Cognitive linguistics

Cognitive linguistics gives the most inclusive, consistent description of how language is organized, used and learned to date. Cognitive linguistics contains a great number of concepts that are useful to second language learners. If-clauses in English, on the other hand, remain intriguing for foreign language learners to struggle with, due to their intrinsic intricacies. EFL grammar books are paying focal attention to present explanations of if-clauses in terms of their form not meaning, hence not giving attention to their contextual meaning usage. Cognitive linguistic insights on if-clauses discuss their complexity in such a way that could be very beneficial for L2 learners. This study aims to investigate the effect of two different ways of teaching (cognitively-oriented and task-oriented) on learning English if-clauses. A sample of 60 non-English postgraduate students in three groups, two experimental groups (cognitively-oriented and task-oriented) and one control group participated in our study. The results indicated that participants from the cognitively-oriented group performed better than those in task-oriented and control groups and proved a higher degree of comprehending English if-clauses in different contexts. The findings have implications for curriculum and materials developers, as well as the English language teachers in incorporating insights from cognitive linguistics in second language materials.

This paper attempts to introduce the dimensions of bi/multi-lingualism as a cognitive linguis-tic phenomenon, which can be thought over in sociological, biolinguistic, cultural and psy-cholinguistic perspective. The main research question being asked as how bi/multilingualism is a cognitive phenomenon and what are the bilinguality problems and how do they repre-sents in linguistics? Linguistic interference, bilingual acquisition, and mental lexicons notions and multi lingual representation in the brain are the main problems of the subject. There are, at least, two dif-ferent types of linguistic transfer, positive and negative or interference. The mental lexicon is the constituent of the grammar consisting of phonological, morphological, semantic, syntac-tic, and pragmatics information which speakers have stored about individual words and morphemes in their minds.The paper, therefore, is an attempt to answer and deschibe the above questions.

The present study deals with imperative mood in Persian language based on prototype theory which is one of sub-theories of the cognitive linguistics approach. The research hypotheses are based on distinctions between the form and meaning components in the imperative mood and its distribution in the language corpus of contemporary literature. The aim of this paper is to describe and classify the criterion of the imperative mood in different language levels and beyond. According to the cognitive linguistics approach, language is part of a cognitive system and the syntactic structure of a language can't be studied separately, but all influential factors should be considered from different lingual aspects. The data analysis was carried out through descriptive and qualitative methods. It was found that the base of the verb has a high frequency in the corpus, but the form and meaning are different, with the meaning of imperative mood depending on the context. As a result, all language layers, forms and meanings in description and classification of the imperative mood should be taken into account to be analyzed cognitively.

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In this paper, we argue the effects of explicit multimodal metaphor training in developing speaking and listening skills in an EFL context. To examine the effects of using conceptual metaphors in English language classrooms and assess the metaphorical ability of EFL students, we directed two measuring instruments: pre-test and post-test for control and experimental groups in both listening and speaking skills. The pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group who were exposed to explicit multimodal metaphor training were compared with the control group's scores through this bipartite study. The outcomes of this paper can shed light on teaching and learning the multimodal language in an EFL context. The findings showed that learners who were exposed to multimodal metaphors and received explicit instruction from their teacher resulted in better scores. In other words, this paper found that explicit multimodal metaphor instructions can lead to some improvements in metaphor comprehension and production in an EFL context.

Mastery of English phrasal verbs is regarded as a stumbling block for English language learners, even at advanced levels. Possible sources of difficulty can be a lack of clear meaning and the random nature of particles. The lack of an organized approach to present phrasal verbs to the learners might be a factor that could exacerbate the situation of learning them. This study takes this issue as its point of departure. It investigates whether employing radial categories, conceptual categories with one prototypical concept and some peripheral members that are organized around it, is influential in the learning and long-term retention of these verbs. Moreover, the effect of employing radial categories to teach PVs on learners' cognitive load is investigated. For this purpose, 60 intermediate high school students in 10th and 11th grade were assigned to two groups, one experimental and one control group, each containing 30 students. The study results indicated that the experimental group learners who were taught phrasal verbs using radial categories outperformed control group learners who were taught using a traditional approach. This result suggests that radial categories may help facilitate learning phrasal verbs.

Cognitive linguistics is an approach in the study of language that examines the relationship between his language and mind and his social and physical experiences. Cognitive Linguistics is one of the interdisciplinary sciences whose purpose is reflection and precision in the mechanism of the relationship between the structure and the constituent elements of a text in order to better understand the process of completing the meaning and the concept hidden in it. Herbert Paul Grice is one of the linguistic analytical philosophers that according to this point of view, has conducted detailed and extensive studies on conversations and linguistic actions and their indirect and implicit meaning in everyday language, which has become known as Grice's cooperative principle. Conversation is one of the constructive elements of every narrative text that plays a central role in transferring the meaning. Grice sees conversation as a purposeful and rational behavior and it is a type of cooperation-based interaction that has its own logic. According to his theory, every successful dialogue is based on observing the 4 principles of cooperation (quantity, quality, communication and method) and if any deviation from one or more of the four principles is based on a certain relationship and purpose, it leads to the necessity of communication and if this goal is not provided departing from these principles will lead to the failure of dialogue. Therefore, in this research, some of the conversations between Jesus and the apostles in the Holy Qur'an have been analyzed, based on the theory of Grice's rules in a descriptive and analytical method in order to answer the question of how the cooperative principle is used and violated and what effect these violations have on the meaning and purpose of speaker. The results show that the dialogues of Jesus and the apostles in the Holy Qur'an violate the 4th principle of cooperation. The 3rd principle is most evident that the words of Jesus and the apostles have the quantity of 3 times in the Holy Qur'an and 2 other principles namely the principle of communication and the principle of method have a harmonious participation in the dialogue of the apostles and Jesus.

While many English language learning textbooks provide exercises on the difference between present simple and present progressive tenses, they often lack meticulous explanations regarding their meaning and contextual usage. Having been inspired by cognitive linguistic studies on English present tense and the theory of Cognitive Grammar, an empirical study was devised to incorporate the elements of cognitive linguistics analysis of English present progressive tense into EFL grammar teaching material. This quasi-experimental study included 53 adult EFL learners being homogenized in terms of their English proficiency based on their scores on Quick Oxford Placement Test, and randomly assigned to three groups. The course of instruction lasted for three weeks during which the groups met 6 times. The cognitive group (N = 18) received cognitive linguistic explanations followed by examples indicating inherited epistemic contingency in English present progressive tense (including, current ongoingness, historical present progressive, future present progressive, temporary validity, duration, iteration, repetition, and modality) and structural construal indicated by present simple. The task-based group (N = 16) received conscious-raising tasks lacking cognitive linguistic explanations. The control group (N = 19) did not receive any explicit instruction. Pretest and posttest scores were used to measure the effectiveness of the types of instruction. The results of paired samples t-test and one-way ANOVA revealed that the cognitive group outperformed the task-based group and the control group showing a higher level of construing usage context of present simple and present progressive tense. 

This article aims at contrasting the conceptualization of space in Persian and English. Using three semantic primes of 'space', namely 'below', 'side' and 'touch' proposed in Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), as one of the cognitive semantics approaches to study language, this cross-linguistic design intends to uncover the similarities and differences of conceptualizations in the two languages. The data came from the Hamshahri corpus of Persian-written data and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).The data were compared to see whether or not the NSM theory is viable to explain the spatial conceptualization. The results indicated that the semantic primes have more than one exponent in Persian and English, with their particular function and conceptual range. Besides, the prime of 'touch' has not spatial correspondence in Persian language. This means that the NSM approach does not provide enough analytical toolkits to satisfactorily explain the similarities and differences in cross-cultural cognitive semantic comparisons and cannot exhaustively explain the conceptualization of ‘space’. Nonetheless, this approach provides us with some insight into the cognitive properties in the minds of the speakers.

The present study investigates the effectiveness of a conceptual approach, grounded in cognitive linguistics, in enhancing the comprehension and production of phrasal verbs among Iranian EFL learners of English. To this end, 38 participants (16 males and 22 females) at intermediate levels of language proficiency were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group, and underwent instruction through the conceptual approach or the traditional method, respectively. A pre-test was administered to assess baseline performance, followed by the intervention and two post-tests (i.e., a cloze test and a story-retelling task) to measure changes in comprehension and production of the phrasal verbs. The cloze test measured differences in phrasal verb comprehension, while the story-retelling task assessed production and accuracy. The mixed between-within-subjects ANOVA (SPANOVA) revealed significant improvement in the experimental group on the post-test. Independent sample t-tests confirmed superior performance in the production and accuracy of phrasal verbs for the experimental group. This suggests that the conceptual approach offers a systematic method for learners to approach phrasal verbs analytically, contrasting with the traditional perception of these elements as non-analyzable. As a practical implication, educators in EFL contexts, are strongly urged to adopt the presented conceptual approach. This innovative pedagogical strategy not only enriches the learning experience but also addresses linguistic challenges associated with phrasal verbs, fostering creativity in the instructional process through situational presentations and orientational metaphors.