more gradual and sus-tained introduction of CG concepts in the language classroom might in fact result in CG-based treatment having the same duration as traditional instruction, as there would be no need to present highly elaborate explanations to learners already familiar with certain CG notions and concepts.

The more sustained character of the effects of the cognitive treatment in com-parison with the traditional treatment, as well as its immediately less impres-sive results evoke several possible explanations. One of them is that perhaps the delayed improvement of COG, as well as the absence in the case of this group of immediate gains as high as those of TRAD, was caused by the fact that some restructuring in the participants’ interlanguage, related to the already mentioned deep processing, had to take some extra time, as proposed by the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis. While this explanation might be called into question by the claim that since the results of a test of explicit knowledge are discussed, considerations of interlanguage are a non-issue here, it has to be kept in mind that the tests used here were measures of mostly explicit knowledge, and some reliance on implicit knowledge originating in one’s interlanguage was possible when the experimental groups were taking them. This reliance on implicit knowledge might have been greater in the case of COG, who might also have used it to a slightly greater degree than is usually the case. This slightly greater than usual reliance on implicit knowl-edge and the nature of the receptive knowledge component of the test could also explain this group’s especially weak, in comparison with TRAD, performance on this component of posttest 1. What may have happened is that, given the complex-ity of the CG explanation of the target forms and their meanings and use, which is asserted and discussed in considerable detail in Sect. 5.8.3, at least some members of COG giving responses to some of the test’s items, instead of making a judicious selection of one of the two responses by leaning on their explicit system, chose their forms by feel, effectively relying on their implicit knowledge. What would also lend credence to the view that COG might have relied on their implicit knowl-edge on the receptive test to a slightly greater extent than on the productive test is the claim by De Bot (1996, p. 551) that productive knowledge is considered as less stable than receptive knowledge. Although this claim was made in the context of spoken interaction, it may be assumed that it also applies, even if to a much lesser extent, to written performance in the kinds of tests employed in the study. Indeed, the fact that receptive knowledge tends to be more stable and reliable than produc-tive knowledge suggests that it may to a greater extent rely on implicit represen-tation, which, as stated in Sect. 4.1, is more systematic and less anomalous than explicit knowledge. If so, it is possible that implicit knowledge may complement explicit knowledge to a slightly greater degree on explicit receptive knowledge tests in comparison with explicit productive knowledge ones. This is what may

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have happened in the case of COG’s gradually-increasing performance on the writ-ten tests, which might have reflected time-consuming interlanguage restructuring.

Another possible explanation why TRAD improved faster (i.e. more in the short run) than COG is the relative simplicity of its treatment, which came at the expense of truth (recall the design criteria for pedagogic rules discussed in Sect. 4.4.2). As already mentioned and as shown in Sect. 5.8.3, the relatively greater complexity of the cognitive treatment may be evoked as a possible explanation of the quantitative results of the questionnaire. Some qualitative analysis of the results of the question-naire, performed in the aforementioned section, also confirms this complexity and the difficulty it may have contributed to in terms of its assimilation. By contrast, the traditional treatment, which did not offer any in-depth explanation of the linguis-tic facts it focused on, was effectively simple, but at the same time not very true. Specifically, this treatment did not explain why the simple and progressive present are used with different kinds of verbs (stative and dynamic), nor did it go into the details of the semantics of these categories in any precise manner. However, such detailed explanations were part and parcel of the cognitive treatment, which was thereby characterized by much more truth and perhaps clarity (it was more precise in its explanations), but at the same time by much more complexity than the tradi-tional treatment. Thus, because of the simplicity of its treatment, it may have been easier for the members of TRAD to assimilate the explicit grammatical informa-tion they had received during its treatment, and this assimilation might have been faster, as such intake may not have required any deep, time-consuming processing, while the complex conceptual content COG was exposed to may have necessitated prolonged processing and consolidation. This need may have been strengthened by the fact that the cognitive treatment involved an original, novel application of cer-tain concepts, e.g. the notion of a keyhole as used to facilitate the conceptualiza-tion of the present tense. This cannot be said of the traditional treatment, which was in fact considered by numerous members of TRAD as some kind of repetition of their earlier instruction, as revealed in by the results of the questionnaire presented and discussed in Sect. 5.8.3. Thus, it is possible that TRAD’s relatively simple and somewhat familiar treatment predisposed the group to progress substantially imme-diately after treatment, while COG’s complex treatment involving some unfamiliar applications of certain concepts required more time to produce all of its effects.

It should be noted here that the fact that, in contrast to TRAD as well CTRL, COG kept improving from posttest 1 to posttest 2 provokes a question as to whether the trend for the scores of this group to keep rising steadily all the way from the pretest to posttest 1 to posttest 2 would in fact have continued had fur-ther, more delayed tests been administered. It is regrettable that this very interest-ing information cannot be gleaned from the present study, which did not include any further posttests of this sort. In order to further explore the effectiveness of CG-based instruction in comparison with traditionally-oriented teaching, which is the concern of research question 1, and, especially, to investigate the possible dif-ferences between the effectiveness of CG-inspired teaching with respect to learn-ers at different levels of advancement, as called for by research question 3, the next section explores inter-subject variability in the two experimental groups.

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5.8.1.4 Inter-Subject Variability

Given the fact that the participants of the study differed with respect to their levels of proficiency, it was expected that within groups there would be some inter-subject variability in terms of individual participants being differently affected by the two interventions. Therefore, the decision was made to explore intra-group variability in the case of both experimental groups. CTRL was excluded from this analysis, as it did not significantly improve from one test to another. Figures 5.21 and 5.22, where numbers along the horizontal axis represent individual participants, show the fluc-tuations of the scores the members of COG and TRAD obtained on the three occa-sions the written measure was implemented. It is clear from the inspection of the two graphs that the participants differed considerably, and much more so in COG in comparison with TRAD, with respect to their ability to use the relevant tense/aspect pairings in monitored reception and production on the pretest. This conclusion was supported by the standard deviations for the entire written test, as well as those for the two subcomponents, included in Tables 5.3, 5.6 and 5.7, which are gathered for convenience in Table 5.12. With the exception of the receptive component, where the relevant values were more or less the same, pretest standard deviations were much higher for COG than for TRAD. What is more, in the case of both groups, standard deviations rose considerably from the pretest to posttest 1, and then stayed at a comparable level on posttest 2. This dispersion data confirm the expectation that individual participants would be affected by the treatment in disparate ways. What is somewhat surprising, standard deviations for CTRL also rose between the pretest and posttest 1, albeit in general a little less sharply than in the experimental groups. This seems to indicate that the practice effect associated with repeated test taking was more pronounced in the case of some participants than in the case of others.

On the basis of the data in Figs. 5.21 and 5.22, the number of participants in both experimental groups whose written test scores improved, deteriorated and

Fig. 5.21 Scores of individual members of COG on the three implementations of the written test

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190

remained the same between the pretest and posttest 1, between posttest 1 and post-test 2, and between the pretest and posttest 2 was established. When these data were analyzed, the different numbers of participants in the two experimental groups were taken into account, and in addition to numbers, percentages were also considered. The results of these calculations are included in Table 5.13, and reflect the patterns of improvement which were identified earlier for both experimental groups on the basis of the analysis of group scores and means. The pretest–posttest

5 Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom

Table 5.12 Standard deviations for all groups on the entire written measure and its components

Groups

COG (n = 21)

TRAD (n = 15)

CTRL (n = 14)

Test SD SD SD

The entire written testPretest 11.36 4.01 5.69Posttest 1 15.81 13.65 9.71Posttest 2 15.10 13.29 7.30The binary-choice task

(receptive knowledge)Pretest 3.44 3.00 3.27Posttest 1 5.56 6.04 3.09Posttest 2 4.61 5.47 3.07The gap-filling and translation tasks

(productive knowledge)Pretest 8.84 3.47 5.75Posttest 1 11.80 9.12 8.91Posttest 2 11.23 8.25 5.84

Fig. 5.22 Scores of individual members of TRAD on the three implementations of the written test

191

1 improvement affected the majority of members of both groups, namely 15 participants (71.42 %) in COG and 13 in TRAD (86.66 %) [1 member of COG (4.76 %) remained the same]. At the same time, five COG subjects (23.80 %) and two TRAD subjects (13.33 %) deteriorated. In contrast to the trend emerg-ing from these data, namely more TRAD members improving and fewer dete-riorating in comparison with COG, delayed improvement and deterioration, i.e. improvement and deterioration from posttest 1 to posttest 2, were more favorable for COG. While 15 participants (71.42 %) in this group, a relatively large propor-tion, improved their scores, only eight TRAD members (53.33 %) did. The dif-ference between the two groups, amounting to 18.09 %, was a little greater here than in the case of immediate improvement, where TRAD had an advantage of 15.24 % over COG. However, a truly striking difference existed when it comes to the number of participants who deteriorated from posttest 1 to posttest 2; in COG this affected five participants, or 23.80 %, while in TRAD seven partici-pants, which was a staggering 46.66 % of the whole group, and nearly double the percentage of deteriorating participants in COG. Thus, the difference between the percentages of deteriorating participants in both groups was as high as 22.86 % in COG’s favor, while from the pretest to posttest 1 it was just 10.47 %, in TRAD’s favor. Finally, when long-term results are considered, in COG 18 participants (85.71 %) improved and two participants (9.52 %) deteriorated from the pre-test to posttest 2, while in TRAD 12 participants (80.00 %) improved and three (20.00 %) deteriorated during the same time span. The pattern which emerges from this analysis of inter-subject variability is similar to what was discovered ear-lier through the analysis of inter-group differences. That is, when the two kinds of treatment are compared, the traditional treatment seems to have caused more individual improvement and less individual deterioration in the short run, while the cognitive treatment seems to have brought about more individual improve-ment and less individual deterioration of a delayed sort. In the long run, both kinds of treatment appear to have been comparable, although the cognitive treatment sparked the improvement of a slightly greater percentage of and the deterioration

Table 5.13 Improvement, deterioration and no change in the written test scores after the treat-ment for COG (n = 21) and TRAD (n = 15)

Pretest to posttest 1 Posttest 1 to posttest 2 Pretest to posttest 2

Groups

No. of group members

% of group members

No. of group members

% of group members

No. of group members

% of group members

Improvement (higher score)

COG 15 71.42 15 71.42 18 85.71TRAD 13 86.66 8 53.33 12 80.00

Deterioration (lower score)

COG 5 23.80 5 23.80 2 9.52TRAD 2 13.33 7 46.66 3 20.00

No change COG 1 4.76 1 4.76 1 4.76TRAD 0 0 0 0 0 0

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192

of a somewhat lower percentage of participants in comparison with the traditional treatment.

As reported in Sect. 5.4, the participants of the study differed widely with respect to the number of years of their previous English instruction. As Table 5.2 in that section shows, in TRAD the participants received between 0.5 and 6 years of previous instruction, while in COG this range was much greater and spanned between 1.5 and 11 years. Since research question number 3 concerns the pos-sible differential effect of instruction based on CG when administered to learners at different levels of advancement, for the purposes of further analysis of intra-group variability aimed at addressing this question COG was subdivided into two groups. The first one, dubbed simply COG 1, included all the COG participants who had had fewer than 7 years of previous instruction. Thus, the group, which included 10 members numbered from 1 to 10 in Fig. 5.21, was a relatively low-level group. The second group was called COG 2 and it was assigned these COG participants who had received 7 or more years of earlier instruction. As a result, it was an 11-participant group at a relatively high level of advancement. Its mem-bers are numbered from 11 to 21 in Fig. 5.21. It is worth noting that due to this arrangement COG 1 became comparable to TRAD in terms of the number of years of previous instruction of its members as in both groups there were no participants with more than 6 years of such instruction.

It has to be admitted that there may be better criteria of ascertaining the partici-pants’ level of advancement such as for example the results of general proficiency tests, which, however, were not available to the present researchers for practical rea-sons. Another alternative which was seriously considered was using the participants’ school grades, but due to their scarcity and the fact that some of the participants were grade one students whose final grades from the previous year were not avail-able the decision was made to rely on the duration of previous English instruction. It has to be remembered, though, that learning experience in terms of the number of years of previous instruction may not in some cases directly translate into profi-ciency level. Therefore, the duration of previous instruction is only a rough indica-tion of the level of the participants, which had to be used here for practical reasons.

Table 5.14 shows the numbers and percentages of participants in the two sub-groups of COG, i.e. COG 1 and COG 2, as well as in TRAD, who registered general improvement, as well as improvement of different sizes from one test to another. Steep improvement was understood as improvement by more than 10 points, very steep improvement was defined as exceeding 20 points, and extra steep improvement, registered only from the pretest to posttest 2 in the case of two participants, exceeded 30 points. It should be added that, as one goes down the second column for a given test, each kind of improvement is a superordinate category subsuming the kinds of improvement listed below it. This means that the number of participants who achieved improvement includes the number of participants who registered steep improvement, which in turn includes the num-ber with very steep improvement, and so on. In addition to improvement data, the table presents individual deterioration and no-change data concerning individ-ual group members, which are not, however, subdivided according to the size of

5 Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Classroom

1935.8 Results and Discussion

Tabl

e 5.

14

Impr

ovem

ent

and

its k

inds

, det

erio

ratio

n, n

o ch

ange

and

mea

n ga

ins

in t

he w

ritte

n te

st s

core

s af

ter

the

trea

tmen

t fo

r C

OG

1 (

n =

10)

, CO

G 2

(n

= 1

1) a

nd T

RA

D (

n =

15)

CO

G 1

(n

= 1

0)C

OG

2

(n =

11)

TR

AD

(n

= 1

5)

No.

of

grou

p m

embe

rs%

of

grou

p m

embe

rsN

o. o

f gr

oup

mem

bers

% o

f gr

oup

mem

bers

No.

of

grou

p m

embe

rs

% o

f gr

oup

mem

bers

Pret

est t

o po

stte

st 1

Mea

n gr

oup

gain

s:C

OG

1: 5

.30

CO

G 2

: 9.0

9T

RA

D: 1

1.13

Impr

ovem

ent

770

.00

872

.72

1386

.66

Stee

p im

prov

emen

t3

30.0

06

54.5

49

60.0

0V

ery

stee

p im

prov

emen

t1

10.0

01

9.09

320

.00

No

chan

ge0

0.00

19.

090

0.00

Det

erio

ratio

n3

30.0

02

18.1

82

13.3

3

Post

test

1 to

pos

ttest

2M

ean

grou

p ga

ins:

CO

G 1

: 3.0

0C

OG

2: 6

.00

TR

AD

: −0.

46

Impr

ovem

ent

770

.00

872

.72

853

.33

Stee

p im

prov

emen

t1

10.0

03

27.2

70

0.00

Ver

y st

eep

impr

ovem

ent

00.

002

18.1

80

0.00

No

chan

ge0

0.00

19.

090

0.00

Det

erio

ratio

n3

30.0

02

18.1

87

46.6

6

Pret

est t

o po

stte

st 2

Mea

n gr

oup

gain

s:

CO

G 1

: 8.3

0C

OG

2: 1

5.09

TR

AD

: 10.

66

Impr

ovem

ent

990

.00

981

.81

1280

.00

Stee

p im

prov

emen

t4

40.0

08

72.7

28

53.3

3V

ery

stee

p im

prov

emen

t1

10.0

02

18.1

84

26.6

6E

xtra

ste

ep im

prov

emen

t0

0.00

19.

091

6.66

No

chan

ge0

0.00

19.

090

0.00

Det

erio

ratio

n1

10.0

01

9.09

320

.00

Stee

p im

prov

emen

t: by

mor

e th

an 1

0 po

ints

Ver

y st

eep

impr

ovem

ent:

by m

ore

than

20

poin

tsE

xtra

ste

ep im

prov

emen

t: by

mor

e th

an 3

0 po

ints

194

deterioration. In the remainder of this section, on the basis of the data gathered in Table 5.14, intra-group variation is reported, which was conducted within COG in order to address research question 3. In addition, the data for the two subgroups of COG were juxtaposed with the data for TRAD to check whether the comparison would lend support to some of the conclusions concerning the effects of the cogni-tive and traditional treatment reached so far.

While the numbers and the percentages of participants who improved from the pretest to posttest 1 were comparable in COG 1 and COG 2, amounting to seven (70.00 %) and eight (72.72 %) participants respectively, there were consid-erable differences between the subgroups when it comes to the magnitude of this improvement. Steep improvement was achieved by three participants (30.00 %) in COG 1, which constituted a much lower proportion in comparison with the same data for COG 2, i.e. six participants (54.54 %). At the same time, three participants (30.00 %) in COG 1 and two participants (18.18 %) in COG 2 deteriorated. These data suggest a more beneficial immediate effect of the cognitive treatment on higher-level members of COG in comparison with learners at lower levels of pro-ficiency. This conclusion also receives support from the comparison of the mean gains the members of these two subgroups achieved between the pretest and post-test 1, with COG 1’s average gain amounting to 5.30 points and the corresponding value for COG 2 amounting to 9.09 points.

The immediate effect of the cognitive treatment on the attainment of the mem-bers of COG 2 seems to have been comparable with the effect of the traditional treatment in TRAD. This is clear when the numbers and percentages of TRAD par-ticipants who improved steeply between the pretest and posttest 1, which was nine (60.00 %), and who deteriorated, which was two (13.33 %), are juxtaposed with the same data for COG 2, six participants (54.54 %) and two participants (18.18 %) respectively. The same conclusion is suggested by the mean gains the two groups registered between the two tests, which were quite close to each other, standing at 9.09 points for COG 2 and 11.13 for TRAD. Despite these similarities, a cer-tain advantage of the traditional treatment is possible given the fact that the overall percentage of participants improving from the pretest to posttest 1, as well as the percentage of participants improving steeply, very steeply and deteriorating at the same time are more favorable for the traditional treatment. Also favoring the tra-ditional treatment to a certain extent is the fact that the immediate effects of this treatment considered here were in terms of progress of relatively low-level learn-ers, with up to 6 years of previous instruction, while the comparable effects of the cognitive treatment were observed in the progress of more highly advanced learn-ers, each with more than 6 years of previous instruction. Because of this last cru-cial difference, a direct comparison of the effects of the cognitive and traditional treatment on the performance of higher-level individual subjects is impossible here. Since the members of TRAD were low-level, their performance was directly com-parable with the performance of COG 1 only. In this case, immediate effectiveness of the traditional treatment seems to have been superior to the immediate effects of the cognitive treatment, which is a conclusion mirroring a similar one reported in Sects. 5.8.1.1, 5.8.1.2 and 5.8.1.3 on the basis of quantitative inter-group analyses.

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Just as in the case of improvement from the pretest to posttest 1, the overall improvement data for COG 1 and COG 2 from posttest 1 to posttest 2, which stand at seven (70.00 %) and eight participants (72.72 %) respectively, look very much alike. However, when the magnitude of this improvement is consid-ered, as well as the data for deterioration, the progress of the members of the two groups does not seem to have been the same. In particular, steep improvement was achieved by only one participant (10.00 %) in COG 1, in comparison with three participants (27.27 %) in COG 2. Also sizeable was the difference between the number of participants who registered very steep improvement, i.e. improve-ment by over 20 points, with no such participants in COG 1 and two participants (18.18 %) with this kind of improvement in COG 2. Deterioration data also point to a more beneficial influence of the cognitive treatment on the delayed progress of COG 2, two members (18.18 %) of which deteriorated, than on the same kind of progress in COG 1, whose three participants (30.00 %) deteriorated. These data suggest a more beneficial delayed effect of the cognitive treatment on higher-level members of COG in comparison with learners at lower levels of proficiency. This is corroborated by the juxtaposition of the average gains achieved by the two subgroups from posttest 1 to posttest 2, where the gain by COG 2, equaling 6.00 points, was twice as high as that of COG 1, standing at 3.00 points.

It also seems that delayed facilitative effects of the cognitive treatment, which were already concluded to have been greater than those of the traditional treat-ment in Sect. 5.8.1.3, may be even greater and may differ even more from the same effects of traditional treatment when CG-based instruction is administered to high-level learners, as exemplified by COG 2. What makes this clear is the consid-eration of the fact that no participants in TRAD improved steeply or very steeply during the delayed inter-test period. Again, however, such conclusions must be treated extremely cautiously, as the participants in the two groups, COG 2 and TRAD, differed considerably with respect to the number of years of their previous English instruction. It is interesting to note, nonetheless, that the delayed improve-ment and deterioration data for lower-level participants in COG 1 were also much more flattering for the effects of the cognitive treatment when compared with its traditional counterpart. Here, steep improvement was achieved by one participant (10.00 %), which needs to be compared with no such participants in TRAD, and deterioration was suffered by three participants (30.00 %), who constitute a much lower percentage of the group in comparison with seven participants (46.66 %) deteriorating in TRAD. The mean gains for the two groups from posttest 1 to posttest 2, 3.00 points for COG 1 and −0.46 for TRAD, also testify to the greater effectiveness of the cognitive treatment when it comes to delayed development of explicit grammatical knowledge. This confirms an earlier general conclusion that cognitive treatment seems to work better than traditional teaching in terms of delayed improvement.

Finally, individual gains and losses between the pretest and posttest 2 need to be considered, which will reveal treatment-depended individual variabil-ity in terms of long term effects. First of all, the last part of Table 5.14 reveals that in COG 1 nine participants (90.00 %) improved during this period, in

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comparison with the same number, nine participants (81.81 %), improving in COG 2. Although a slightly higher percentage of participants in COG 1 improved in the long run, a much more sizeable difference, pointing to an advantageous effect of the cognitive treatment when used with high-level learners, existed in the num-ber of participants who achieved steep improvement in both subgroups, with four participants (40.00 %) achieving this size of improvement in COG 1, and as many as eight participants (72.72 %) in COG 2. On balance, then, these data sug-gest a more beneficial long-term effect of the cognitive treatment with respect to higher-level members of COG in comparison with learners at lower levels of profi-ciency. One more time, this is corroborated by the comparison of the average gains achieved by the two groups from the pretest to posttest 2, where COG 2’s gain at 15.09 points was almost double the average gain of COG 1, which amounted to 8.30 points.

Similarly to the earlier between-test comparisons, individual members of COG 2 achieved more satisfactory improvement from the pretest to posttest 2 in comparison with TRAD. What makes this clear is the consideration of the fact that eight participants (72.72 %) in COG 2 improved steeply, while in TRAD the same number of participants, who, importantly, constituted a much lower per-centage of the group (53.33 %), achieved this kind of improvement. Also, dete-rioration was registered by only one participant (9.09 %) in COG 2 and three participants (20.00 %) in TRAD, and the mean gains for the groups were 15.09 and 10.66 points for COG 2 and TRAD respectively. While these data do sug-gest that CG-based teaching may be able to produce favorable results for learn-ers at higher levels of proficiency, it cannot be considered as an indication that cognitive treatment is capable of producing better long-term learning in this kind of learners because members of TRAD were rather low-level. When indi-vidual improvements in TRAD and COG 1 are compared, however, it is hard to decide which was better. On the one hand, individual long-term improvement in COG 1 seems to have been greater, because 90 %, or nine, of its participants improved from the pretest to posttest 1, compared with just 80 %, or 12 partici-pants, of TRAD. Deterioration data also favored COG 1, whose one participant (10.00 %) deteriorated, in comparison with three participants (20.00 %) losing points between the pretest and posttest 1 in TRAD. On the other hand, the mag-nitude of improvement was greater in the case of TRAD, whose eight partici-pants (53.33 %) improved steeply, four (26.66 %) very steeply and one (6.66 %) extra steeply. The same data for COG 1 were less impressive: four of its partici-pants (40.00 %) improved steeply, just one very steeply (10.00 %) and none extra steeply. Thus, on the basis of the inter-subject data just considered, despite a slight advantage of TRAD over COG 1 transpiring from their mean gains, which were 10.66 and 8.30 points for TRAD and COG 1 respectively, it is impossible to claim that the effects of one kind of treatment rather than another were better in terms of long-term individual improvement of lower-level learners. Rather, just as in the case of the other inter-test comparisons, the analysis undertaken here confirms an earlier conclusion, that both kinds of treatment may be able to pro-duce comparable results in the long term.

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The suspicion expressed at the beginning of the present section that the effects of the treatment on individual members of the experimental groups might be quite varied was confirmed by the analyses presented in the section. This vari-ability was much greater in the case of COG, which was most probably caused by the fact that the members of this group differed considerably with respect to the number of years of their previous English instruction. It was found out that when the participants in COG were subdivided into two subgroups, one low-level and the other high-level, the patterns of individual improvement and deterioration from one test to another in the two subgroups were quite different. The conclusion which offered itself on the basis of analyzing these patterns, and which directly addressed research question 3, was that cognitive treatment might be more effec-tive with respect to fostering explicit knowledge when administered to higher-level learners, in comparison with lower-level ones. This conclusion pertains to imme-diate effects, delayed effects, as well as long-term effects of CG-inspired form-focused instruction. When it comes to some possible explanations of this state of affairs, it seems that the relatively great complexity and difficulty of the cognitive treatment resulting from the adherence of its CG-derived descriptions of gram-matical features to truth, which is one of the design criteria for pedagogical rules already discussed in Sect. 4.4.1.2, and also evoked in the previous section, may be responsible for the enhanced suitability of cognitive treatment to be administered to more advanced learners. In fact, the analysis of the results of the questionnaire in Sect. 5.8.3 clearly shows that the members of COG perceived their treatment as more complex and difficult in comparison with the same perceptions in TRAD.

5.8.2 Results and Discussion of the Implicit Knowledge Test

As shown in Table 5.15, there were some intergroup differences between pretest means of the oral test, which was intended as a measure of mostly implicit knowledge. Specifically, COG’s score was 1.23 points, TRAD scored 0.73 of a point and CTRL 2.21. Because of this, a one-way ANOVA was conducted on this pretest to check whether the differences between groups were statistically significant and it yielded a rather weak trend towards significance, with F(2, 47) = 2.55, p = .089, ηp

2 = 0.09. Because the result was not significant and the effect size was small, with only 9 % of the total variation in scores accounted for by the treatment factor, it was concluded that

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Table 5.15 Means and standard deviations for all groups on the oral elicited imitation test

Groups

COG (n = 21) TRAD (n = 15) CTRL (n = 14)

Test M SD M SD M SD

Pretest 1.23 1.75 0.73 1.33 2.21 2.22Posttest 1 2.23 2.16 1.40 1.24 3.00 2.03Posttest 2 1.61 1.90 0.93 1.16 2.00 1.51

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any inter-group differences in subsequent analyses were not due to prior differences among the groups. The results of these tests were also the basis of the assumption that that original between-group differences were not responsible for differential progress, deterioration or lack of either different groups might experience on subsequent tests.

Table 5.15 shows the mean scores and standard deviations for all the groups on the oral elicited imitation test, which measured accuracy and appropriateness in the use of the relevant tense/aspect pairings over three testing sessions. The means the groups achieved on this implicit knowledge test are also plotted in Fig. 5.23 to facilitate inter-group comparisons. These data revealed that the gains and losses all the three groups experienced between different tests were rather insubstan-tial, as they never exceeded 1 point, which equals 5 % of all the points that could have been scored. All the groups improved from the pretest to posttest 1, although COG, which gained exactly 1 point, improved noticeably better than the other two groups, among which TRAD gained 0.67 of a point, and CTRL improved by 0.79 of a point. What may be surprising is the fact that CTRL’s mean score rose a lit-tle more than that of TRAD, despite the fact that only the latter group received instruction. When the differences between the mean scores on the pretest and post-test 2 are considered, the groups either improved or deteriorated, but because all the groups deteriorated from posttest 1 to posttest 2, the gains and losses were very insubstantial with COG gaining 0.38 of a point (1.9 %), TRAD gaining 0.2 (1 %), and CTRL losing 0.21 of a point (1.05 %). As is revealed by the statistical analy-ses which will be presently discussed, although the means varied somewhat, none of the between- and within-group differences reached statistical significance in the manner which would point to a crucial difference made by one of the treatment conditions. In fact, the means of all the groups, including CTRL, revealed a very similar pattern of fluctuation over time, with comparable improvement immedi-ately after the treatment and comparable deterioration from posttest 1 to posttest 2.

A repeated-measures ANOVA with one between-subjects variable (treatment group) and one within-subjects variable (time of test) was performed on the raw scores of the three groups using a general linear model. This analysis, the results of which are given in Table 5.16, yielded no statistically significant results for the interaction of treatment group with time of test, with F(4, 94) = 0.32, p = .85,

Fig. 5.23 Means for all groups on the oral elicited imitation test

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ηp2 = 0.01. However, main effects for time of test were yielded significant, with

F(2, 94) = 5.95, p < .01, ηp2 = 0.11, as were main effects for treatment, with

F(2, 47) = 3.32, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.12. These results meant that there were no

important differences associated with the effects of different treatment conditions on the oral test. The effect sizes for these analyses which also revealed statistical significance were small, with the time and treatment factors accounting for 11 and 12 % of the total variance in test scores respectively.

To further explore the performance of the groups on the oral measure a series of one-way ANOVAs and ANOVAs with repeated measures for different groups were run. None of these tests revealed statistically significant between-group or within-group differences. A one-way ANOVA found a trend towards significance when it comes to the differences between the groups on posttest 1, with F(2, 47) = 2.57, p = 0.087, ηp

2 = 0.09. Because the result was not significant and the effect size was small, with the treatment factor accounting for only 9 % of the total variance in scores, the differences between groups on posttest 1 were taken to be negligible. Furthermore, an ANOVA with repeated measures found a statistically near-significant difference between different testing session scores of only one group, namely COG, with Greenhouse-Geisser correction F(1.55, 31.02) = 2.94, p = .079, ηp

2 = 0.12. Because the differences between the performance of the group on different implemen-tations of the oral tests were not statistically significant and because the effect size was small, with the time factor accounting for 12 % of the total variance in scores, the differences between the scores of COG over time were taken to be negligible.

The results of the elicited oral imitation test which have just been presented do not provide any clear evidence that either type of treatment was effective when it comes to fostering implicit knowledge of the target features. Despite the fact that COG’s performance was better than the performance of the other groups both in the short run, where COG gained 1 point, with TRAD’s and CTRL’s gains at 0.67 and 0.79 of a point respectively, and in the long run, with COG and TRAD gaining 0.38 and 0.20 respectively and CTRL losing 0.21 of a point, the performance of this group cannot be said to reveal any significant advantage of the cognitive treatment over the traditional and control conditions. This is because there were no statistically significant differences between the achievements of this group and those of others.

The effectiveness of the two types of treatment, at least as demonstrated by the present study, appears to be further undermined by a number of puzzling observa-tions. The first one has already been mentioned, namely the greater improvement of

Table 5.16 Repeated measures ANOVA of the oral test scores across the two treatment and one control condition and the three testing sessions

Source df F p ηp2

Between subjectsGroup (COG, TRAD, CTRL) 2 3.32 <.05 0.12Error 47Within subjectsTime 2 5.95 <.01 0.11Time × group 4 0.32 .85 0.01Error 94

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CTRL than that of TRAD between the pretest and posttest 1. The next unexpected fact is the deterioration of all the groups, and especially of the two experimental groups, from posttest 1 to posttest 2. Another crucial observation, already made in the discussion of the means, is the fact that all the groups displayed basically the same pattern of progress and deterioration between the first and the last testing session, even though CTRL received no instruction with respect to the target features. These surprising facts, as well as the absence of evidence as to the facilitative effect of the instruction received by the two experimental groups call for some sort of explanation.

One possible explanation is that both the cognitive and traditional treatment included explicit instruction focused mainly on the development of explicit rather than implicit knowledge. Despite the possible interface between the two types of representation (see Sect. 4.3.2.1), it may simply be the case that explicit instruc-tion of either sort is in general much less effective when it comes to fostering implicit knowledge in comparison to its effectiveness in bringing about improve-ments in explicit grammatical knowledge. Given the absence of evidence to the contrary, it might even be claimed that the two kinds of teaching are not effective at all with respect to the development of implicit knowledge, at least when they are supposed to cause improvement in the use of target features within the time span of several weeks, a situation which was studied by the present research. If this explanation is accepted, then the moderate improvement of the groups between the pretest and posttest 1 will have to be accounted for by the practice effect, the ben-efits of which must have faded away almost entirely by the time posttest 2 was administered.

Another possible explanation, somewhat related to the previous one, is that the development of implicit knowledge is a complex and arduous process which can-not be induced by approximately 90 min of instruction, which was the duration of instructional treatment in the present study. Even though the study included a delayed posttest, this explanation would be partially supported by the Delayed-Effect Hypothesis, which postulates the existence of an incubation period during which interlanguage restructuring takes place. The exact length of this period is not specified, but in the case of the participants of this study, whose out-of-class exposure was rather insubstantial, obtaining the positive evidence necessary for the restructuring to be completed may have required more time than the period between the treatment and the last posttest. If this explanation is accepted, then the possible effectiveness of the two kinds of treatment in terms of fostering implicit knowledge failed to be captured by the present study.

However, certain facts concerning the actual implementation of the elicited imitation test as part of this study raise serious doubts concerning the validity and reliability of this kind of test as a measure of implicit grammatical knowl-edge, at least when used in the specific educational context of a Polish high school. Before the rationale for this evaluation is presented, it may be instruc-tive to note that Mystkowska-Wiertelak and Pawlak (2012, pp. 143–145) reached essentially the same conclusion, which was based, however, on different prem-ises. In the case of their study, concerned with the teaching and acquisition of English causative have, control subjects improved significantly from a pretest

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to an immediate posttest on an elicited oral imitation test, just as their experi-mental subjects did. This prompted Mystkowska-Wiertelak and Pawlak to ques-tion the validity of the elicited imitation test as a measure of implicit knowledge, although they did not exclude the possibility that some factors their study had failed to control might have impacted the performance of controls. Interestingly, the participants in the control group in their study did not improve significantly on a timed grammaticality judgment task, another measure of implicit knowl-edge, which gives even more credence to the doubts concerning the elicited imi-tation test.

The first fact worth considering as a reason for questioning the utility of the elicited imitation test as a measure of mostly implicit knowledge is the difficulty the test posed to the majority of the participants. As demonstrated by Figs. 5.24 and 5.25, which show the scores of individual members of the two experimen-tal groups on the three testing sessions, the scores of individual participants on a given occasion they took the test amounted to 0.00 in a great many instances. In particular, in COG there were 23 cases of an individual participant scoring no point, and in TRAD this number was 19. Even though no figure is included with the same data for CTRL, in this group the situation was similar, if a little better. What is more, as ascertained by the present researchers when listening to the par-ticipants’ recorded responses when scoring and coding this test, in a very large number of cases, individual participants in all the groups provided no response whatsoever. Alternatively, also in very many instances, individual participants just repeated one or two words which had occurred at the beginning of the stimulus sentence, without attempting to reproduce or rephrase the contents of the entire sentence. Thus, it appears that a lot of the participants, perhaps due to the chal-lenge posed by the test, tried to employ rote repetition as a strategy in taking the test, which was also the impression one of us got during its implementation. In sum, the scores of some individual participants as well as the nature of some of their responses point to a very high level of difficulty of the elicited imitation test as implemented in the present study.

What seems to have made the test overly difficult is the fact that the stimulus sentences proved to be very hard to be comprehended. In fact, after the testing sessions the participants often complained about the difficulty of these sentences. This was surprising, because the sentences did not contain any especially difficult vocabulary, and, as stated in Sect. 5.7, approximately 80 % of verbs occurring in the sentences had previously occurred in the treatment materials. Still, the compre-hension of the stimulus sentences proved to be very challenging, which may have been caused by a number of factors. First, the difficulty may perhaps be explained not by the poverty of the participants’ implicit knowledge of the target grammati-cal features, or not solely the poverty of this knowledge, but also or mainly by the impoverished character of their implicit knowledge of the vocabulary which was used in the sentences. Another factor which is likely to have made the sen-tences difficult was the participants’ not having been accustomed to listening to speakers with a distinctively native accent. The recording of the stimulus sentences was made by one of the present authors, whose accent, despite him not being an

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American native, bears many features of distinctively American speech. What seemed somewhat surprising, a number of participants complained to their regular teachers about this accent by claiming that it was strange or peculiar and there-fore difficult to understand. This was probably because their exposure to native speech outside the classroom was scant and the speech of many of their teach-ers was not distinctively American. An additional factor which may have made the comprehension of the sentences a challenging task was the imperfect quality of the recording used as their source. Although care had been taken to prepare the recording of as high quality as possible, it has to be admitted that both the recording equipment, which was a portable digital voice recorder, as well as the

Fig. 5.25 Scores of individual members of TRAD on the three implementations of the oral elic-ited imitation test

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Fig. 5.24 Scores of individual members of COG on the three implementations of the oral elic-ited imitation test

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equipment used to play the sentences during test taking, which were a regular computer and a pair of small-sized speakers, were not of the kind used by pro-fessionals in the recording industry. As a result, the quality of the recording was what might be called medium, which may have contributed to the comprehension problems discussed here. In addition to the fact that probably due to their poor knowledge of English vocabulary and the nature of the recording used in the test the participants found the oral test very difficult, another factor worth considering when questioning the validity and reliability of the elicited imitation test are the attitudes the participants expressed towards it.

In comparison with the attitudes towards the written test, the ones towards the oral measure were rather negative, which may be partially explained by the difficulty of the test and partially by certain affective factors sparked by its rela-tive novelty. The unfavorable attitudes towards the oral test were manifested by the general reluctance and displeasure with which the participants took this test, as demonstrated by multiple sighs and comments every time the commencement of this test was announced. What was at least in part responsible for these atti-tudes was doubtlessly the difficulty the test posed to the participants. What may additionally account for the unfavorable feelings, and also for the perceived dif-ficulty of the test, was the general novelty and unconventionality of the test in the Polish educational context at the level of public schooling. The participants were definitely not accustomed to this kind of a test, and its unconventional character, which involved the necessity of recording their utterances in the presence of an outside teacher/researcher, probably caused high levels of anxiety and stress mani-fested by some of their comments as well as their body language. In fact, some of them said that they worried that their errors or inability to imitate the sen-tences would make the researcher think that they were “stupid” or “unintelligent.” It seems, then, that the negative attitudes towards the oral test, which may have stemmed from its difficulty and unconventionality, may have led to the adoption of some of the strategies identified earlier.

In particular, the negative attitudes may have resulted in very poor performance of some individual participants on the oral test. General apprehension and the fear that they would come across as intellectually deficient may perhaps explain why many of them chose simply not to attempt to imitate the stimulus sentences at all and just wait out the activity without what they saw as compromising themselves by producing erroneous utterances. Likewise, anxiety and apprehension might also explain why some other participants tried to attend to the form, rather than the content, of the sentences in an excessive manner, as manifested by the attempts at rote repetition. What these negative attitudes and their outcomes, as well as their possible explanations seem to be suggesting is that the elicited imitation test may only be used in circumstances different from those characteristic of the present study.

Generally, it seems that these circumstances should ensure that the prospec-tive test takers are more comfortable with this kind of a testing instrument. One possibility is that this measure should be used with more mature and/or more advanced learners, whose greater linguistic confidence and experience may

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prevent them from developing negative attitudes towards it. Another option is that the test may be used to measure implicit knowledge of young and/or low-level learners, but only those to whom it was previously introduced in a gradual manner and who thus have dealt with it for longer periods, perhaps not only to have their linguistic ability measured during a formal test, but also as an integral part of the educational process. This would mean that by the time it is used for formal testing, the participants will have used the test for other related purposes such as self-evaluation or peer-evaluation. It should be noted that the written test employed in the present study, as well as the majority of tests used in studies of the effectiveness of various types of form-focused instruction (cf. Norris and Ortega 2000), meet these criteria. Such circumstances seem to be necessary for the successful application of the oral elicited imitation test, at least in the Polish public school system, where learners tend to be apprehensive about educational novelties, especially ones requiring their creative, yet often necessarily imperfect performance.

In summary, the excessive difficulty of the test and the unfavorable attitudes the participants displayed towards it cast doubt on the validity and reliability of the elicited imitation test as a measure of implicit grammatical knowledge, at least in the context of the present study which was conducted in a Polish high school. If these considerations are coupled with some of the puzzling results of the test, which show that CTRL displayed almost the same pattern of progress and deterioration as the experimental groups, no definitive conclusions may be drawn on the basis of the present study as to the effectiveness of either kind of treatment with respect to fostering implicit knowledge of L2 grammar. Given the questionable ability of the test to tap the participants’ implicit knowledge of the target features, the absence of evidence pointing to the effectiveness of either kind of treatment needs to be treated with utmost caution. Therefore, it seems impossible to offer even tentative answers to this part of research ques-tion 2 which is concerned with the effectiveness of CG-based grammar teaching with respect to the development of explicit and implicit knowledge. Also, the comparison of the effectiveness of CG-inspired teaching and teaching based on traditional descriptions in terms of implicit knowledge is not feasible, either.

The presentation and discussion of the results of the tests implemented in the course of this study were two important objectives of this section as well as of Sects. 5.8.1 and 5.8.2. In discussing the results of the tests quite frequent reference was made to the results of the questionnaire that the participants completed after posttest 2, which are presented and analyzed in the next section.

5.8.3 The Questionnaire

The present section concentrates on the results of the part of the questionnaire (see Appendices G and H) which dealt with COG and TRAD participants’ perceptions of and attitudes towards the treatment they had received in the course of the study. As

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stated in Sect. 5.7, the first question in this part of the questionnaire concerned not exactly the participants’ attitudes but their previous exposure to the target grammatical features. 16 participants (76.19 %) in COG and nine participants (60.00 %) in TRAD indicated that they had received some instruction concerning the target grammatical material prior to the treatment received in the course of the study. Most members of COG who claimed they had been instructed on the target structures also pointed to certain differences between the previous instruction and that received in the study. Several participants wrote that in the previous instruction no pictures and no Power Point presentation had been used, and some of them emphasized the stimulating qual-ity of the treatment used in the study, together with its mnemonic utility, which their prior instruction had lacked. Also, several participants in this group mentioned certain differences concerning the specific contents of instruction as well as their organiza-tion. The most frequently mentioned ones concerned the inclusion in the previous instruction of only one of the two target tenses and the focus of that instruction on the contrast between the two tenses in terms of the habitual and present actions, rather than present actions and states. In contrast to most members of COG, most partici-pants in TRAD who had experienced some instruction related to the target structures stated that this previous instruction had been similar or the same as that in the study. Because they were not very vocal in their responses and most of them provided just a few words of explanation, it is not entirely clear what they meant by that similarity or sameness. Probably they did not refer to any close similarity in terms of the organiza-tion of the target features in instruction, as the two tenses are rarely juxtaposed with respect to their reference to time-of-speaking situations in mainstream textbooks and syllabi. Likewise, they probably did not refer to the manner of presentation of this material, as computer-based presentations are not a mainstay of Polish state-school foreign language classrooms. It is much more likely that they meant the general nature of the explanation of the target grammar, the structure of the class and the methodological options employed in its course, where some sort of explicit instruc-tion is followed by more or less constrained practice. These responses thus strongly suggest that the treatment of the traditional sort administered in the course of the study repeated at least some elements of the instruction some members of TRAD had previously received. It is regrettable that the participants in this group did not provide more detailed responses to the question inquiring about their previous exposure to the teaching of the target forms, but the conclusion which may be reached on the basis of this partially impoverished data is that TRAD’s prior instruction was not as different from the instruction they received in the course of the study as in the case of COG. It should be recalled that this relative novelty of the cognitive treatment in comparison with its traditional counterpart was in fact evoked in Sect. 5.8.1.3 to explain the some-what different patterns of progress of the two experimental groups.

The results of the Likert-scale part of the questionnaire (see Sect. 5.7 and Appendices G and H), which mostly tapped the participants’ attitudes towards the treatment they had received, as well as their subjective evaluation of their under-standing and ability to use the target features, are presented in Table 5.17, where the means different items received in the two experimental groups, together with their standard deviations and statistical analysis, are given. These data show that

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on average the members of both experimental groups either agreed with the state-ments or hesitated between a no-opinion response and the expression of agreement. On average, the members of COG displayed this kind of hesitation with respect to all the statements, while the members of TRAD hesitated in this manner with respect to only two items, number 4 and 7 (6), and they agreed with the remain-ing ones, but never exceeded an average response of 4.5, which would have placed them very close to strong agreement. What is very clear from the data in the table, TRAD agreed more than COG with every single statement in the questionnaire.

A series of independent samples 2-tailed t-tests were run on the results of the Likert-scale part of the questionnaire and some of the inter-group differences turned out to be statistically significant or near-significant, as shown in the right hand column of Table 5.17. In particular, the responses for statement 1 indicate that the members of TRAD liked the classes with their treatment significantly bet-ter than the participants in COG, with the difference of 0.66 of a point between the means this item received in the groups. A difference very similar in magnitude, amounting to 0.61 of a point, and also statistically significant, existed between the two groups’ responses to item 2 as well, with TRAD finding the classes more interesting than COG.

When it comes to the next statement, number 3, the difference between the responses of the two groups, which equaled 0.48 of a point, approached statisti-cal significance, with TRAD considering their treatment more comprehensible and clear than COG. Although this item inquired about both the comprehensibil-ity of treatment and its clarity, it is possible that most participants interpreted this statement as referring to comprehensibility and simplicity, when these notions are understood in terms of the design criteria of pedagogical rules discussed in Sect. 4.4.1.2. It should be recalled from that section that clarity excludes or mini-mizes vagueness in the use of terminology and that simplicity is the opposite of complexity. It seems that the members of TRAD may have interpreted the state-ment concerning clarity as pertaining to simplicity because notions such as the present tense and the progressive aspect were in fact explained in the traditional treatment with quite a low degree of detail and precision, in other words, they were not very clear. Given the fact that both simplicity and clarity contribute to

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Table 5.17 Means, standard deviations and statistical analysis of the questionnaire Likert-scale statements for the experimental groups

COG TRAD Statistical analysis (2-tailed t-tests)Statement Mean SD Mean SD

1 3.80 0.81 4.46 0.51 t = −2.79, p < .01, d = 0.972 3.45 0.73 4.06 0.25 t = −3.53, p < .01, d = 0.713 3.65 1.10 4.13 0.63 t = −1.65, p= .10, d = 0.534 3.25 0.94 3.60 0.73 t = −1.19, p= .23, d = 0.415 3.90 0.996 (5) 3.68 0.83 4.20 0.86 t = −1.79, p= .08, d = 0.617 (6) 3.26 0.88 3.40 1.12 t = −0.41, p= .68, d = 0.13

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comprehensibility, it is likely that simplicity got an upper hand over clarity in the TRAD subjects’ interpretation of this statement, or that these two notions were conflated in their interpretation. This would explain why TRAD considered their treatment as on average more comprehensible and clear than COG, whose treat-ment seems in reality to have been clearer due to the fact that it explained such notions as the present tense and progressive aspect in much more detail. It is possi-ble, though, that this line of argumentation does not capture the logic of the TRAD members’ responses, and that some other factors or features of their treatment had a bearing on them. A posteriori, it seems regrettable that the questionnaire did not include three separate items and questions concerning the comprehensibility, clarity and simplicity of the treatment, which would probably have resolved the doubts concerning the participants’ interpretation of this item of the questionnaire.

The last statement for which there was a near-statistical difference between the responses of the two experimental groups, with the difference between the mean scores it received in the groups amounting to 0.52 of a point, was included in item 6 (5) and concerned the evaluation by the participants of their understanding of the target grammatical material following the treatment. The difference was in favor of TRAD, who had a stronger belief in their understanding and control of the target forms. It should be added that in the case of all the statistically signifi-cant or nearly significant differences between the scores the questionnaire items received in the two experimental groups the effect sizes, expressed by Cohen’s d and included in the right hand column of Table 5.17, were either large or medium, so there was reason to believe that they were non-negligible.

It seems that the quantitative results of the questionnaire so far considered, specifically a generally more favorable attitude of TRAD towards its treatment in comparison with COG, and TRAD’s more favorable evaluation of their under-standing of the target material may be explained with reference to the complexity of the two groups’ respective treatments. When these two types of instruction are compared (for their descriptions see Sect. 5.6), including the comparison of the two Power Point presentations used in them, it is clear that the cognitive treatment was much more complex than the traditional treatment, which may have made it more difficult to assimilate. One indication of this is that the cognitive treatment had to be longer than the traditional treatment, as was its Power Point presentation, which included 37 slides, as compared to only nine slides in the presentation used as part of the traditional treatment. It is therefore highly probable that the overall less positive attitude of COG towards its treatment in comparison with TRAD was a result of this difference in the complexity of their respective treatments and the corresponding levels of its difficulty. In particular, the fact that its treatment was more complex and challenging seems to be a plausible explanation of the find-ings that COG liked its treatment less, found it less interesting, considered it less comprehensible and thought they understood it to a lower degree than TRAD, to mention only the differences where statistically significant or near-significant dif-ferences between the groups were found. This conclusion concerning the influ-ence of the complexity of the groups’ treatment on the quantitative results of the questionnaire is in fact corroborated by its qualitative analysis. Needless to say,

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the learner/participant sentiments identified here and their explanations can hardly be ignored when investigating and evaluating the effectiveness of CG-inspired explicit grammatical instruction and comparing it with the effectiveness of explicit instruction based on traditional descriptions. In fact, the relative complexity/sim-plicity and difficulty of the two kinds of treatment were invoked several times in Sects. 5.8.1.3 and 5.8.1.4 in order to account for certain differences between the effectiveness of the two instructional options.

It should be noted that in contrast to the quantitative analysis of the results of the questionnaire just presented, qualitative analysis was not organized in terms of the specific questions accompanying the Likert-scale statements just consid-ered. This was caused by the relative scarcity of responses, as well as the rela-tively loose, haphazard assignment of the responses to the questions. That is, the participants matched their responses to the questions in a very unpredictable way; for instance, some participants answered the question about the interesting aspects of the treatment by saying that the fact that they had learned something new was interesting. There were indeed many more surprising pairings of a question and a response such as this one. Because of the fact that the responses to the open-ended questions were not very numerous and they often did not match the specific ques-tions, their qualitative analysis is rather limited and is offered to illustrate specific claims and conclusions, rather that being highly systematic and organized by the questionnaire’s items.

Numerous responses by members of COG to the open-ended questions included in the questionnaire, as well as some comments included in the com-ments section, especially if juxtaposed with the responses and comments of TRAD, testify to the fact that the cognitive treatment was more complex and more difficult to assimilate as explicit knowledge. The following answers and comments by members of COG demonstrate that this group found it quite hard to understand at least certain parts of its treatment:7

• (…) I did not like the fact that I did not understand everything, although the presentation was carefully prepared.

• I did not entirely understand the explanation of this tense, but the exercises changed this a little.

• Perhaps the use of this tense was interesting, but it wasn’t explained in a very easy manner.

• It was hard to understand the concepts.• I do not understand how to differentiate between the tenses and I make mistakes

when choosing them.• The pictures helped me a lot, the explanation, however, was at times

complicated.• I do not understand, for example, when to use [the tenses].

7 All the participants’ comments and responses cited were translated from Polish by the present authors, as the questionnaire was entirely in Polish.

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• (…) I think that 2 h is way too little time to explain the whole material so that all the students in the class understand it right away.

The following response turns attention to the fact that the participants in COG may have felt some time pressure when it comes to grasping the subsequent parts of their treatment:

• This class was neither easy nor difficult, it required quick understanding of the material.

What may have caused this is that, aware of the fact that the cognitive treatment was longer than the traditional treatment and worried a little about the possibility of delivering the whole of treatment within the confines of the two 45 min classes that were available, the instructor moved from one part of the treatment to another at quite a fast pace. The following response testifies to the considerable difficulty that the novel use of certain concepts employed in their treatment may have posed to some members of COG:

• I agree (that everything was comprehensible), but I do not exactly understand the purpose of the comparison with looking through a keyhole.

In contrast to the responses and comments just presented, in numerous responses and comments concerned with the comprehensibility of their treat-ment members of TRAD claimed that everything was comprehensible and clear. As already signaled, given the fact that the traditional treatment did not include any precise semantic analyses, what numerous members of this group perceived as their treatment’s clarity may have in fact been its simplicity, as attested by the fol-lowing comment of one participant from this group:

• The manner of conducting the class was very interesting. Simple, probably eve-rybody was able to understand it.

In view of the above responses and comments by members of the two experi-mental groups, it seems safe to conclude that the traditional treatment was indeed simpler than the cognitive treatment and that it constituted a lesser challenge in terms of the participants’ assimilation of its contents as explicit knowledge. It should be recalled that the somewhat greater immediate effectiveness of the tradi-tional treatment in comparison with the cognitive treatment was in fact explained by the different levels of complexity/simplicity of the two treatment conditions in Sects. 5.8.1.3 and 5.8.1.4.

In the foregoing analysis, the results related to two of the items in the question-naire have not been discussed yet. The first of these, number 5, is the one included in COG’s questionnaire only and concerns the clarity and usefulness of the picto-rial representations used in the treatment offered to this group. The vast major-ity of the responses to this Likert-scale item, which received the highest mean score of all the items from this group (3.90), indicated that these pictures may have facilitated the acquisition of the relevant grammatical material, as 17 partici-pants (80.95 %) in COG agreed with the statement in item 6, with 12 participants

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expressing agreement and five strong agreement, while two (9.52 %) participants did not have an opinion and only two (9.52 %) disagreed. In fact, what shows that COG’s participants found the pictures useful are not solely the quantitative data constituting the results of the questionnaire, but also the qualitative data gleaned from the responses by selected participants:

• The auxiliary pictures were interesting. Thanks to them, it was easier to under-stand the use of these tenses.

• The pictures were all right and it was the presentation of these tenses in this (pictorial) manner which gave me this imagination and I was able to under-stand it faster.

• Now I imagine and through imagination I do the exercises which were in the test, which makes work easier and faster.

The last comment does not overtly mention pictures, but it seems to refer to them as they are very likely to have inspired this particular participant’s imagination. As may be recalled, the usefulness of the pictorial representations employed in abundance in the cognitive treatment, which has just been confirmed by the results of the questionnaire, was claimed in Sect. 5.8.1.3 to have been one of the factors responsible for the effectiveness of CG-based instruction in terms of fostering explicit grammatical knowledge.

When it comes to the questionnaire’s item number 7 (8), six participants in COG and only one participant in TRAD wrote that they had studied the relevant gram-matical material at home after the treatment, with one participant in each group providing no answer and the remaining ones not studying the material on their own. All of the participants who did some follow-up work at home used the class materials to do so, and most of them spent up to 1 h reviewing these materials, with only one participant in COG devoting as much as 2 h to this activity. The substan-tial difference between the number of participants in the two groups who did some review work at home may be considered as indirect confirmation of, and may have been caused by, the greater complexity and difficulty of the cognitive treatment, which may have spurred a greater number of participants to work on it at home.

5.9 Conclusion

The study reported in the present chapter explored the effects of teaching, on the basis of their CG descriptions, the meanings, use as well as form of the tense/aspect pairings known from traditional pedagogical grammar as the present sim-ple and the present continuous and compared them with the effects of teaching based on traditional pedagogical descriptions. The account of the study included, among other things, a full-blown description of the cognitive treatment, which provided what would seem a pioneering example of pedagogical practice exploit-ing CG descriptions of grammatical phenomena which could serve as a reference point to other researchers and teachers devising novel teaching procedures and

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materials based on CG. As a result of applying mainly quantitative and comple-menting it with some qualitative analysis of the data obtained in the course of the study, it was concluded that explicit form-focused instruction based on CG descriptions may be at least moderately effective with respect to fostering learn-ers’ explicit grammatical knowledge. Some evidence was also found that this kind of teaching is capable of producing long-lasting effects with respect to this kind of knowledge. It was established that the effectiveness of form-focused instruction based on CG, as well as the durability of its effects, are explainable in terms of the general case for this kind of instruction, and especially in terms of CG’s emphasis on the meaningfulness of grammar and its use of pictorial rep-resentations of the meanings of grammatical features. In addition, and still with reference to explicit grammatical knowledge, it was found that teaching based on CG descriptions might be more effective when administered to higher-level learn-ers, in comparison with lower-level ones. As the likely explanation of this finding, considerable complexity of instructional treatment exploiting CG descriptions was invoked.

The opposite of this complexity, i.e. the relative simplicity of instruction uti-lizing traditional pedagogical descriptions was hypothesized to have been respon-sible for the overall effectiveness of the traditional option comparable to that of the cognitive one. However, it was also found that a subtle difference between the effects of these two kinds of instruction may exist. The results of the study sug-gested that instruction based on traditional pedagogical descriptions may result in better immediate improvement, especially when it comes to explicit knowledge of the receptive sort, and CG-based instruction, which produced immediately less satisfactory results, again mostly due to weaker immediate improvement on the receptive test, may be better suited to produce superior improvement of a delayed sort, which is able to compensate for the initially less satisfactory results. The rela-tive complexity of CG-based teaching and the difficulty which it may cause were invoked as a possible explanation of this subtle difference between the effects of this kind of instruction and teaching based on traditional descriptions. Some other possible explanations of this difference were the relative novelty of CG-inspired teaching, as well as the possible increased reliance of the participants in COG on their interlanguage, which may have been undergoing time-consuming restructur-ing induced by CG-based teaching.

The study also involved a comparison of the effects of CG-inspired form-focused instruction with the effects of teaching based on traditional grammatical descriptions. It was found out that these two instructional options may produce comparable results, especially in the long run, as both ultimately resulted in con-siderable gains in terms of explicit grammatical knowledge of the participants of the study. This was explained with reference to the possibly greater relevance of instruction based on traditional descriptions to the participants of the study in comparison with CG-based instruction, which may be bestowed on the tradi-tional treatment by its relative simplicity. The kind of participants taking part in the study, who were not highly advanced learners, may require relatively simple treatments, and this property of traditional treatment may be able to outweigh

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the numerous disadvantages of this kind of teaching, while at the same time the lack of this kind of relevance may prevent CG-based teaching from realizing its full potential. Thus, both kinds of teaching may bring about comparable results. In addition, the possibility that the choice of the target forms, whose use did not depend strongly on purely pragmatic factors, prevented the CG-based instruc-tion from showing an advantage over the traditionally-oriented teaching was not excluded, either. It was also speculated that if CG descriptions were applied to teaching a wider range of grammatical phenomena sharing certain general seman-tic constructs proposed by CG, they might turn out to be much more useful in terms of developing explicit knowledge of grammar.

The elicited oral imitation test implemented in the course of the study failed to show the effectiveness of either kind of treatment employed. This may be due to the fact that both the cognitive and traditional treatment directly targeted the participants’ explicit representations rather than implicit ones, and also because implicit knowledge of the target features may require more stimulation that afforded by the treatment offered in the study as well as more time to develop. However, in view of the serious reservations concerning the validity and reliabil-ity of the oral elicited imitation test which were put forward on the basis of the analysis of its results, it was concluded that the results of this part of the study could not be used to comprehensively investigate the effectiveness of CG-based grammar teaching with respect to the development of implicit knowledge. What follows from this, neither was it possible to compare the effects of this kind of instruction with those of traditional treatment in terms of implicit knowledge. The problems concerning the oral elicited imitation test concerned its actual imple-mentation in the specific educational context of a Polish high school and were caused by it constituting too great a challenge to most participants. Because of the problems with this test revealed by the study, certain suggestion were made as to what could be done to use the oral elicited imitation test more successfully in the future.

In designing the present study a lot of effort was put into ensuring the valid-ity and reliability of the instruments as well as the generalizability of the conclu-sions reached on the basis of the analysis of the data. It is hoped that the effects of this effort are not impossible to notice and will speak for themselves. However, as research of this sort must, the present study also suffered from certain limita-tions, the most important of which have to be listed. The first major limitation has to do with the problems associated with the oral elicited imitation test which were mentioned earlier in the section. In view of the fact that this test was not fully valid and reliable, it is regrettable that another measure of mostly implicit knowledge such as the timed grammaticality judgment test was not used, which could have provided more trustworthy data concerning the participants’ implicit knowledge of the target features. Next, the cognitive treatment used in the present study employed a number of pictorial illustrations of the semantic values of the target forms, while the traditional treatment did not include any pictures. Although this difference between the two kinds of treatment might have resulted in different

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levels of interest and stimulation on the part of the participants, it may again be argued that since pictures do not usually accompany traditional descriptions, they should actually not be used in research concerning their effectiveness since this would compromise construct validity. The next limitation has to do with the obser-vation that explicit instruction tends to be effective if it is coupled with practice, preferably communicative in nature (Ellis 2008a, p. 452). As stated in Sect. 5.3 of the present chapter, for practical reasons, the communicative component of the practice part of the treatment used in the pilot study had to be removed from the treatment in the study proper, with the effect that the target forms were used only in controlled practice activities. This may have prevented the treatment used from effecting greater improvements in the use of the targeted forms. To consider another limitation, it should be recalled that in Sect. 5.8.1.3 the hypothesis was proposed that CG-based instruction might display an advantage over traditionally-oriented instruction if the focus is on grammatical features whose use depends on pragmatic factors to a greater extent than in the case of the features used in the present study. In fact, the use of the target features subject to instruction and test-ing in this study might depend to a larger degree on such factors if it is extended to include less prototypical usage exemplified, for example, by the often-discussed sentence I’m lovin’ it used for instance in a well-known commercial of a multina-tional fast food chain. Such examples involve the use of what is usually considered a stative verb with the present progressive, which may serve certain expressive purposes. As must be obvious at this point, the present study was limited so that to exclude such usage. It should also be recalled from Sect. 5.5 that certain verbs such as those intermediate between the stative and dynamic categories (e.g. live) as well as those belonging to the less prototypical subcategory of dynamic verbs, i.e. the class of activities (e.g. sleep), were also excluded from the pedagogical focus of the present study, which was dictated by the time limits restricting its instructional treatment. It should be added in this context that if the excluded verbs and, especially, uses had been focused on, the study would have entered the realm of purposefully teaching linguistic flexibility/creativity. Despite the fact that, as mentioned in Sect. 4.4.1.1, CG-inspired instruction may be particularly well suited for teaching the unprototypical, the study did not enter that realm. The reason was simply the heavily limited classroom time available for the execution of the study (see Sect. 5.5). The next limitation concerns the non-heterogeneity of the participants in terms of their years of previous English instruction. Although all the groups achieved comparable scores on all the pretests, the much greater range of the years of previous instruction in COG than in TRAD was definitely a disad-vantage and forced utmost caution when interpreting certain comparisons concern-ing inter-subject variability in the two groups performed in Sect. 5.8.1.4. Finally, as already signaled in Sect. 5.8.3, a posteriori, it seems regrettable that the ques-tionnaire did not include three separate items and questions concerning the com-prehensibility, clarity and simplicity of the treatment, which would probably have resolved the doubts concerning the participants’ interpretation of the item of the questionnaire concerned with the clarity and comprehensibility of the treatment.

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A number of additional issues which conclude the research reported in the pre-sent chapter are discussed in the subsequent conclusion to this volume, which also includes some discussion of the prospects and ideas for further research stemming from the present study. In addition, it also attempts to offer some tentative peda-gogic implications of the research project just reported.

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The aim of the present work has been to investigate the effectiveness of form-focused instruction based on CG descriptions of selected grammatical features, and comparing it with that of instruction based on traditional pedagogical descrip-tions. Because of this focus, this book may be viewed as bridging gaps between three related but distinct areas of human knowledge and activity. These fields, which are all concerned, albeit with different emphases, with linguistic knowl-edge and its acquisition, are theoretical linguistics, SLA and second and foreign language pedagogy. The bridges between the three areas become apparent if one overviews the contents of the major chapters of the book.

Chapter 2 dealt with linguistic issues of a largely theoretical nature, as it pro-vided a thorough introduction to the model of CG, shed light on its cognitive com-mitments and compared it with other cognitive approaches to grammar. Chapter 3 continued the theoretical-linguistic strand of the dissertation, as it offered detailed CG descriptions of the grammatical features which were the focus of the empirical study, but it also entered the realm of language pedagogy in that it provided the descriptions of the same grammatical items based on traditional descriptive/refer-ence and practical/pedagogical grammars. That chapter also demonstrated the links between linguistic theory and language pedagogy in its discussion of the theoreti-cal base of pedagogical descriptions. In addition, Chap. 3 compared the traditional and CG descriptions. The comparison began, owing to the criteria on which it was based, to reveal the possible pedagogic potential of CG and it thus constituted an avenue of linguistic theory into the area of language teaching. Chapter 4 ventured into the third of the fields considered here, as it reviewed a number of contem-porary SLA theories focusing on and offering implications for the teaching of the grammar of foreign languages. This, predictably, highlighted the connections between the two areas, SLA and language teaching, and the links became even more apparent in the second part of the chapter, which reviewed a broad range of methodological options in form-focused instruction. The chapter also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of these options which were to be employed in the studies reported in Chap. 5, as well as some empirical findings pertaining to

Conclusions and ImplicationsChapter 6

J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8_6, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

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the effectiveness of these selected options. Also considered was another kind of choice teachers may make, namely the choice in terms of the kinds of grammatical descriptions to be utilized in instruction. This highlighted the connections between SLA and linguistic theory. Two kinds of descriptions exemplified earlier in Chap. 3 were considered from this perspective and their pedagogic potential was compared, i.e. traditional pedagogical descriptions, which by their very nature embody the ruling orthodoxy of present-day language teaching, and CG descriptions, which are a relatively novel option receiving considerable theoretical and some budding empirical support from the field of applied cognitive linguistics. The comparison revealed a number of potential advantages CG grammatical descriptions might have over traditional ones, which was in many cases connected with a number of deficiencies of traditional descriptions. These considerations, plus a growing num-ber of serious proposals concerning the application of CG descriptions to language teaching and some empirical research pointing to the possible effectiveness of CG-inspired instruction, also presented in Chap. 4, motivated the research project reported in Chap. 5, which constituted the empirical part of this book.

When it comes to the effectiveness of CG-based form-focused instruction, the results of research undertaken here do not endorse unqualified enthusiasm with respect to this option, nor do they compromise this kind of teaching as a possi-ble alternative to more traditional descriptions used in grammatical instruction. In the study described in Chap. 5, which was concerned with CG-based instruction targeting selected facets of the English tense/aspect system, this kind of instruc-tion turned out to be at least moderately effective in terms of fostering the use of these forms on the basis of mostly explicit knowledge, and its effects were compa-rable to these achieved by employing traditional descriptions. It seems that these findings should not discourage researchers from embarking on further explora-tion of the effectiveness of CG-based instruction. Quite to the contrary, since they offer some evidence that this kind of instruction may be effective, further research seems to be required to achieve a more comprehensive picture of the strengths and liabilities of this kind of teaching. This view is supported by the fact that CG-based instruction did not prove to be less effective than teaching based on tra-ditional pedagogical descriptions.

In the analyses and explanations of the research results numerous possible causes of the favorable as well as non-optimal effects of CG-based instruction were pro-posed. They may be viewed as variables which could be manipulated in subsequent research on the effectiveness of grammar teaching based on CG. Among them are such features of this kind of teaching as its focus on the meaningfulness of gram-mar, the employment of pictorial representations and, especially, its considerable complexity. Although it appears that CG descriptions tend to be inherently charac-terized by these features, it also seems that there is some room for fine-tuning the pedagogical renditions of these descriptions, which could result in improved effec-tiveness of instruction. As Langacker (2008b, p. 73) says, CG is very efficient in shedding light on the semantic “spin” of grammatical usage, but the challenge for instructors is “to determine the optimal means of leading students to this under-standing,” i.e. to grasping the semantic intricacies of grammatical features. Taylor

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(2008, p. 58) is more transparent on the nature of those optimal means when he says that “[t]he challenge of applying cognitive linguistic insights to a pedagogical grammar lies precisely in searching for descriptively adequate, intuitively accept-able, and easily accessible formulations of these meanings [meanings of grammati-cal elements].” Although the study reported in this volume involved an example of a series of procedures aimed at providing such formulations, it is possible that they are in need of improvement. This is all the more likely given the fact that this elabo-rate example of pedagogical practice has to be considered as a pioneering attempt to translate CG concepts and descriptions into pedagogically exploitable formulations, and as such it will probably have to be subject to further elaboration and modifica-tion. In sum, perhaps there are ways of making the cognitive treatment used in the study less complex and thus its exposition of the meaningfulness of the target fea-tures even more pedagogy-friendly. This could boost the effectiveness of CG-based instruction, but this possibility should obviously be investigated by further research.

Apart from the inherent characteristics of CG-inspired instruction, what might generally be called the overall methodology of its implementation might also be experimented with. If it is remembered that the instructional treatment implemented in the study were relatively short, what might first of all be manipulated here is the duration of the instructional treatment. Also, the introduction of CG-based teach-ing earlier on in the educational process might be considered, which might also entail covering not just one or two points of grammar, as was done in the study, but a whole range of them, which seems to be particularly fitting if the conceptual unity and comprehensiveness of CG are taken into account. This might result in CG-based teaching being of the same duration as that of traditional instruction, because familiarizing learners with CG concepts in a gradual manner might not require as elaborate explanations as the ones used in the study. Furthermore, overt reference to traditional descriptions with which learners are likely to be familiar might also be considered as worth manipulating. Also, since the results of the study indicated that CG-inspired instruction might be more effective when administered to higher-level learners, future research could focus on exploring the application of this kind of instruction especially at the upper-intermediate and higher levels. Finally, teaching different kinds of grammatical structures with the help of CG, including their unprototypical uses and reference to discourse and pragmatic factors affecting their use could also be fruitfully investigated. Given the uncertainty with respect to all of these factors, further research seems to be in order.

In addition to investigating the effectiveness of CG-based explicit instruction in terms of explicit linguistic knowledge, the study reported in Chap. 5 attempted to offer insight into the possible influence of this kind if instruction on learner’s implicit representation. The results of this research did not sustain the conclu-sion that either this or the traditional instructional option may have a significant effect on learner’s implicit knowledge. Although both options, including CG-based explicit instruction, may lack significant pedagogical potential in this area, this finding may also have to do with the fact that the development of implicit knowl-edge is necessarily a lengthy and complicated process. In addition, it was also revealed that successful implementation of the oral elicited imitation test may be

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unfeasible in the Polish state-school educational context, which might have nega-tively impacted the results of this test in the study we conducted. Some suggestions were offered as to creating the conditions which would facilitate the use of this test in research, a more widespread use of the test for general educational purposes being perhaps the most important one. It is interesting to note that this suggestion corresponds to the pedagogical recommendation by Pawlak (2006, p. 483) that teachers in the Polish educational context measure their students’ implicit knowl-edge in addition to customarily employing explicit knowledge tests.

Despite the absence of any major differences when it comes to the effective-ness of CG-based instruction in terms of receptive and productive knowledge of the explicit kind, the research conducted for this book suggested that certain subtle contrasts may exist when this kind of teaching is compared with instruc-tion based on traditional descriptions, some of them also relating to the possible effects of instruction in terms of implicit knowledge. Specifically, the research results indicated that when CG-inspired teaching is effective and its overall effec-tiveness is comparable to that of traditionally-oriented teaching, it may be slightly less effective in the short run, a disadvantage which CG-based instruction is capa-ble of making up for in the long run. This suggestion applies mostly to tests of receptive explicit knowledge. What this may in fact point to is the possible influ-ence of CG-based instruction on the implicit representation of learners, which was hypothesized to be tapped to a slightly greater extent by receptive measures of mostly explicit knowledge, in comparison with productive ones. It might be noted that the research conducted by Król-Markefka (2010b) also pointed to the greater efficiency of CG-inspired instruction with respect to implicit linguistic knowledge in comparison with traditional instruction, which was revealed by tests tapping mostly explicit knowledge (see Sect. 4.4.2). It should be stressed that the kinds of explanations used in the cognitive treatment primarily contribute to the devel-opment of explicit knowledge, even though they can also indirectly stimulate the growth of implicit knowledge, especially in the long term. What could in fact have enhanced our knowledge of these issues would have been the inclusion of a larger number of delayed posttests in the design of the study reported in Chap. 5, where, interestingly, the participants exposed to the cognitive treatment kept improving from the pretest to posttest 2 in an uninterrupted fashion. This brings us to the inescapable limitations of the research described in that chapter.

Because the limitations and possible weaknesses of this research were dis-cussed in considerable detail in Sect. 5.9, it will suffice at this point to empha-size only the most important of them. First, despite the fact that the study tested the effectiveness of explicit instruction, which is expected to directly affect only or mostly explicit knowledge, the hypothesized ineffectiveness of the implicit knowledge measure which was employed has to be considered as a major limita-tion. Another one is the lack of communication-based activities in the practice part of the instructional treatments used in the study. Despite the fact that this limi-tation followed from certain important practical considerations, the results of the present research have to be considered in the context of the suggestion made by Ellis (2008a, p. 452) that the effects of explicit instruction might be optimal if it

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is combined with communicative practice. Given these and other less important limitations, and taking into account the fact that what this volume has reported is only one study with treatment lasting up to approximately 90 min, as well as the relative novelty of instruction based on CG, no definitive pedagogical guidelines concerning its use in the classroom, as well as the use of traditionally-oriented instruction, may be formulated. It is possible, however, to offer some tentative pedagogical implications which practitioners might consider when contemplating the introduction of some elements of CG-based instruction into their classrooms.

Since the study reported in Chap. 5 revealed that instruction based on CG might be as effective as traditional teaching, at least when it comes to fostering explicit grammatical knowledge of the targeted feature, this kind of instruction should definitely not be dismissed. It would however be premature to recom-mend that traditional instruction should be replaced with CG-inspired teaching until more research becomes available. Given this, it stands to reason that in some cases at least the best results might be achieved by combining the insights offered by the two kinds of descriptions and rules established on their basis. This would reflect the spirit of eclecticism which seems to permeate contemporary language teaching, and which transpires from Broccias’ (2008, p. 87) pronouncement that “[i]t may be unlikely that cognitive linguistics will result in a radically new teach-ing methodology” but it is more likely to “highlight certain aspects of already existing language teaching methodologies which deserve further attention.” What emerges from the present research is that teachers who are attracted by the pos-sible benefits of applying CG to the teaching of grammar, when deciding when to rely on CG descriptions, should take into account a number of factors such as the student’s level, the amount of time available, and the difficulty and complexity of the structure. For example, it seems that CG-inspired teaching might be more effective with more advanced learners and when the time available is not heav-ily limited. It is obviously unrealistic to expect at this point that the majority of language teachers will draw upon the research exemplified by the present work in order to find inspiration and complement their established teaching practices, but if some of them do this, or if some of such research inspires some materials writ-ers, the bridges between linguistic theory, SLA and language teaching constructed by this kind of research will serve their purpose.

As a final touch, the view of language as usage-based espoused by the theory of CG should be mentioned, because alongside the centrality of meaning and the meaningfulness of grammar it is cited by Langacker (2008b) as a feature of CG which makes it particularly useful for language teaching. All the three char-acteristics were extensively discussed in Chap. 2, where the theory was intro-duced. It might be noticed, however, that while the first two of these features were mentioned in the presentation of the case for CG as a basis of instruction in Sect. 4.4.1.1, and while they were exploited heavily in the cognitive pedagogi-cal treatment described in Chap. 5, the usage-based nature of CG was mentioned or used in neither. According to the usage-based conception of language held by CG and also by connectionism (see Sect. 4.3.2.1), linguistic ability is believed to emerge out of exposure to innumerable exemplars of various kinds of linguistic

6 Conclusions and Implications

220 6 Conclusions and Implications

units. Langacker (2008b, p. 81ff) lists several pedagogical implications of this view of language. First, it places emphasis on the importance in language acqui-sition of exposure to input, which is not in the least controversial or revolution-ary. The second implication is that it makes sense to introduce into instruction the prototypical before the marginal, which probably reflects input frequencies. This suggestion is also quite uncontroversial and was actually respected in the study reported earlier. For instance, in the treatment used in the study the prototypical uses of the combination of the present tense, progressive aspect and dynamic verbs were targeted, rather than more marginal uses involving the progressive and what seem to be stative verbs, as exemplified by I’m lovin’ it. The reason for this was that the participants, not being at a high level of advancement, were probably not ready to tackle the less prototypical uses but instead required and were able to benefit more from the introduction and/or consolidation of the prototypical ones. The final implication is that, in addition to the focus on isolated lexical items on the one hand, and general grammatical patterns and rules of the sort presented to the participants in the course of the study on the other, great attention should be paid to the teaching and learning of innumerable language “chunks”, e.g. collo-cations, fixed phrases, large chunks boilerplate, etc., as they are a major compo-nent of language which is only partially predictable by general rules and patterns. While the present authors fully agree that this is an immensely important aspect of language teaching and acquisition, this kind of pedagogical focus was beyond the scope of this book. It might also be noted that perhaps what might be called the twin theory or model of CG, namely Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995), may be even better suited to inform pedagogy aimed at this aspect of language because of its detailed analyses of lower level, rather than maximally general, grammatical schemas.

It is useful at this point to return to Langacker’s (2001a, p. 3) suggestion quoted in Chap. 1 that the effectiveness of pedagogical applications of CG may be an important empirical test for the theory and to his suspicion that CG will ultimately pass this test. Given the insubstantial body of research on the effectiveness of CG in language instruction, which is now a little more sizeable owing to the present volume intended as a contribution to it, it seems that at this point it is definitely too early to pronounce with certainty that CG has passed the test, or that it has failed it, and to recommend on this basis certain modifications of the theory. The research conducted here may only be interpreted as offering cautious and moder-ate support to Langacker’s (2001a, p. 3) optimism with respect to successful peda-gogical application of CG and also as a confirmation of his words that “extensive pedagogical application [of CG] remains a long-term goal” (2008b, p. 66).

221

Appendix ACognitive Treatment Handout

Present Simple / Present Continuous

MÓWIENIE O TERAZNIEJSZOSCI

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

222

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

l l l l

Appendix A: Cognitive Treatment Handout

223

I. Wybierz i zakresl kółkiem jedna z dwóch podkreslonych i oddzielonych znakiem „/” czesci zdania, która lepiej, poprawniej uzupełnia tekst. Druga, odrzucona czesc zdania przekrescl.

1. My girlfriend resembles / is resembling my mother. 2. Can you see this? My dog eats / is eating my uncle’s dinner. 3. I’m eating it, but this cake doesn’t taste / isn’t tasting very well. 4. Look, my dog tastes / is tasting my mother’s soup. 5. She intends / is intending to start a business next year. 6. I thank / am thanking you for your hospitality. It was a wonderful weekend. 7. She has won the lottery? Oh, come on, I doubt / am doubting it. 8. I can feel water under my shoes. The snow melts / is melting. 9. Why do they put / are they putting money on the table at this moment?10. She doesn’t know / isn’t knowing Jim personally.11. I can see she has a brush in her hand. I think she cleans / is cleaning her bike.

II. Uzupełnij zdania wstawiajac podane w nawiasie słowa w odpowiednim czasie: Present Simple lub Present Continuous.

1. Open the door, it’s Jerry! He (come from) …………………………. the wood with some mushrooms.

2. My grandmother (come from) ……………………….. Russia. She was born and raised in Moscow.

3. We (promise) ……………….………… that we will always do our English homework.

4. Have a look at Tom and Jerry! They have hammers in their hands and they (destroy) …………………………. that old radio.

5. My job (not include) ……………………….. making coffee for the boss! 6. I am sure they are in a bar right now. And I think they (get drunk)

……………………….. . 7. I can’t go out and buy bread now because I (paint) …………..…………… a

picture. 8. She (comb) ………………………….. her hair because in a minute she will

pose for a photo. 9. My mother (need) ………………………….. a new watch because she lost

the old one. 10. (you, agree) …………………..….… that we should organize the party in the

basement?11. I (remember) …………..……………… him, as a child, playing the piano

beautifully.

Appendix A: Cognitive Treatment Handout

224

III. Przetłumacz wiernie nie przetłumaczone jeszcze fragmenty zdan z j. polskiego na j. angielski. Tłumaczac, uzyj słów podanych w nawiasach (w odpowiedniej formie).

1. Przysiegam, ze nie widziałem kto to zrobił. (swear) …………………..…....................... that I haven’t seen who did it. 2. Spójrz na niebo! Pogoda zmienia sie na lepsza. (change) Have a look at the sky! ………………………………..….… for the better. 3. Dlaczego jej tu nie ma? Czy Jane prasuje spódnice na jutro? (iron) Why is she not here? …………………….……..….… her skirt for tomorrow? 4. Ten mezczyzna wydaje sie byc bardzo miły. Cały czas sie usmiecha. (seem) This …….……………………….. to be very nice. He’s smiling all the time. 5. Jerry jest w kuchni i własnie wacha zupe, która jest na kuchence. (smell) Jerry is in the kitchen and he …….……………………….. which is on the

cooker. 6. Ten pokój pachnie papierosami i piwem. (smell) This …….……………………….. of cigarettes and beer. 7. Dlaczego w tym pokoju jest tak cicho? A, Jarek i Romek rozgrywaja partyjke

szachów. (play) Why is it so quiet in the room? Oh, …….……………………….. a game of

chess. 8. Jest taka ładna pogoda. Podejrzewam, ze nasi koledzy poszli na plaze.

(suppose) The weather is so good. …………………………. our friends have gone to

the beach. 9. Nie widział swojej siostry od roku, ale wcale za nia nie teskni. (miss) He hasn’t seen his sister for one year, but …….……………………….. at all.10. Nie moge sie teraz oderwac od telewizora, bo policjanci własnie aresztuja

Jimmy’ego Pif-Pafa. (arrest) I can’t get my eyes off the TV, because ….…….………………………..

Jimmy Pif-Paf.11. Kazdy, kto słyszał kłopotach Roberta, współczuje mu. (pity) Everyone who has heard about Robert’s troubles …….……………………….

Appendix A: Cognitive Treatment Handout

225225J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Appendix BTraditional Treatment Handout

Present Simple / Present Continuous

MÓWIENIE O TERAZNIEJSZOSCI

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

226

I. Wybierz i zakresl kółkiem jedna z dwóch podkreslonych i oddzielonych znakiem „/” czesci zdania, która lepiej, poprawniej uzupełnia tekst. Druga, odrzucona czesc zdania przekrescl.

1. My girlfriend resembles / is resembling my mother. 2. Can you see this? My dog eats / is eating my uncle’s dinner. 3. I’m eating it, but this cake doesn’t taste / isn’t tasting very well. 4. Look, my dog tastes / is tasting my mother’s soup. 5. She intends / is intending to start a business next year. 6. I thank / am thanking you for your hospitality. It was a wonderful weekend. 7. She has won the lottery? Oh, come on, I doubt / am doubting it. 8. I can feel water under my shoes. The snow melts / is melting. 9. Why do they put / are they putting money on the table at this moment?10. She doesn’t know / isn’t knowing Jim personally.11. I can see she has a brush in her hand. I think she cleans / is cleaning her bike.

II. Uzupełnij zdania wstawiajac podane w nawiasie słowa w odpowiednim czasie: Present Simple lub Present Continuous.

1. Open the door, it’s Jerry! He (come from) …………………………. the wood with some mushrooms.

2. My grandmother (come from) ……………………….. Russia. She was born and raised in Moscow.

3. We (promise) ……………….………… that we will always do our English homework.

4. Have a look at Tom and Jerry! They have hammers in their hands and they (destroy) …………………………. that old radio.

5. My job (not include) ……………………….. making coffee for the boss! 6. I am sure they are in a bar right now. And I think they (get drunk)

……………………….. . 7. I can’t go out and buy bread now because I (paint) …………..…………… a

picture. 8. She (comb) ………………………….. her hair because in a minute she will

pose for a photo. 9. My mother (need) ………………………….. a new watch because she lost

the old one. 10. (you, agree) …………………..….… that we should organize the party in the

basement?11. I (remember) …………..……………… him, as a child, playing the piano

beautifully.

Appendix B: Traditional Treatment Handout

227

III. Przetłumacz wiernie nie przetłumaczone jeszcze fragmenty zdan z j. polskiego na j. angielski. Tłumaczac, uzyj słów podanych w nawiasach (w odpowiedniej formie).

1. Przysiegam, ze nie widziałem kto to zrobił. (swear) …………………..…....................... that I haven’t seen who did it. 2. Spójrz na niebo! Pogoda zmienia sie na lepsza. (change) Have a look at the sky! ………………………………..….… for the better. 3. Dlaczego jej tu nie ma? Czy Jane prasuje spódnice na jutro? (iron) Why is she not here? …………………….……..….… her skirt for tomorrow? 4. Ten mezczyzna wydaje sie byc bardzo miły. Cały czas sie usmiecha. (seem) This …….……………………….. to be very nice. He’s smiling all the time. 5. Jerry jest w kuchni i własnie wacha zupe, która jest na kuchence. (smell) Jerry is in the kitchen and he …….……………………….. which is on the

cooker. 6. Ten pokój pachnie papierosami i piwem. (smell) This …….……………………….. of cigarettes and beer. 7. Dlaczego w tym pokoju jest tak cicho? A, Jarek i Romek rozgrywaja partyjke

szachów. (play) Why is it so quiet in the room? Oh, …….……………………….. a game of

chess. 8. Jest taka ładna pogoda. Podejrzewam, ze nasi koledzy poszli na plaze.

(suppose) The weather is so good. …………………………. our friends have gone to

the beach. 9. Nie widział swojej siostry od roku, ale wcale za nia nie teskni. (miss) He hasn’t seen his sister for one year, but …….……………………….. at all.10. Nie moge sie teraz oderwac od telewizora, bo policjanci własnie aresztuja

Jimmy’ego Pif-Pafa. (arrest) I can’t get my eyes off the TV, because ….…….………………………..

Jimmy Pif-Paf.11. Kazdy, kto słyszał kłopotach Roberta, współczuje mu. (pity) Everyone who has heard about Robert’s troubles …….……………………….

Appendix B: Traditional Treatment Handout

229J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Appendix C Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

Present Simple / Present Continuous

MÓWIENIE O TERAZNIEJSZOSCI

Jakub Bielak, Mirosław PawlakUniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, Kalisz

230

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

231

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

232 Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

233Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

234 Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

235Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

236

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

Czasowniki satyczne

TRUSTUNDERSTANDNEEDCONTAINRECOGNIZELIKE

BUILDCOOKREPAIROPENCLEANDRIVE (TO ...)

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

237Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

238 Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

239Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

240

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

Czasowniki statyczne Czasowniki dynamiczne

TRUSTUNDERSTANDNEEDCONTAINRECOGNIZELIKE

BUILDCOOKREPAIROPENCLEANDRIVE (TO ...)

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

241Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

242

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

Czasowniki statyczne Czasowniki dynamiczne

TRUSTUNDERSTANDNEEDCONTAINRECOGNIZELIKE

BUILDCOOKREPAIROPENCLEANDRIVE (TO ...)

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

243

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

Czasowniki statyczno-dynamiczneHAVESMELLWEIGH

HAVESMELLWEIGH

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

244

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

245

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

Czasowniki oznaczajace czynnosci polegajace na MÓWIENIU

PROMISEAPOLOGIZETHANK

Appendix C: Cognitive Treatment Power Point Presentation

247

Present Simple / Present Continuous

MÓWIENIEO TERAZNIEJSZOSCI

Jakub Bielak, Mirosław PawlakUniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, Kalisz

J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Appendix D Traditional Treatment Power Point Presentation

248

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

Appendix D: Traditional Treatment Power Point Presentation

249

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

TRUSTUNDERSTANDNEEDCONTAINRECOGNIZELIKE

BUILDCOOKREPAIROPENCLEANDRIVE (TO ...)

Appendix D: Traditional Treatment Power Point Presentation

250

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

Jerry trusts his girlfriend.Jerry and Jane understand me now.Jerry needs his girlfriend’s car right now.The box contains two pairs of shoes.I don’t recognize this man.Does Jerry like his girlfriend’s car?

Jerry is building a castle.Jerry and Jane are cooking dinner right now.Jerry is repairing his girlfriend’s car right now.The gate is opening.I am not cleaning my room.Is Jerry driving to his girlfriend’s house?

Czasowniki statyczne - stany Czasowniki dynamiczne - czynnosci

TRUSTUNDERSTANDNEEDCONTAINRECOGNIZELIKE

BUILDCOOKREPAIROPENCLEANDRIVE (TO ...)

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

Appendix D: Traditional Treatment Power Point Presentation

251

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

We have a very big house.This tea smells very nice.Jerry weighs 75 kilos now.

We are having lunch now.Jerry is smelling his wife’s tea now.Jerry is weighing his son now.

Czasowniki statyczno-dynamiczneStany

HAVESMELLWEIGH

Czynnosci

HAVESMELLWEIGH

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

Appendix D: Traditional Treatment Power Point Presentation

252

PRESENT SIMPLE PRESENT CONTINUOUS

I promise I will not eat your ice-cream.We apologize for what happened yesterday.We thank you for the invitation.

Czasowniki oznaczajace czynnosci polegajace na MÓWIENIU

PROMISEAPOLOGIZETHANK

Appendix D: Traditional Treatment Power Point Presentation

253J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Test AProjekt badawczy Jakuba Bielaka i Mirosława Pawlaka, Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza, Kalisz

Imie i nazwisko : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Klasa: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I. Wybierz i zakresl kółkiem jedna z dwóch podkreslonych i oddzielonych znakiem „/” czesci zdania, która lepiej, poprawniej uzupełnia tekst. Druga, odrzucona czesc zdania przekresl.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jack has gone / have going to school.

1. Jerry is in the bathroom and he fi lls / is fi lling the bathtub with water to give his dog a bath.

2. A: Why did you do such a bad thing? B: I swear / am swearing that I will never do it gain.

3. The wind is so strong today and I can see that it destroys / is destroying the birds’ nest on the tree.

4. The mountain rises / is rising above the city like a large angel. 5. I cook / am cooking something very good for tonight. 6. A: He stole all your money. B: This fact doesn’t matter / isn’t mattering any

more. 7. Do you appreciate / are you appreciating his help? Without it you would not

have been success-ful. 8. Fiona puts on / is putting on a warm coat because it’s cold and she has to go

outside in a minute. 9. I think that Ralph is outdoors and that he digs / is digging a hole in the

ground. Later he may hide some money in it.10. Jerry believes / is believing in God and this is why he would like to go to

church every Sunday.

Appendix E The Written Test

254

11. She doesn’t trust / isn’t trusting you any more.12. Can you see Jack on the path? He probably comes from / is probably coming

from the boat.

II. Uzupełnij zdania wstawiajac podane w nawiasie słowa w odpowiednim czasie: Present Simple lub Present Continuous.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jerry (write) . . . . . . . . writes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a letter every day.

1. Can you see something like smoke over the jar? Probably the substance in the jar (evaporate) ………………………… just now.

2. We will not be able to go into her garden. I can see that a very high wall (surround) ………………………… the garden.

3. Tomorrow is a very important day and that’s why Jack (polish) …………….……………. his shoes; he would like to look smart.

4. Judge: I am sure you stole the money and hurt the old lady. Defendant: I (deny) …………………………… all these accusations. 5. He has just got up and he (get dressed) …………………………. in a great

hurry. He’ll be late if he doesn’t do it really fast. 6. John (not, agree) ……………..….………… with me that the new Harry

Potter fi lm is great. 7. At this moment she (repair) ……………………….. her old bike. 8. I’m afraid that at this point they (consider) ………………………….. him to

be a drunk. 9. (you, need) ………..………………… anything else at this point?10. Look! A strange man (open) …………………..………. the trunk in your car.11. At this moment the team (consist of) ……………..………….. 5 Europeans

and 3 Americans. This will probably not change any time soon.12. A: I bought a lot of apples but I don’t know how much exactly. B: (Your wife,

weigh) ………………….……… them in the kitchen now?

III. Przetłumacz wiernie nie przetłumaczone jeszcze fragmenty zdan z j. polskiego na j. angielski. Tłumaczac, uzyj słów podanych w nawiasach (w odpowiedniej formie), o ile sa podane.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jerry pisze codziennie jeden wiersz. (write)

. . . . . . . . . Jerry writes one . . . . . . . . . . . poem every day.

1. A: Dlaczego on jest w tym pedzacym pociagu? B: Bo własnie wraca z Krakowa. (come from)

B: Why is he on this rushing train? B: Because . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cracow.

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2. Ona włozyła cos do pudełka wczoraj, kiedy mnie nie było, wiec jest tajemnica, co to pudełko teraz zawiera. (contain)She put something into the box yesterday, when I was away, so it’s a secret what …………………………….. .

3. Oni cierpliwie czekaja, bo nie watpia, ze John przyjdzie na czas. (doubt)They are waiting patiently, ………............................................ that John will come on time.

4. Naprawde przepraszam za zachowanie mojego syna. (apologize)……......................................... for my son’s behavior.

5. O mój Boze! Te psy sa coraz blizej. Widze, ze one nas okrazaja! (surround)Oh my God! These dogs are closer and closer. I can see …...…………………….. us!

6. A: O, masz mokre rece, wiec pewnie wziełas sie za pranie. B: Tak, ale nie piore twojej sukni, tylko moje rekawiczki. (wash)A: Oh, your hands are wet, so I gather that you’ve got down to doing the washing. B: Right, …….………………………. your dress, just my gloves.

7. Zołnierze, co wy zrobiliscie? Rozkazuje wam to w tej chwili posprzatac! (order)What have you done, soldiers? ……………………….……… to clean it right now!

8. Co on kombinuje z tymi nozyczkami? Nie widze dobrze, czy on wycina zdjecia z mojego albumu? (cut)What is he up to with this pair of scissors? I can’t see very well, ………………..……………… out of my album?

9. Ta zupa, która ugotowałes smakuje naprawde dobrze. Czy moge zjesc jeszcze? (taste)This soup you …………....……………..……….. good. Can I have some more?

10. Uwielbiam swojego meza za jego wrazliwosc. (adore)................................................. husband for his sensitivity.

11. Popatrz, Stas maluje twój portret. Za godzine bedzie gotowy. (paint)……............................................ your portrait. It will be finished in an hour.

12. Pomóz mi! Zmieniam koło w samochodzie, a we dwóch zrobimy to szybciej. (change)Help me! ………………….………………. a wheel in my car and the two of us will do it faster.

Słowniczek

adore - uwielbiacapologize – przepraszac, przeprosicappreciate – doceniac, docenicbe afraid – obawiac siebathtub – wanna

come from – pochodzic z / dochodzic, dojsc zconsider – uwazacconsist of – składac sie zcontain – zawierac

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cut – wycinac, wyciacdefendant - oskarzonydeny – zaprzeczac, zaprzeczycdestroy – niszczyc, zniszczycdig – kopac, wykopacdoubt – watpic, zwatpicevaporate – parowac, wyparowacfi ll – wypełniac, wypełnicget dressed – ubierac, ubrac siejar – słój, słoikjudge - sedziamatter – miec znaczenienest – gniazdoorder – rozkazywac, rozkazac

polish – polerowac, wypolerowacpromise – obiecywac, obiecacrise – wzrastac, wzrosnac / wznosic, wzniesc sie / wschodzic, wzejscsmoke - dymsurround – otaczac, otoczyc / okrazac, okrazycswear – przysiegac, przysiactaste – smakowac / kosztowac, skosztowactrunk – bagaznikwash – prac, wypracweigh – wazyc (np. 2 kg) / wazyc, zwazyc

Test BProjekt badawczy Jakuba Bielaka i Mirosława Pawlaka, Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza, Kalisz

Imie i nazwisko: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Klasa: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I. Wybierz i zakresl kółkiem jedna z dwóch podkreslonych i oddzielonych znakiem „/” czesci zdania, która lepiej, poprawniej uzupełnia tekst. Druga, odrzucona czesc zdania przekresl.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jack has gone / have going to school.

1. It’s 11 p.m., so I’m sure that he is in his bedroom and that he undresses / is undressing.

2. Does Josh resemble / Is Josh resembling his father more in appearance or in character?

3. I have these needles and wool, because, as you can see, I knit / am knitting a sweater for you.

4. This wine comes from / is coming from Italy. This is where it is produced, but I bought it in Austria.

5. In this photo, my dad doesn’t put / isn’t putting a book on a table; it’s a diary, not a book.

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6. Unemployment rises / is rising right now. 7. A: Why did you break this fl ower? B: It was an accident, sir. I apologize / am

apologizing. 8. Stop this! Can’t you see that I eat / am eating a hamburger and I cannot leave

it for later? 9. Judge: I sentence / am sentencing you to 5 years in prison.10. A: Can you see Jerry with a hammer and some nails? B: Yes, he hangs / is

hanging a picture on the wall.11. Henry imagines / is imagining that he isn’t liked by people. It started after he

was in a car accident ten years ago. Before the accident he had never had such thoughts.

12. She resents / is resenting what you said then and that’s why she hasn’t seen you for so many months.

II. Uzupełnij zdania wstawiajac podane w nawiasie słowa w odpowiednim czasie: Present Simple lub Present Continuous.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jerry (write) . . . . . . . . writes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a letter every day.

1. After his awful behavior, she (regard) ……………………….….. Jerry as a coward.

2. Oh, it was a wonderful holiday. We (thank) ……………..……….…… you very much!

3. Captain, look! The enemy soldiers (surround) ……………..……………. the castle! Another ten minutes and we will not be able to escape!

4. I can’t talk to you over the phone now, because I’m busy. … No, I (not, make ) ……………….………. dinner now, I’m busy with something else. … All right, I’ll call you later.

5. You (deserve) …….………..…………. a dessert after all this hard work! 6. It was much better before, but now, after you added tomatoes, this soup (taste)

………………….……… awful. 7. I want to give this present to Bill, who will be here in a minute. This is why I

(wrap) ……………….………… the present in this paper. 8. (these students, respect) ………….……………... their teacher? 9. Can you see these two guys in dirty clothes? They (build)

…………………………. a doghouse for their dog; they would like to fi nish before evening.

10. At this moment Sally (iron) …………………….…….. her mother’s blouse.11. Susan can’t answer the phone because she (comb)

………………..…………… her hair.12. I just (not, understand) ……………………………. this man and his views.

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III. Przetłumacz wiernie nie przetłumaczone jeszcze fragmenty zdan z j. polskiego na j. angielski. Tłumaczac, uzyj słów podanych w nawiasach (w odpowiedniej formie), o ile sa podane.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jerry pisze codziennie jeden wiersz. (write)

. . . . . . . . . Jerry writes one . . . . . . . . . . . poem every day.

1. Mam za godzine pociag i teraz pakuje walizke. (pack) My train leaves in an hour and .................................................... my suitcase. 2. Cóz, miałem sporo czasu, wiec przemyslałem to dobrze i radze ci wyjechae

na pare miesiecy do ciotki w Rosji. (advise) Well, I’ve had enough time, so I’ve thought it over

………..………………………… to go and visit your aunt in Russia for a couple of months.

3. Nie ma cie od wielu miesiecy, wiec za toba tesknie. (miss) You’ve been away for many months, ........................................................ you. 4. Na tej dziwnej ilustracji kot zmienia sie w mysz i jest gdzies w połowie tego

przeobrazenia. (turn into) In this strange picture .................................................... into a mouse and is

roughly halfway through this metamorphosis. 5. W tej sytuacji moje szczescie zalezy od tego, co zrobisz. In this situation, ……….......................................... what you do. (depend on) 6. Dlaczego mnie znowu aresztujecie? Nic nie zrobiłem. Pusccie mnie! (arrest) …….…………………….…….. me again? I haven’t done anything. Let me

go! 7. Nie moge ci teraz pomóc, ale obiecuje, ze pomoge ci pózniej. I can’ t help you now, ………..…….…………………… I will help you later.

(promise) 8. Ta wieza wznosi sie wysoko nad miastem i widac ja z daleka. (rise) This tower …………………………............... above the city and you can see

it from a great distance away. 9. Obawiam sie, ze nie mozesz sie teraz spotkac z moja córka; kapie sie w tej

chwili w łazience. (have) I’m afraid you can’t see my daughter …………………………….…….. a

bath in the bathroom at the moment.10. Widzisz? Moja ciocia miesza ryz z warzywami, ze by zrobic risotto. (mix) Can you see? My ................................................... rice with vegetables to

make risotto. 11. Ładne zdjecie. O, a ten chłopiec, to kto? A, juz wiem, poznaje mojego wuja

Marka, był wtedy małym chłopcem. (recognize) A nice picture. Oh, and this boy, who is it? All right now,

……………………………………… Mark, he was a young boy then.

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12. Dlaczego on sie goli? Mówił, ze pójdzie do pracy nieogolony. (shave) ……...................................................? He said that he would go to work

unshaved.

Słowniczek

advise – radzic, poradzicapologize – przepraszac, przeprosicappearance - wygladcome from – pochodzic z / dochodzic, dojsc zdepend on – zalezec oddeserve – załugiwac, zasłuzyc nadiary - pamietnikescape – uciekac, uciechang – zawieszac, zawiesichave – miec / brac, wziac (np. prysznic)imagine – zdawac, zdac sie komus, zejudge – sedziaknit – robic, zrobic cos na drutachmean – znaczycmiss – tesknicmix – mieszac, wymieszacneedle - drutpack – pakowac, spakowacpromise – obiecywac, obiecacrecognize – poznac, rozpoznac

regard – uwazacresemble – przypominac, byc podobnymresent – czuc, poczuc sie urazonymrespect - szanowacrise – wzrastac, wzrosnac / wznosic, wzniesc sie / wschodzic, wzejscsentence – skazywac, skazacshave – golic, ogolic siesurround – otaczac, otoczyc / okrazac, okrazyctaste – smakowac / kosztowac, skosztowacthank – dziekowac, podziekowacturn into – zmieniac, zmienic sie wundress – rozbierac, rozebrac sieunemployment – bezrobocieview – pogladwool - wełnawrap – owijac, owinac

Test CProjekt badawczy Jakuba Bielaka i Mirosława Pawlaka, Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza, Kalisz

Imie i nazwisko: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Klasa: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I. Wybierz i zakresl kółkiem jedna z dwóch podkreslonych i oddzielonych znakiem „/” czesci zdania, która lepiej, poprawniej uzupełnia tekst. Druga, odrzucona czesc zdania przekresl.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jack has gone / have going to school.

1. Worker: This job is awful and I can’t do it any longer. In fact, I resign / am resigning. Boss: Oh, no. You can’t do this to me!

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2. There are some workers in the closed shop because they renovate / are renovating it.

3. Do you realize / Are you realizing how hard it is to have a regular job and study English at uni-versity at the same time?

4. This long word doesn’t mean / isn’t meaning ‘a cat’ in Japanese. 5. I don’t remember / am not remembering the time when we were happy. It’s

just not in my memory. 6. Can you see the funny look on Jenny’s face? That’s because she tastes / is

tasting my mother’s sour soup. 7. I gave him a piece of wood and now he sculpts / is sculpting a fi gure out of it. 8. This large tree, which was cut down three days ago, weighs / is weighing

almost 2 tons. 9. I can see that the shopkeeper closes / is closing the shop, so you won’t

manage to buy bread.10. You can hear that awful screaming because the dentist pulls out / is pulling

out Jerry’s tooth. He is so quick to scream when in pain.11. He is still OK but he’s had a few drinks and he gets drunk / is getting drunk.

You must stop him!12. The lord pities / is pitying people who make so little money and have to feed

their large families.

II. Uzupełnij zdania wstawiajac podane w nawiasie słowa w odpowiednim czasie: Present Simple lub Present Continuous.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jerry (write) . . . . . . . . writes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a letter every day.

1. He (seem) …………………………. to be a wonderful football player. 2. The price of this holiday (include) ……………………………accommodation

and transport, but not food. 3. A: Why do you need a pen? B: Because I (write) ……………………………

an essay for tomor-row’s class. 4. Can you see those young men with baseball bats? I think they (damage)

………………………….. our neighbor’s car now. 5. After you did and said all those things last year the detective started to be sus-

picious. In fact, he (suspect) ………………………… you of this crime now. 6. Look up! The crane (lift) …………………………... a very large stone onto

the roof. 7. Hello guys! I was born in Scotland, where I lived up until last year, but I

(come) ………………………. to Poland from Russia, where I have lived for 7 months.

8. I can’t stop the car because we (drive) ……………………..…. to Venice and we mustn’t be late.

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9. She used to weigh 100 kg, but after dieting for 6 months she (not, weigh) ……………...…………….. that much.

10. You can now see how brave Linda is. (you, admire) …………………….……... her for her bravery?

11. She can’t stop and talk to you, because she (carry) …………………..……… this packet to the bank. It’s really urgent!

12. VIP: We all came here to christen the new ship, so let me do it: ‘I (name) ……………..………….. the ship Queen Mary’.

III. Przetłumacz wiernie nie przetłumaczone jeszcze fragmenty zdan z j. polskiego na j. angielski. Tłumaczac, uzyj słów podanych w nawiasach (w odpowiedniej formie), o ile sa podane.

PRZYKŁAD:

Jerry pisze codziennie jeden wiersz. (write)

. . . . . . . . . Jerry writes one . . . . . . . . . . . poem every day.

1. W tej chwili instalujesz kuchenke w kuchni? (instal) .................................................... a cooker in the kitchen right now? 2. Ten dom nalezy teraz do mnie i moge go sprzedac, chocby jutro. (belong) ................................................... me now, and I can sell it, even tomorrow. 3. Popatrz tylko! Złoty płot otacza ten piekny pałac. (surround) Just look! A gold ………………………………….… palace. 4. Nie przeszkadzajcie nam, bo rozgrywamy partyjke brydza. (play) Don’t bother us, ………........................................ a game of bridge. 5. Wstawaj! Musisz to zobaczyc! Słonce własnie wschodzi. (rise) Get up! You have to see this! .….………………………….………. at the

moment. 6. Roztapiam w tym garnku masło poniewaz chciałbym dzisiaj upiec specjalne

ciasto. (melt) …………………....................…… butter in this pot because I would like to

bake a special cake today. 7. Nie widzisz, ja nie sprzatam całego samochodu, a tylko tylne siedzenie. Musi

byc czyste na popołudnie. (clean) Can’t you see? ....................................................... car, just the back seat. It

must be clean in the afternoon. 8. Przepraszam was za moje wczorajsze zachowanie, to było spowodowane

stresem. (apologize) ……..……………………..……… my bad behavior yesterday; it was caused

by too much stress. 9. Czy Jarek i Sylwia zamierzaja mieszkac w Polsce? (intend) ........................................................... in Poland?

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10. Ona teraz załuje tego, co sie stało. (regret) Now, ..................................................... what happened.11. Przypuszczam, ze on jest teraz na wakacjach i lezy na plazy. (suppose) ......................................................... gone for a holiday and is lying on the

beach.12. Prosze, pomóz mi. Własnie przykrywam dziure tym ogromnym głazem.

(cover) Please, …………....………………………. the hole with this huge stone.

Słowniczek

admire – podziwiacapologize – przepraszac, przeprosicbaseball bat – kij baseballowybelong to – nalezec docarry – niesc, zaniescchristen – chrzcic, ochrzciccome from – pochodzic z / dochodzic, dojsc zcover – przykrywac, przykryccrane – dzwigdamage – uszkadzac, uszkodzicessay – wypracowaniefeed – karmic, wykarmicfence – płotget drunk – upijac, upic sieinclude – obejmowac, objacinstall – instalowac, zainstalowacintend - zamierzaclift – podnosic, podniescmean – znaczycmelt – roztapiac, roztopicmemory - pamiec

name – nadawac, nadac imiepity – współczucpull out – wyrywac, wyrwacrealize – zdawac, zdac sobie spraweregret - załowacrenovate – remontowac, wyremontowacresign - rezygnowac, zrezygnowacrise – wzrastac, wzrosnac / wznosic, wzniesc sie / wschodzic, wzejscsculpt – rzezbic, wyrzezbicseem – wydawac, wydac siestone – kamien, głazsuppose – przypuszczac, przypuscicsurround – otaczac, otoczyc / okrazac, okrazycsuspect – podejrzewacsuspicious - podejrzliwytaste – smakowac / kosztowac, skosztowacurgent – pilnyweigh – wazyc (np. 2 kg) / wazyc, zwazyc

Appendix E: The Written Test

263J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Test A stimulus sentences

1. My parents are playing a game of cards now. 2. My father’s shoes do not cost over 200 zloty. 3. My parents are intending to go abroad this year. 4. My mother understands young people very well. 5. At this moment, my father is repairing something. 6. I am sure my father is having a very good job. 7. It’s diffi cult, but I’m thanking you for this task. 8. My mother melts ice in the kitchen now. 9. Probably my father is smelling fl owers right now.10. My mother does not feed a dog at this moment.

Test B stimulus sentences

1. Believe it or not, I promise I will eat less fat. 2. My father is not selling an old car now. 3. Right now my father paints a wall at home. 4. It’s possible that my parents are eating breakfast. 5. I am sure different people trust my father . 6. My mother is not judging her life to be a success. 7. My father’s job is including a lot of walking. 8. My mother comes home from a shop now. 9. The soup my mom cooked yesterday smells very nice.10. My mother cleans her desk at this moment.

Appendix F The Oral Elicited Imitation Test

264

Test C stimulus sentences

1. My mother is ironing my clothes right now. 2. Probably my father knows some famous people. 3. Listen, I am swearing that my mom likes hip-hop. 4. My mother’s safe is containing a lot of gold rings. 5. At home, my father changes his clothes now. 6. My parents defi nitely come from Kalisz. 7. It’s possible that my mother tastes some food now. 8. At this moment my mother is not baking a cake. 9. My father does not prefer bikes to cars now.10. I’m at school but my father drives to work now.

Oral test sheet

Test nr . . . . . . .

Imie i nazwisko: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Klasa: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

2. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

3. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

4. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

5. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

6. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

7. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

8. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

9. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

10. Prawda Nieprawda Nie jestem pewien/pewna

Appendix F: The Oral Elicited Imitation Test

265J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

ANKIETA

Czesc pierwsza – wiadomosci o uczniu

Imie i nazwisko: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jak długo uczysz sie j. angielskiego? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ile godzin j. angielskiego tygodniowo miałes/as w poprzednich szkołach?Przedszkole: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Szkoła podstawowa: . . . . . . . . . . . .Gimnazjum: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Czy uczysz lub uczyłes/as sie j. angielskiego na kursach lub lekcjach indywidualnych poza szkoła? TAK/NIE (zaznacz jedna odpowiedz)Jesli tak, to napisz jakiego rodzaju to kursy i jak intensywne (np. przez dwa lata w gimnazjum chodziłem/am na kurs dla sredniozaawansowanych, zajecia 2 razy w tygodniu po 1,5 godziny, itp.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix G Questionnaire for COG

266

Czy masz kontakt z j. angielskim poza lekcjami w szkole i na kursach? TAK/NIE Jesli tak, to napisz w jakiej formie i jak czesto (np. czasami docieram do słów moich ulubionych piosenek i próbuje je zrozumiec lub przetłumaczyc na j. polski albo mniej wiecej dwa razy w tygodniu ogladam krótki program telewizyjny po angielsku, itp.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dlaczego uczysz sie jezyka angielskiego? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Czesc druga – komentarze i opinie uczniów

W Twojej klasie przedstawiono niedawno uzycie czasów Present Simple i Present Continuous, kiedy mówimy o wydarzeniach dziejacych sie w chwili mówienia (w czasie terazniejszym).

Czy uczyłes/as sie tego materiału gramatycznego wczesniej? TAK/NIEJesli tak, to napisz w jaki sposób. Czy w inny niz podczas niedawnej lekcji? Jesli inny, to na czym polega róznica? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

UWAGA: W ponizszych pytaniach zaznacz jedna z pieciu odpowiedzi (wyjasnienie symboli: 1 – zdecydowanie nie zgadzam sie, 2 – nie zgadzam sie, 3 – nie mam zdania, 4 – zgadzam sie, 5 – zdecydowanie zgadzam sie).

Co sadzisz o sposobie, w jaki przedstawiono niedawno uzycie czasów Present Simple i Present Continuous, kiedy mówimy o wydarzeniach dziejacych sie w chwili mówienia (w czasie terazniejszym)?

1. Ta lekcja podobała mi sie. 1 2 3 4 5 Co Ci sie podobało, a co nie? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix G: Questionnaire for COG

267

2. Ta lekcja była interesujaca. 1 2 3 4 5 Co było interesujace, a co nie? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. Wszystko było zrozumiałe, jasne. 1 2 3 4 5 Co było zrozumiałe, a co nie? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4. Ta lekcja była łatwa. 1 2 3 4 5 Co było łatwe, a co trudne? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5. Rysunki i wykresy uzyte podczas tej lekcji były jasne i pomocne. 1 2 3 4 5

6. Teraz rozumiem w jaki sposób uzywamy tych czasów. 1 2 3 4 5

Jesli czegos nie rozumiesz, napisz czego. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7. Teraz potrafi e je poprawnie stosowac. 1 2 3 4 5

8. Czy uczyłes/as sie tego materiału gramatycznego samodzielnie w domu, po lekcji? TAK/NIE

Jesli tak, to napisz jak długo i w jaki sposób. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Inne komentarze dotyczace tej lekcji: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix G: Questionnaire for COG

269J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Appendix H Questionnaire for TRAD

ANKIETA

Czesc pierwsza – wiadomosci o uczniu

Imie i nazwisko: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jak długo uczysz sie j. angielskiego? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ile godzin j. angielskiego tygodniowo miałes/as w poprzednich szkołach?Przedszkole: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Szkoła podstawowa: . . . . . . . . . . . . Gimnazjum: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Czy uczysz lub uczyłes/as sie j. angielskiego na kursach lub lekcjach indywidual-nych poza szkoła? TAK/NIE (zaznacz jedna odpowiedz)Jesli tak, to napisz jakiego rodzaju to kursy i jak intensywne (np. przez dwa lata w gimnazjum chodziłem/am na kurs dla sredniozaawansowanych, zajecia 2 razy w tygodniu po 1,5 godziny, itp.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

270

Czy masz kontakt z j. angielskim poza lekcjami w szkole i na kursach? TAK/NIE Jesli tak, to napisz w jakiej formie i jak czesto (np. czasami docieram do słów moich ulubionych piosenek i próbuje je zrozumiec lub przetłumaczyc na j. polski albo mniej wiecej dwa razy w tygodniu ogladam krótki program telewizyjny po angielsku, itp.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dlaczego uczysz sie jezyka angielskiego? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Czesc druga – komentarze i opinie uczniów

W Twojej klasie przedstawiono niedawno uzycie czasów Present Simple i Present Continuous, kiedy mówimy o wydarzeniach dziejacych sie w chwili mówienia (w czasie terazniejszym).

Czy uczyłes/as sie tego materiału gramatycznego wczesniej? TAK/NIEJesli tak, to napisz w jaki sposób. Czy w inny niz podczas niedawnej lekcji? Jesli inny, to na czym polega róznica? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

UWAGA: W ponizszych pytaniach zaznacz jedna z pieciu odpowiedzi (wyjasnienie symboli: 1 – zdecydowanie nie zgadzam sie, 2 – nie zgadzam sie, 3 – nie mam zdania, 4 – zgadzam sie, 5 – zdecydowanie zgadzam sie).

Co sadzisz o sposobie, w jaki przedstawiono niedawno uzycie czasów Present Simple i Present Continuous, kiedy mówimy o wydarzeniach dziejacych sie w chwili mówienia (w czasie terazniejszym)?

1. Ta lekcja podobała mi sie. 1 2 3 4 5 Co Ci sie podobało, a co nie? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix H: Questionnaire for TRAD

271

2. Ta lekcja była interesujaca. 1 2 3 4 5 Co było interesujace, a co nie? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. Wszystko było zrozumiałe, jasne. 1 2 3 4 5 Co było zrozumiałe, a co nie? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4. Ta lekcja była łatwa. 1 2 3 4 5 Co było łatwe, a co trudne? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5. Teraz rozumiem w jaki sposób uzywamy tych czasów. 1 2 3 4 5

Jesli czegos nie rozumiesz, napisz czego. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6. Teraz potrafi e je poprawnie stosowac. 1 2 3 4 5

7. Czy uczyłes/as sie tego materiału gramatycznego samodzielnie w domu, po lekcji? TAK/NIE

Jesli tak, to napisz jak długo i w jaki sposób. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Inne komentarze dotyczace tej lekcji: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix H: Questionnaire for TRAD

273J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

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291291J. Bielak and M. Pawlak, Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom, Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Associative learning, 109, 110Attention, 45, 53, 60, 103–105, 114, 119, 123,

140, 154, 157, 168, 220Auto-input, 106

BBacksliding, 95Base, 23–25, 43, 48–50, 52, 76, 82, 132, 167,

170, 186, 187, 215Binary-choice test, 167, 173, 180Bonferroni post hoc test, 171Boundedness, 133, 143, 148, 163, 186Bounding, 34, 76, 77, 81, 82, 86, 128

CCanonical event model, 16, 52Case grammar, 59, 121Categorization

by prototype, 27, 28by schema, 27, 28

CL. See Cognitive linguisticsClarification request, 109, 119Coding, 44, 51–53, 123, 125, 129, 184, 201Cognition, 9, 10, 45, 46, 51, 52, 54, 73, 76,

129Cognitive ability, 45–47, 50–52Cognitive anti-method, 98Cognitive approach to grammar, 4, 7, 8, 53,

55, 56, 122, 215Cognitive domain, 20–22, 26Cognitive linguistics, 1, 2, 4, 7–10, 13, 17, 43,

52–55, 62, 76, 109, 122, 126, 132, 135, 152, 216, 219

AAbstraction, 46, 51, 52Access node, 23–25Acquisition-learning hypothesis, 96Acquisition order, 94, 96, 101Adjective, 29, 36–39, 118, 177Advance organizer, 106Adverb, 29, 36–39, 41, 101, 150, 167Affect, 28, 112, 125, 129, 166, 218Affective activity, 107Affective filter, 97Affective filter hypothesis, 97Aktionsart, 64, 65Analysis of variance, 171, 173, 175, 176,

179–182, 197–199Analytic teaching strategy, 114ANOVA. See Analysis of varianceApplied cognitive linguistics, 2, 122, 216Approximative system, 94Article, 2, 129, 134, 136Aspect

grammatical, 64, 65, 149imperfective. See Verb, imperfectivelexical, 64, 65, 76, 77, 140, 149–151,

164, 168–170non-progressive aspect, 62, 73, 74, 84, 85,

128, 148, 160, 164perfect, 64, 148perfective. See Verb, perfectiveperfective/imperfective aspectual distinc-

tion, 76, 149progressive, 4, 11, 42, 53, 56, 57, 63, 71,

75, 76, 78, 81, 83, 87, 141, 147, 148, 151, 164, 184, 207, 220

Aspect Hypothesis, 150

Index

Index292292

EEffect size, 171, 172, 175, 176, 180, 181, 197,

199, 207Elicited imitation test, 142, 144, 165–168,

197, 198, 200–204, 212, 217Embodied character of language, 8Encyclopedic semantics, 20English, 29, 33, 42, 52, 58, 63, 64, 67, 72,

73, 78, 83, 87, 100, 123, 134–136, 147–149, 154, 166, 184, 195, 197, 203

Entrenchment, 18Error correction, 95, 97, 119, 125, 134Expansibility, 34, 35, 41, 42, 76, 77, 86Experiential teaching strategy, 97, 99Explicit instruction, 92, 97, 103, 110, 115–

118, 126, 136, 153, 166, 200, 213Explicit knowledge, 90–92, 96, 104, 111,

116–118, 126, 134, 135, 151, 166, 173, 177, 180, 187, 197, 208, 210, 216, 218

Explicit learning, 91, 92, 103, 115

FFeature-focused option, 114, 115, 117, 137Feedback, 106, 114, 117–120, 125, 134, 137,

143, 151, 153, 156, 165Figure/ground alignment, 52Focused communication, 114, 115, 118Focus on error, 114, 119, 153, 156Focus on forms, 99, 105, 114Force dynamics, 135Formulator, 44Fossilization, 95Fragile feature, 110French, 108, 132, 133, 137Functional grammar, 121

GGames-Howell test, 171Gap-filling test, 134, 144, 156, 167, 173, 178,

179, 181, 182, 190Garden path technique, 118General linear model, 171, 175, 181, 198Generative grammar. See Generative linguis-

ticsGenerative linguistics, 9, 11, 12, 53, 54, 59, 60Generativism. See Generative linguisticsGerman, 11Government and binding theory, 44Grammaring, 124Grammatical construction, 15, 42, 124, 186Greenhouse-Geisser correction, 176,

182, 199

Cognitive psychology, 91, 104Cognitive routine, 11, 26Cognitive science, 1, 45Collaborative dialogue, 109, 116, 135Commercial transaction frame, 20Communicational teaching project, 98, 99, 137Communicative competence, 93, 99Communicative language teaching, 94, 100Component structure, 43, 45, 46, 55Composite structure, 43, 46Composition, 15, 19, 42–46, 52, 80Comprehensible input hypothesis, 96Comprehension communication task, 114, 115Conceptual blending theory, 8Conceptualization, 20, 39, 40, 44, 46, 50, 123,

125, 132, 162, 188Conceptual metaphor, 8Conceptual metaphor theory, 2, 8Conceptual semantics, 8Connectionism, 109, 110, 117, 137, 219Consciousness raising, 105, 115Construal, 47, 133Constructional schema, 15, 16, 42, 43, 51,

52, 75Construction grammar, 8, 54, 55, 220Content-based teaching, 98Contractibility, 34, 35, 41, 42, 76, 82, 86Cora, 11Corpus linguistics, 59Correspondence, 12, 13, 19, 26, 43–46, 52,

59, 76, 80Croatian, 11Crosslinguistic influence. See Language transferCzech, 11

DDeclarative clause, 124, 128Declarative knowledge, 102–104Deductive teaching/instruction, 116, 117, 134,

135, 153Deep processing, 125, 129, 184, 187Deep understanding, 125, 129Delayed-effect hypothesis, 106, 111, 117, 137,

152, 187, 200Descriptive grammar, 58, 59, 66, 75, 120, 121Descriptive/reference grammar, 57, 62, 66, 72,

87, 121Design criteria for pedagogical language rules,

88Developmental feature, 101, 102, 111Developmental sequence, 94, 96, 101Dutch, 11

C (Cont.)

Index 293293

MMemory, 9, 45, 55, 103, 104, 106, 107, 111,

117, 125, 129Mental space, 8, 132, 133Mental spaces theory, 8, 132Mental transformation, 46Method, 98Methodological option, 4, 89, 90, 100, 113,

114, 120, 137, 151, 152, 205, 215Minimalist program, 44, 60Monitor, 4, 95–98, 111, 137, 156, 189Monitor hypothesis, 96Monitor model, 4, 95–113, 137Monitor theory. See Monitor modelMood, 132, 133, 135Morpheme acquisition study, 94Morphological stage, 150Morphology, 13, 15, 16, 64, 89, 100, 149Motivation, 8, 17, 34, 94, 97, 124, 126, 129,

132, 133, 137, 142, 186Multidimensional model, 101

NNatural approach, 98, 134, 137Natural order hypothesis, 96Neural activation, 11, 32Non-interface hypothesis, 111Non-interventionist position, 93, 95, 98–100,

111, 136, 137Non-linguistic unit, 17Noticing, 91, 92, 104, 105, 108, 110, 111, 117,

119, 137Noticing hypothesis, 104, 105, 108, 110, 111,

137Noun

count, 30, 34, 35, 40, 41, 186mass. See Noun, non-countnon-count, 29, 34, 35, 39–41, 123, 132, 133

OOutput, 44, 45, 99, 108, 109, 112, 118, 135,

137, 153Output hypothesis, 4, 108, 109, 112, 137Overgeneralization, 95, 118

PParallel distributed processing, 11Part of speech. See Word classPedagogical grammar, 3, 4, 58, 73, 74, 83, 87,

90, 120–127, 130, 135–137, 141, 149, 154, 156, 184, 210, 217

HHeterogeneity, 8, 76, 84, 128, 213Homogeneity, 35, 41, 76, 79, 82, 128, 163,

175

IIdentity hypothesis, 4, 93–95, 97, 136Image schemas theory, 8Immediate scope, 49, 52, 75, 79–82, 86Immersion program, 98, 108, 137Implicit instruction, 106, 115, 117, 118Implicit knowledge, 91, 98, 102, 111, 115,

117, 118, 126, 135–137, 143, 166–168, 197, 200, 201, 204, 212, 217, 218

Implicit learning, 91, 92, 110, 111, 115Incidental learning, 115Incubation period, 106, 200Inductive teaching, 153Inert knowledge problem, 93Innate language faculty, 96Input, 3, 45, 92, 96, 97, 105–107, 110, 111,

118, 119, 135–137, 168, 220Input enhancement, 105, 114, 119Input flooding, 119Input processing theory, 106, 107, 111, 137,

168Intentional learning, 115Interaction hypothesis, 108, 112, 137Interface hypothesis, 111, 112, 152Interlanguage, 93–95, 97, 101, 105, 106, 109,

112, 166, 187, 188, 200, 211Interlanguage theory, 93–95, 97, 137Inter-subject variability, 188, 189, 191, 213Interventionist position, 100, 108

LL1 = L2 hypothesis, 93Landmark, 36–38, 40, 46, 50–52, 75, 78, 80,

132Language acquisition device, 93, 96, 97Language awareness, 125, 184Language transfer, 94, 149Learner performance option, 113, 114, 151Lexical approach, 55Lexical category. See Word classLexical stage, 150Likert-scale, 171, 172, 206, 208, 209Linguistic grammar, 120, 121Linguistic unit, 11–13, 18, 19, 22, 26, 28, 43,

44, 46, 51, 53, 90, 124Logical problem of language acquisition, 96

Index294294

Scanningsequential, 36, 39, 46, 47, 75, 78, 79, 86,

126summary, 46, 47

Scope of predication, 49, 76–78Second language acquisition, 1, 89–93, 95,

96, 100, 101, 104, 110, 112, 113, 118, 120, 122, 132, 136, 137, 166, 215, 216, 219

Selection, 49, 52, 73, 98, 109, 170, 187Semantic motivation, 8, 17, 34, 124, 186Semantic pole, 12, 13, 16, 18, 22, 27, 30, 33,

37, 39, 43, 46, 80Semantic space, 19, 20, 22, 25–28Semantic unit, 20, 21Simplification, 37, 94, 95Skill-learning theory, 4, 102–104, 109, 111,

117, 137, 152SLA. See Second language acquisitionSociocultural theory, 109, 152Space grammar, 10Spanish, 132, 133, 135Speech act theory, 59Split-block procedure, 169SPSS, 171Stimulus sentence, 169, 170, 201Strategies of learning and communication, 95Structured input activity, 107, 112, 119, 135,

136Syllabus

analytic, 4, 10, 56, 61, 76, 98, 114, 132built-in, 95communicative, 93, 94, 97–100, 103, 107,

111, 112, 115, 116, 118, 124, 134, 213, 219

procedural, 98process, 99structural, 114, 151Type B, 98

Symbolic thesis, 7, 12–14, 17Symbolic unit, 13, 16, 22, 23, 29, 31, 37Symbolization, 12, 19, 22, 26, 42, 44, 46, 52Syntax, 13, 15, 16, 43, 54, 64, 89, 125Systemic-functional grammar, 121Systemic theory, 59

TTeachability hypothesis, 95, 101, 102, 111Temporal connector, 133Tense

future perfect progressive, 100past, 17, 42, 101, 116, 119, 124, 186present, 57, 157

Perspective, 4, 9, 26, 49, 52, 64, 78, 81, 83, 92, 109, 112, 126, 129, 216

Phonological pole, 12, 13, 15–18, 30, 31, 33, 39Phonological space, 19, 26, 28, 29Phonological unit, 27Phonology, 33, 39, 105Phrase structure grammar, 59Plural noun formation, 15, 52Polish, 11, 58, 73, 99, 134, 149, 151–153, 157,

171, 200, 218Possessive, 123Postmethod era, 113Poverty of the stimulus, 96Practical grammar, 58, 62, 73, 75, 85, 87, 131,

151Practical/pedagogical grammar, 58, 71, 73, 75,

83, 87, 121, 215Pragmatics, 20, 25, 52, 55, 90, 129Pragmatic stage, 150Predication, 12, 32, 34, 49, 76–78Preposition, 13, 14, 123Priming effect, 106Procedural knowledge, 102–104Processability hierarchy, 101, 150Processability theory, 95, 101, 104, 137Processing instruction, 105, 107, 119,

134–136Profile, 22–25, 32–34, 39–41, 43, 48–50, 75,

77, 80, 82, 84, 132Profile determinant, 43Prototype theory, 2, 17Psychology, 1, 45, 91, 104

QQuestionnaire, 141, 142, 171–173, 204–210

RRadical construction grammar, 54, 55Recasting, 119Reference grammar, 66, 81, 87Referential activity, 107Relation

atemporal, 36–38, 79temporal, 36–40, 63, 67, 72, 76, 77, 124,

133, 150, 160Relational grammar, 121Replicability, 34, 41Rule/list fallacy, 43

SScaffolded interaction, 152

P (Cont.)

Index 295295

Verbdynamic, 11, 26, 53, 62–64, 70–75, 87,

129, 140, 148, 155, 156, 213, 220imperfective, 30, 39–42, 69, 72, 76, 78, 81,

82, 87, 149, 169, 184, 186modal, 129, 133, 148perfective, 39–41, 42, 53, 70, 72, 76–79,

81–83, 149, 162, 184, 186performative, 82, 165, 169phrasal, 2, 132–134stance, 63, 148state. See Verb, stativestative, 65–76, 78, 83, 84, 128, 154, 156,

161, 213, 220Voice

active, 133middle, 133passive, 115, 133

WWord class, 27, 29–31, 33, 36, 39, 47, 50, 51

ZZero option, 93, 98–100

present continuous. See Present progressive

present progressive, 3, 72, 73, 116, 130, 140, 148, 149, 151, 154–156, 161, 163, 164, 167, 169, 172, 178, 210, 213, 221

present simple, 3, 116, 130, 140, 149, 151, 154–157, 163, 164, 169, 178, 210, 221–223, 225, 226, 245

Theoretical grammar, 1–4, 7, 8, 57–59, 90, 93, 98, 104, 106, 108–110, 121, 122, 127, 147, 149, 215, 216

Trajector, 36–38, 40, 51, 75, 78, 80, 86, 132Transfer-appropriate processing, 103Transfer of training, 94Translation test, 167, 173, 182t-test, 172, 206

UUnboundedness, 133, 148, 186Universal grammar, 93, 95, 96, 121Usage-based nature of language, 8Usage event, 25, 44, 46, 124

VVariational feature, 111