Overview

The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the conference Cognitive Approaches to English, an international event organized to mark the 30th anniversary of English studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University, Osijek, which was held in Osijek on October 18–19, 2007. The participants were invited to discuss issues in cognitive accounts of English, ranging from fundamental to methodological to interdisciplinary and applied. The volume is accordingly divided into four parts. Part I, Motivation in grammar, deals with various phenomena in the grammar of English in the broadest sense of the term, all of which are shown to be motivated by metaphorical and/or metonymic operations. Part II, Constructing meaning (between grammar and lexicon), contains five chapters dealing with phenomena ranging from various peculiarities of form-meaning pairings (such as synonymy, polysemy, and figurative meanings) to concept formation. The four chapters that make up Part III are concerned with the phenomenon of interlinguistic and intercultural variation in the use of metaphorical and metonymic processes. The volume is concluded by Part IV, the three papers of which attempt to reconsider some TEFL issues from a cognitive linguistic point of view.

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9781443811118

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Reviews

Cognitive Approaches to English features a careful selection of scholarly contributions to four stimulating areas of linguistic enquiry that are at the cutting edge of present-day research in cognitive linguistics: motivation in grammar, lexical-grammatical interaction, intercultural variation, and theory-driven second language pedagogy. Two important assets of the volume are the emphasis on usage-based analysis and the broad range of compatible theoretical perspectives. Because of its richness in topics and perspectives, I expect the book to be of great value to a broad readership both within cognitive linguistics and in neighboring approaches to language with an interest in the influence of cognition and culture on linguistic structure, language learning and language use. -Francisco J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibanez, University of La Rioja This volume convincingly demonstrates the fruitfulness of cognitive linguistics as a paradigm for the elucidation of the lexico-grammatical and semantic structure of English in its socio-cultural context. The authors analyze such diverse and theoretically challenging topics as idioms, compounds, conversions, nominalizations, light verbs, modality, polysemy, figurative meaning, and cross-cultural variation in metaphor use. A particularly useful feature of the book is a set of papers that apply cognitive linguistic models to the teaching of English as a foreign language. This collection testifies to the vibrancy of cognitive linguistics in Central Europe. It is a most welcome contribution to the growing body of research on the conceptual, functional, and cultural motivations of language structure and use. -Klaus-Uwe Panther and Linda L. Thornburg, University of Hamburg

Author Information

Mario Brdar is Professor of English Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Literature at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University, Osijek. He is a member of the editorial board of Jezikoslovlje, Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, Atlantis, Bosanski jezik, and The Open Applied Linguistics Journal. He is currently the president of the Croatian Applied Linguistics Society. His main areas of research interest include cognitive linguistics, syntax, word formation, and lexical semantics. His publications mostly deal with contrastive and cognitive-functional approach to grammatical constructions and basic cognitive processes such as metonymy and metaphor. Marija Omazic is Assistant Professor of English Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Literature at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University, Osijek. She is a member of the editorial board of Jezikoslovlje. Her research interests include phraseology, cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics and translation studies. Her publications are corpus-based and cognitive accounts of phraseology and different translation studies issues. Višnja Pavičić Takač is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Literature at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University, Osijek. She is an editor-in-chief of Strani jezici, and a member of the editorial board of Jezikoslovlje and Život i škola. Her professional and research interests include individual differences in foreign language learning, language learning strategies, communicative competence, interlanguage, and lexical development. Her publications mostly deal with vocabulary learning strategies and cross-linguistic studies.

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