Emelia Effendy

Med TESL
University of Malaya

This paper is presented in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the course
General Linguistics for TESL
Faculty of Education
University of Malaya

Dr. Jessie Grace U. Rubrico, Facilitator

PBGS 6304, Semester 2, AY 2009-2010
April 2010

INTRODUCTION
LINGUISTICS

the scientific study of human language.

COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS
the branch of linguistics that interprets language in
terms of concepts.
is closely associated with semantics.

Generative Grammar
1) Linguistic structure
can be studied
independently of
meaning.
2) Grammar is fully
compositional.
3) Grammar is modular.
4) Grammar is innate.

Cognitive Grammar
1) Language is not an
autonomous cognitive
faculty.
2) Grammar is
conceptualization.
3) Knowledge of language
emerges from language
use.
Croft & Cruse (2004)

COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS :
GRAMMAR AND LEARNING
cognitive grammar extends the notion of symbolic
units to the grammar of languages
linguistic structures are motivated by general
cognitive processes
draws analogies between linguistic structure and
aspects of visual perception.
Source: Unger & Schmid (1996)

THE RATIONALE
Focus: structure, function, and meaning.
Language is presented in a more meaningful way.
This leads to meaningful learning.

Why SYNTAX?
Need to have a structuralized form of writing sentences.
Most writing books do not specify what comes after the
verbs.
Most present the subject + verb structures in teaching
simple sentence structure.
Some present the SVO or SVC or SVE.
But these seem to be vague to the students.
Some just define complements are the rest of the sentence.
There seems to be a missing link between grammar, writing
and meaning

SYNTAX AS VIEWED BY CG
Conceptual and linguistic completeness
Event schema
Agent

Patient

TYPES OF EVENT SCHEMAS

Schema
Being schema
Happening schema
Doing schema
Experiencing schema
Having schema
Moving schema

Transferring schema

Label
Who or what is some entity (like)?
What is happening?
What is someone doing?
What does he or she do?
What does someone feel, see, etc?
What does an entity have?
Where is an entity moving?
Where does an entity move?
To whom is an entity transferred?

LEARNERS BACKGROUND
Low-intermediate level students.
Multi-national language speakers.
Mostly young adults and a few mature adults.
Have less than a year of English instruction.

BE-VERB PRESENTATION

affirmative
sentences
(+)

FORM

SUBJECT

BE VERB

Contraction

EXAMPLE

1st person

am

I'm

I'm here.

2nd person

you

are

you're

You're busy.

3rd person

he

is

he's

He's a friend.

3rd person

she

is

she's

She's a doctor.

3rd person

it

is

it's

It's cold today.

1st person pl.

we

are

we're

We're hungry.

2nd person
pl.

you

are

you're

You're
beautiful.

3rd person pl.

they

are

they're

They're
asleep.

The primary concern in the above

and in most grammar books is
subject-verb agreement.

What come after the verbs

are not clearly defined.

SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION

NP (SUBJECT)

VP (PREDICATE)

??
NP
PP
AP

Subject + Verb + Object

Subject + Verb + Complement
Subject + Verb + Expansion

So, whats the solution??

The being schema in CG

Function: to relate a characteristic or any other
conceptual category to a given entity which does not
apply a dominant role in the relationship.
The role of the main participant is described as a
Patient, whereby the role of the patient is defined as
the role which is least involved in any type of
relationship.
The Patient in being schema can be related with
different ways of being:
Dirven & Verspoor (2004)

It can be linked
o to an identifying element (1a)
o to a category or class (1b)
o to a characteristics (1c)

o to a given place (1d)

o to the notion of mere experience (1e)

1a) The place on the map here is the Sahara. Identifier

1b) The Sahara is a desert.
Class membership
1c) The Sahara is a dangerous (territory). Attribution
1d) The desert is in the North Africa.
Location
1e) There is a desert (in North Africa).
Existential
Dirven & Verspoor (2004)

How do we go about using this in the classroom?

Identifier (to identify something)

These puppets are my
favourite ones.

The place on the map

here is the Sahara.

Class membership (being part of

something)
A mule is not a horse and
not a donkey.

A university is a learning
institution.

Attribution (the condition of

something)
Jason is two years
younger than his sister.

New York is a busy

city.

Location (where something is)

The Taj Mahal is in
India.

The cats are in the

sink.

Existential (to be present)

There are nine planets
in our solar system.

There are far too many

problems around the
globe.

Presenting the language

Subject
(NP)

Predicate
(VP)

Subject

Verb

Identifier

Class
Attribution
membership

Locatio
n

Existential

NP

NP

NP

PP

NP

The
Sahara

is

The
Sahara

is

The
Sahara

is

NP/
AP

a desert
in the
North
Africa
a dangerous
territory

Design 1: Deductive Approach

Presentation
Teacher presents the language structure
Teacher gives explicit explanation of the grammatical
rules
Practice
Students are given sets of tasks to complete
E.g. word ordering
Write sentences based on the structures presented

Communicative Practice
Students are given a picture & an 8-part sheet
Students have to describe the picture using the
structures they have learnt
e.g.

Design 2: Inductive Approach

Pre-task
Get students copies of newspaper articles
Students are to find sentences which consist of the be-verb
construction
While Doing Task
Teacher write the sentences on the board
Students try to guess the relationship between the subject and
predicate (the link presented in the sentences) hypothesis
testing
Teacher presents the rules
Post-task
Application of the form in students writings
Write sentences using the structures learnt

Conclusion
Presenting the be-verb using the being schema is
more helpful for students in understanding the
concept of the verb to be.
Students can grasp this part of grammar better as
they know what the focus is and what it is about.

References
Croft, W. & Cruse, D.A. (2004) Cognitive Linguistic. Cambridge :
Cambridge University Press
Dirven, R. & Verspoor, M. (2004) Cognitive Exploration of Language and
Linguistics. (2nd Ed). Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing
Company
Robertson, P. and Ellis, N.C. (eds.). (2008). Handbook of Cognitive
Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. NY: Routledge
Townsend, C. E. (2000) Linguistics and Language Teaching SLING2K
Workshop retrieved from
http://www.indiana.edu/~slavconf/SLING2K/pospapers/townsend.pdf
on March 20,2010.
Unger, F. & Schmid, H. J. (1996) An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics.
London : Longman