Employing Goldberg's Construction Grammar Theory

for Teaching and Learning Metaphorical Expressions in the

Second Language Classroom

James J. Mischler, IIINorthwestern State University of Louisiana, USA

Constructionist Approaches to Language Pedagogy (CALP) Conference

Brussels, Belgium8-9 November 2013

A Hypothetical Situation (1)

In a second language classroom:

• Student: "What does 'He blew his top' mean?"

• Teacher: "In English, it means, 'He was very angry.'"

• Student: "Really? I think the book I was reading uses a different meaning." (shows book to the teacher)...

A Hypothetical Situation (2)

• The text reads:

"John blew his top, and it fell off the table."

Analysis

The situation points out several important classroom issues:

• Context is needed to correctly interpret metaphoric expressions (Enfield, 2002);

• Students, even at advanced proficiency levels, need teacher guidance to understand second language expressions (Littlemore & Low, 2006);

• Understanding a specific expression requires social and cultural knowledge of the speech community (Littlemore, 2003).

Fundamental Principles (1)• Language use promotes language learning

(Barlow & Kemmer, 2000).

• To use language effectively, parsing the syntactic form is required (Schmidt, 2001).

• Construction Grammar provides a theory of language and cognition that traditional pedagogical models often lack (Grundy, 2004).

Fundamental Principles (2)

• Goldberg's Cognitive Construction Grammar

(hereafter, CCxG) adds several important concepts that can facilitate the learning of metaphor, including construction (Goldberg, 1995; 2006; 2010) and frames (Fillmore, 1982; see also Goldberg, 1995, pp. 6-7).

• Linguistic metaphors are constructions(Sullivan, 2007).

Why Frames?

A frame:• is "...any system of concepts related in such a way

that to understand any one of them you have to understand the whole structure in which it fits..."

• is "...a general cover term for the set of concepts variously known,…as ‘schema,’ ‘script,’ ‘scenario,’ ‘ideational scaffolding,’ ‘cognitive model,’ or ‘folk theory’" (Fillmore, p. 111, 1982).

Conclusion: Frames provide the context needed to understand an utterance and to use it effectively for communication.

Metaphors and Frames

Metaphor meaning:

• is not deducible from the meanings of the individual words in the expression; meaning is a function of the situational context.

• can only be understood via the semantic frame in which the metaphor is situated, which provides contextual information needed to accurately interpret the expression.

An Example Lesson (1)Procedure: Employ a semantic frame, a specific context for use, a script, and parsing activities.

Materials:

Metaphor: "He blew his top."

Frame: "Becoming Angry"

Context: Tom received his school grades yesterday. When he showed the grades to his father, his father became very angry.

An Example Lesson (2)

Materials (continued)

Script:

Harry: "What's wrong, Tom? You look like you're having a bad day."

Tom: "Well, you know we got our mid-term grades yesterday. Dad saw them, and he blew his top. I don't think I've ever seen him so angry."

An Example Lesson (3)

Class activities (Advanced Class):• Warm-up: Teacher and class briefly discuss "Events that make people angry." Cross-cultural similarities and differences are noted.• Introduction: Teacher introduces the script via a

role play with a volunteer student. Teacher notes intonation used for expressing emotion in English.

• Practice: Students practice role play in pairs; teacher monitors and helps where needed with pronunciation and intonation.

An Example Lesson (4)

Applications:

• In pairs or groups, students write a new script for the same frame. Groups present their role plays to the class for class discussion.

• For homework, students find new examples of the frame in magazines, newspapers, or videos. Write a script and note new words or expressions used to denote anger.

Parsing Activities

• Use corpora to find examples of "blew…top" and other anger expressions found in outside sources. Analyze the grammatical structure and the situational use of each expression.

• Talk to native speakers about expressions used to communicate emotion, including facial expressions and gestures.

• Write a story about an experience with anger expression; include the linguistic metaphor.

Conclusions

Using frames (via CCxG):• provides important situational, structural,

semantic, and usage information not available in the linguistic metaphor itself;

• promotes understanding of the metaphor and its appropriate use through usage and parsing;

• provides an organizing principle for curriculum and lesson planning;

• merges the language form and its meaning appropriately for communicative purposes.

Thank You

For further information and/or the list of references cited in this presentation,

contact Jim Mischler at:

mischlerj@nsula.edu