A Cognitive Approach to English Grammar

A Cognitive Approach to English Grammar

Exploring Form, Meaning and Use

von N. P. Sudharshana

The book approaches the grammar of English through a more meaning-focused approach. Inspired by the theories of cognitive semantics (CS), it examines English more holistically in usage contexts. Adopting a functional approach, the book (i) discusses language phenomena that are usually ignored in pedagogical grammar books (e.g., the order of adjectives in the determiner phrase); (ii) presents grammar as a set of meaningful choices in a particular usage context (e.g., intelligence vs multiple intelligences); (iii) establishes connections across word categories and structures (e.g., between prepositions and phrasal verbs); (iv) attempts to offer explanations for complex areas of English by drawing on tools of CS analysis (e.g., examining articles, quantifiers, no article use, demonstratives, and possessive pronouns as part of a larger reference system); and (v) creates meaningful contexts for practice through communicative tasks.
It adopts a pedagogical approach with more easily accessible explanations and also contains communicative practice activities that are extremely useful to students, teachers, and teacher educators in English as a Second Language/ Foreign Language (ESL/ EFL) contexts to understand usage patterns, develop language awareness, and ultimately become proficient users.

The book approaches the grammar of English through a more meaning-focused approach. Inspired by the theories of cognitive semantics (CS), it examines English more holistically in usage contexts. Adopting a functional approach, the book (i) discusses language phenomena that are usually ignored in pedagogical grammar books (e.g., the order of adjectives in the determiner phrase); (ii) presents grammar as a set of meaningful choices in a particular usage context (e.g., intelligence vs multiple intelligences); (iii) establishes connections across word categories and structures (e.g., between prepositions and phrasal verbs); (iv) attempts to offer explanations for complex areas of English by drawing on tools of CS analysis (e.g., examining articles, quantifiers, no article use, demonstratives, and possessive pronouns as part of a larger reference system); and (v) creates meaningful contexts for practice through communicative tasks.
It adopts a pedagogical approach with more easily accessible explanations and also contains communicative practice activities that are extremely useful to students, teachers, and teacher educators in English as a Second Language/ Foreign Language (ESL/ EFL) contexts to understand usage patterns, develop language awareness, and ultimately become proficient users.

Highlights

• Brings together recent theories in linguistics and language pedagogy Provides real-life applications and appropriateness of grammar structures Adopts a functional approach, discussing grammar through form, meaning, and usage, for contextual understanding

Über den Autor

N. P. Sudharshana is Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Kanpur, India. His main research areas include applying cognitive semantics to teaching and learning English as a second language, materials development, and classroom language testing. He has previously worked with many state governments in India on school curriculum design and implementation projects. He is the co-author of English for Technical Communication (2016) and English for Engineers (2018) both published by Cambridge University Press, and the edited volume Task-based Language Teaching and Assessment (2021) published by Springer.

Baburam Upadhaya is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IISER Tirupati, India. His research interests include instructed second language acquisition, materials development, and conceptual metaphor theory. He has published in many international journals, has presented papers at many conferences, and reviewed papers for several prestigious journals.