Last update:
9 February 2010
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Cognitive English Grammar
2007. xiv, 374 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Hardbound
– In stock
978 90 272 1903 9 / EUR 110.00 978 1 55619 663 8 / USD 165.00
Paperback
– In stock
e-Book
– Available from e-book platforms
Cognitive English Grammar is designed to be used as a textbook in courses of English and general linguistics. It introduces the reader to cognitive linguistic theory and shows that Cognitive Grammar helps us to gain a better understanding of the grammar of English. The notions of motivation and meaningfulness are central to the approach adopted in the book. In four major parts comprising 12 chapters, Cognitive English Grammar integrates recent cognitive approaches into one coherent model, allowing the analysis of the most central constructions of English. Part I presents the cognitive framework: conceptual and linguistic categories, their combination in situations, the cognitive operations applied to them, and the organisation of conceptual structures into linguistic constructions. Part II deals with the category of ‘things’ and their linguistic structuring as nouns and noun phrases. It shows how things are grounded in reality by means of reference, quantified by set and scalar quantifiers, and qualified by modifiers. Part III describes situations as temporal units of various layers: internally, as types of situations; and externally, as located relative to the time of speech and grounded in reality or potentiality. Part IV looks at situations as relational units and their structuring as sentences. Its two chapters are devoted to event schemas and space and metaphorical extensions of space.
Cognitive English Grammar offers a wealth of linguistic data and explanations. The didactic quality is guaranteed by the frequent use of definitions and examples, a glossary of the terms used, overviews and chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and study questions. For the Key to Study Questions click here.
Table of contents
“A real scholarly and pedagogical feat. It is by no means an easy task to bring together the various strands making up the thriving field of cognitive linguistics into a technically coherent and pedagogically efficient textbook in English descriptive grammar. If you are a lecturer in the subject and have long meant to use Ron Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar and other cognitive-linguistic approaches in your classes but have been held back so far by the need to reduce to course book size the sheer volume and the technical complexity of the specialized literature, this is the textbook you wanted: A systematic, student-friendly yet rigorous treatment of English descriptive grammar from a cognitive-linguistic perspective, rich in attractive illustrations and supplemented with a large number of exercises and study questions, for which a key is provided. I have used the book in my classes and it works. Absolutely recommended.”
Antonio Barcelona, University of Murcia.
“Radden and Dirven have produced an engaging and readable book that successfully addresses a very real need. Using notions of cognitive linguistics, it not only provides a revealing survey of English grammar but makes apparent the conceptual basis of grammatical structure. Despite its non-technical presentation, Cognitive English Grammar shows considerable technical sophistication, covering central topics in reasonable depth and offering some new descriptive insights. This text should prove both useful and illuminating.”
“[...] the authors have produced a textbook that represents an ideal balance between linguistic theory on the one hand, and selected areas of English grammar on the other hand.”
“The usage-based approach of Cognitive English Grammar not only makes students see the relationship between thought and language, but also - and more importantly - changes their conception about language and grammar in general. As the book offers explanantions for exactly those areas of grammar which are typically difficult and confusing to learn [...], by the end of the textbook (and the course) students come to realize and understand that grammar is indeed meaningful, and this knowledge imparts them with a confidence that is very much needed for any university student either within or outside the EFL classroom.”
“The biggest asset of this book is that up to now, it is the most comprehensive account of English grammar from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. It is well written, clearly structured, and extremely accessible. It is an excellent introductory work for students who would like to pursue cognitive linguistics studies and a valuable resource for researchers interested in studying various languages in the light of cognitive linguistics.”
“This is a textbook which can be extremely useful for the teaching of cognitive grammar. It is focused on the grammar of the English language, but it uses all the important notions and research that form the core of cognitive linguistics as a discipline. Despite its purpose as a student textbook, it is extremely comprehensive, with a lot of detail and classifications which are very clearly presented with the help of tables, diagrams and summaries. [...] The result is excellent and unique. It is difficult to find drawbacks.”
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Linguistics