There's has been a plenty of applied cognitive linguistics research during the past two decades. I wonder if there is any language learning textbook or material (e.g., website or program) that is compiled or designed according to the applied CL research results and suggestions? I know that Macmillan Dictionary displays figurative lexis according to conceptual metaphors (Lakoff, 1987), but are there any others?
There is a lot of research but you have to dig for it. Try Google Scholar for a start. As far as I know, there is no textbook, website or program. There is a lot of pop psychology about 'brain-based learning' but I would not trust that.
About two years ago I compiled a report on such research that I might be willing to share with you if you could tell me more about how you intend to use it.
I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but my software ( https://github.com/martinwheatman/enguage ) is a program which processes ordinary language (natural language utterances) in ordinary languages. It has a hypothetically cognitive basis, in that it defines meaning on other utterances rather than a programming language (like Alexa et al.) This is not some eccentric theory of my own - it follows the 2000 year-old principles of Semiotics, in particular the model of Charles Sanders Peirce. Because it supports arbitrary transformations, it's quality of language is far beyond "buy this" or "play that". This is an example of it demonstrating verbal reasoning: https://youtu.be/5ra3P3DcpwY
The research is partly based on the idea of Gödel Numbering.
Many apologies for the self-promotion!
Martin, Interesting. And you are not self-promoting. What's your aim with this? Is this going to be a natural language translation device?
Hello Terry, thanks for the reply. Good question! It was (and still is!) a natural language interface for software. It supports understanding, so you can describe [the actions behind] concepts in words. It does lots of things in a very simple and novel way. I'm currently thinking about illustrating Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.
I have been doing research on applying Talmy's Cognitive Linguistic Typology of Event Conflation to the teaching of Phrasal Verbs in EFL. I find it quite effective and some of my papers offer specific teaching methods and classroom applications. Let me know if you are interested or check some of my papers on phrasal verbs.
Ryan, I wish I had know you when I was teaching English. I just looked up a few or your papers and those are the kinds of things I liked doing. Unfortunately, I had not yet discovered linguistics, a sad comment on teacher training. I will revisit your papers when I get back to working on 'body talk', my back-burner language teaching project based on concepts from embodied cognition.
Terry Clayton thank you for the comment. If you ever wind up using some of these in the future, please let me know; I would love to take more data and perhaps we could write a paper together. Especially with Phrasal Verbs - considering the base theory, the lessons, or certain parts of it, might work better with learners of certain L1s better than others. I live in Japan, so have mostly tested on L1 Japanese EFL learners, but would be really interested to see how they work on other learners.
Ryan, that would be fun. Where in Japan? A former colleague of mine is head a of TOEFL program at a uni in Tokyo. My research interest is in applying concepts of embodied cognition to language learning. I started with Total Physical Response and Lakoff and went from there. The problem I found with TPR was it has no theoretical foundation other than some now outdated left/right brain research. Embodied cognition has come a long way from Lakoff. I'm flat out busy for the next couple of months but let's keep in touch. I will look for you on Linkedin.
Ryan Spring, Thanks for your sharing. I found some of your papers quite interesting, and I share similar research interests as you do, e.g., applied CL + multimedia learning. Your corpus-based study with a phrasal particle list based on Talmy is really pedagogically suggestive. This is something that a textbook should include and be popularized among language practitioners at the forefront! Unfortunately, most of the Applied CL suggestions or findings are confined to academic purposes.
Yu-Da Lai thank you for your interest. I really think it is a good lesson, because it is something that my students struggle with a lot and don't recognize. They mostly only recognize the location / time meanings of prepositions and particles. However, according to this theory, the lesson might be less effective in some parts for speakers of certain languages (like German or Russian). If you would like to try using the Phrasal Verb teaching in your class, I would love to get some data and write a paper with you. Please let me know if you are interested.
A person's short-term memory (working memory) is said to be about 3 seconds.
The memory of the voice pronounced in the English-Speaking-Test lasts only a few seconds.
Therefore, it is considered that the evaluation of the uttered voice must be returned in a few seconds, and if the model voice is heard at that timing, it can be easily corrected by collating with the previous voice memory.
So, a speaking test app was developed that actually evaluates in 3 seconds.
https://www.mintap.com/nattos/
Ryan Spring, The cooperation sounds interesting. My target students are Chinese-native speakers in Taiwan. Would the data from the side here complement those on your side? I haven't got a chance to look into how Talmy's theory may predict regarding the effectiveness of using the list of the phrasal verbs to a Chinese EFL context.
Dear Yu-Da Lai, I have been working on Applied CL in the past and can tell you, from my personal experience, that the discussion is (still) almost exclusively taking place in an academic context. The idea of substituting a long-standing (structuralist) words-plus-grammar-rules understanding of language as the basis for L2 teaching with a less intuitive (but presumably psychologically truer) cognitive-linguistic understanding of language is still alien to most L2 teachers or L2 material writers. A second issue is that Applied CL research would still need to produce sufficient evidence to show that the 'newer' CL methods and materials are - in comparison to established methods - actually more effective to teach and acquire the L2 (or a least equally effective). Without such evidence, it is not obvious whether a large-scale implementation of CL ideas within L2 teaching ought to be recommended at all.
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