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Abstract
Recently foreign language teaching (FLT) research has been able to
benefit enormously from advances in Cognitive Linguistics (CL) (e.g.
Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1991, Taylor, 2002). As a consequence, CL has
become more and more interested in turning its rich, specialised, and
emerging body of research into a practical guide for language teachers,
course designers, and materials writers. To that end, CL-based classroom
instruction in a second or foreign language needs to show that (i) it can
move beyond the largely unmotivated rules, examples, and lists typical
of the traditional paradigm; (ii) that it can produce results-driven
grammar instruction and practice; and (iii) that it can ultimately balance
all of this properly with new insights gained from second-language
acquisition (SLA) research (e.g. Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). ln this paper,
we will first look at CL in a broader historical context of applied
linguistics, and more particularly, FLT, discussing how it builds on, and
differs from, such linguistic theories as transformational-generative
grammar and pragmatics. Then, we will show how the theoretical
assumptions, basic units, and constructs used in CL offer a better
understanding of the true nature of language and grammar, and how CL
can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of current FLT methods
(e.g. Robinson & Ellis, 2008; De Knop & De Rycker, 2008, Boers &
Lindstromberg, 2008).