Cognitive Linguistic approaches to teaching

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Cognitive Linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary:Assessment and integration

Frank Boers

Language Teaching / Volume 46 / Issue 02 / April 2013, pp 208 - 224DOI: 10.1017/S0261444811000450, Published online: 11 November 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0261444811000450

How to cite this article:Frank Boers (2013). Cognitive Linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary: Assessment andintegration. Language Teaching, 46, pp 208-224 doi:10.1017/S0261444811000450

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Lang. Teach. (2013), 46.2, 208–224 c© Cambridge University Press 2011doi:10.1017/S0261444811000450 First published online 11 November 2011

Cognitive Linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary:Assessment and integration

Frank Boers Victoria University of Wellington, New [email protected]

The pace at which new L2 words or expressions are acquired is influenced by the degree ofengagement with them on the part of the learner. Several researchers with aCognitive-Linguistics (CL) background have, since the 1990s, proposed ways of exploitingnon-arbitrary aspects of vocabulary as stimuli for such engagement. Their proposals havebeen backed up by the results of several quasi-experimental studies. It must beacknowledged, however, that many of these are small-scale, some show only small effectsizes, and some are hard to interpret due to confounding variables. Taken collectively, thereported experiments are nevertheless beginning to constitute a body of evidence in favour ofCL-informed instruction that is hard to dismiss, so there is reason to believe that this kind ofinstruction deserves a niche in second language programmes. However, a judiciousimplementation of CL ideas stands to gain considerably from a closer alignment with‘mainstream’ second language vocabulary research. Insights to be taken on board from themainstream concern issues of selection, the desirability of distributed learning, and the needto cater for complementary types of knowledge.

1. Background

Few will take issue with the assertion that it is important for second language (L2) learners tobuild a sizeable vocabulary, and vocabulary is no longer by any means the neglected area inL2 research that it used to be (Meara 1980). Vocabulary size has been found to be a majorcontributor to proficiency. Iwashita et al. (2008) found vocabulary use to be the strongestpredictor of oral proficiency ratings, and correlation coefficients of .70 and higher havebeen reported between learners’ vocabulary size and their scores on reading and listeningcomprehension tests (Qian 1999; Staehr 2009). It is estimated that good comprehension ofa variety of (non-technical) texts requires knowledge of over 7,000 word families (Nation2006; Staehr 2009; Webb & Rodgers 2009; Schmitt, Jiang & Grabe 2011). That’s a lot ofword forms to be learned, because a word family consists of a lemma and its derivations. Forexample, argue, argues, argued, arguing, argument, arguments, arguable, argumentation and argumentative

Revised version of a plenary address given at the 2011 American Association of Applied Linguistics conference, Chicago,28 March 2011.

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F R A N K B O E R S : C O G N I T I V E L I N G U I S T I C A P P R O A C H E S T O V O C A B U L A R Y 209

ARGUABLY make up one word family. It is sometimes assumed that if a learner knows onemember of the family, its relatives will be understood as well. This, however, cannot be takenfor granted (Schmitt & Zimmerman 2002).

The vocabulary learning challenge is also augmented by the fact that many words arepolysemous. There’s a strong argument for task-based learning and They haven’t made up yet after

their argument show different uses of the word argument. She embraced her husband and She embraced

Dynamic Systems Theory illustrate different uses of the word embraced. Learning a ‘word’ typicallyinvolves learning more than one form–meaning mapping. Although learners may be familiarwith the word mushroom in She doesn’t like mushrooms in her omelette, there is no guarantee atall that this will enable them to accurately interpret its extended use in Second-hand shops

have mushroomed across town (MacArthur & Littlemore 2008). Polysemy is found everywhere,but high-frequency words such as prepositions and multipurpose verbs (e.g. have) make upa segment of vocabulary where it is especially rampant. The upshot of this is that theaforementioned vocabulary size goals – daunting as they are – disguise the true amount ofwork awaiting learners, not only because word families comprise several word forms, but alsobecause a single word form is likely to have several meanings.

Given the vast number of word forms and meanings to be acquired – obviously far too manyto be tackled in the classroom – we have to be hopeful that learners will pick up a lot of vocab-ulary incidentally, for example during extensive reading (e.g. Krashen 1989). Incidental learn-ing has been found to be a very slow process, however (e.g. Laufer & Roitblat-Rozovski 2011).

It gets worse. Vocabulary knowledge extends beyond single words. Since the advent ofcorpus linguistics, it has become increasingly evident that most words prefer the company ofsome other words over that of near synonyms. This Idiom Principle – as opposed to the Open-choice Principle (Sinclair 1991) – shows up in a panoply of word partnerships and multiwordunits, such as collocations (make an effort, a warm welcome, utterly disgusting), compounds (peer

pressure, love handles), multiword verbs (turn up, follow through with), social interaction routines(nice to meet you, how are you doing), cliches (live and learn, publish or perish), idioms (jump the gun,

close ranks), and discourse organisers (on the other hand, having said that). The term ‘formulaicsequence’ is now often used as an umbrella term for such word strings that are believed tobe acquired, stored and retrieved for usage by native speakers in a ‘holistic’ fashion (Wray2002). They contribute to fluent language use and their (appropriate) use is a distinguishingfeature of native speaker discourse (see Schmitt 2004, Meunier & Granger 2008, Barfield &Gyllstad 2009 and Wood 2010, for collective volumes on formulaic sequences in L2 learning).Students’ (accurate) use of formulaic sequences correlates significantly with their proficiency,which suggests that learners stand to gain from adding such multiword items to their L2repertoires (Boers et al. 2006b). But this addition to the vocabulary learning challenge canhardly be taken lightly, given estimates that half of native speaker discourse reflects theworkings of the Idiom Principle (Erman & Warren 2001) and observations that the incidentalacquisition of L2 multiword units is a very slow process as well, especially in non-immersioncontexts (Stengers et al. 2010; Laufer & Waldman 2011).

To make up for the generally slow pace of incidental vocabulary uptake, Laufer (2005)makes a plea for targeting more vocabulary explicitly in language-focused activities andexercises. Language-focused learning is one of four strands that Nation (2007) argues shouldbe present in roughly equal amounts in a general proficiency programme. The other three



2 1 0 P L E N A R Y S P E E C H E S

strands are message-focused input, message-focused output and fluency development. (Nationactually uses meaning-focused input/output. I prefer message-focused, because CognitiveLinguistics (CL) treats all linguistic units, by definition, as meaningful.)

Message-focused input means ample exposure to comprehensible input (cf. Krashen’s1985 Input Hypothesis). It is input made up predominantly of familiar language, whichaids the learner in making inferences about the meaning of as yet unknown items and itengenders (implicit) knowledge of the common usage patterns of items they are alreadyacquainted with. The strand of message-focused output is where learners experience gapsin their knowledge which they may subsequently try to fill (cf. Swain’s 1993 Pushed OutputHypothesis). The fourth strand is fluency development. Fluency development activities fostersmooth recognition, retrieval and usage of linguistic elements.

The language-focused learning strand is where learners’ attention turns from what is saidto how it is said. This attention to the code rather than the content of a message maybe at the learner’s own instigation but it will often be instigated by a teacher (or anotherinterlocutor) or by a materials writer. It is the strand that comprises procedures where acertain feature or segment of language is the object of a lesson as well as interventionswhere the student’s attention is temporarily directed to the code as a brief intermezzo duringmessage-focused activities. These have become known as forms-focused and form-focusedprocedures, respectively (Long 1991). As we shall see, the procedures used in the majorityof the Cognitive-Linguistics informed intervention studies have so far been of the formertype.

According to Nation, the language-focused learning strand should take up just abouta quarter of a learner’s opportunities for learning. When it is decided to invest time invocabulary instruction, one should have good reason to believe that it is a kind of instructionthat gives an optimal return on this investment: that it will accelerate the acquisition processin comparison with other types of instruction within the language-focused learning strandor in comparison with opportunities for incidental acquisition through the message-focusedstrands. It is in this context that we ask whether there is a niche in language-focused learningfor ideas borrowed from the school of thought known as CL.

2. Why turn to Cognitive Linguistics?

One yardstick for estimating the likely effectiveness of a vocabulary-learning procedure isthe degree of engagement with the lexical item(s) that it stimulates (Laufer & Hulstijn 2001;Schmitt 2008). It has been suggested that ideas from CL can provide such stimulation. Adescription of CL that does justice to this increasingly influential school is beyond the scope ofthis article. The interested reader will find Evans & Green (2006) an accessible introductionto CL, and Geeraerts & Cuyckens (2007) is a recent collection that displays the wide array ofprojects under the CL umbrella. In the area of language learning, Robinson & Ellis’ (2008)edited volume brings together CL proponents and psycholinguists specialised in researchon usage-based second language acquisition. An illustration that more alliances are in themaking is Lantolf (2011), who proposes an integration of CL and Sociocultural Theory.




Due to constraints of space, what follows can only be a crude account of CL, focusingexclusively on CL ideas that have been tried in vocabulary teaching. The CL movementbegan mostly as a reaction to generative linguistics, which was felt to treat language too muchas a special-purpose component, divorced from general cognition and the way languageis actually used. CL treats language and its acquisition as usage-based and as reflecting thegeneral cognitive abilities that operate in our interaction with the world (e.g. Langacker 1987).In this line of thought, linguistic phenomena are considered to be ‘motivated’. Some thingsare more likely to happen in language than others because they are more congruent withhabitual human perceptual and cognitive experience. If language were not motivated thatway, we might not find The table was being run around slightly odd. At least one of the reasonswhy we find this statement odd is its incongruence with the figure–ground organisation wehabitually apply to our perception of scenes. We tend to select as figure of a scene the thingthat draws our attention most, and that is typically something that moves or that is animate.If language were not motivated, we would not be momentarily puzzled by A glass of alcohol

containing wine, please. That is because the specified information in this utterance is at odds withthe way we organise categories around prototypical members, whose characteristics are clear-cut and therefore require no further clarification. It is the peripheral members of the categorythat invite modifiers, not the central members. If motivation did not play a part in languagedevelopment, there would be no reason why Shall I give you a foot with that? has not becomean institutionalised offer to help someone. Shall I give you a hand? has stood a better chance atbecoming institutionalised because of our shared knowledge that we tend to use our handsrather than our feet to MANIpulate things. Such shared associations enable us to use manywords as readily understood metonyms and to understand many underspecified messageseffortlessly. If motivation did not play a part in language, we would probably not be puzzledby All this good news is getting me down. We have come to associate happiness with being up,not down. This is probably grounded in the recurring observation that fit and happy peopletend to be up and about, and that smiling makes the corners of your mouth turn upwards.Lakoff & Johnson’s seminal work Metaphors we live by (1980) showed convincingly that a greatproportion of everyday language is figurative, that is, language use is full of conventionalisedmetaphoric and metonymic expressions. The main tenet of what was subsequently to becomeknown as Conceptual Metaphor Theory (e.g. Lakoff 1987) is that it is metaphoric thought (i.e.the creation of analogies between distinct domains of experience) that enables us to reasonand communicate about intangible domains of experience in the first place.

It cannot be overemphasised that ‘motivated’ in CL jargon is not synonymous with‘predictable’. The fact that one can give plausible retrospective accounts of why a givenway of packaging a certain message has become standardised in a language does not meanthat one can with any confidence predict what will get standardised. If there were no room forarbitrariness, then all natural languages would look and sound identical. If the CL endeavourto describe linguistic phenomena as motivated holds a certain promise for language pedagogy,it is precisely because in many cases the motivation is not blatantly obvious to the learner.

Highly polysemous words, such as prepositions, are classic CL showcases for the workingsof motivation, where it is demonstrated that seemingly distinct uses of the same word arerelated to a prototypical usage and together form a radial network of uses extending outwardsfrom that central prototype (e.g. Brugman 1981). Some of the meaning extensions concern




literal uses. For instance, if a preposition is often used to describe a situation of contiguity (the

bottle on the table; the cloth over the table; the bulge under the blanket), then it is likely to develop a rotatedsense (the picture on the wall; the veil over her face; the skin under his shirt) (Boers 1996). Many otherextended uses of prepositions are motivated by metaphor. For instance, the figurative use ofbeyond in Why she ever got married to him is beyond me and She’d changed beyond recognition probablyderives from the notion of inaccessibility associated with the literal use of this preposition, asin The ball fell beyond the hedge (and so it was beyond our reach). Another type of multipurpose wordthat has attracted a fair amount of interest from cognitive linguists is modal verbs (Sweetser1990). The epistemic uses of such verbs (The light is on, so she must be home now) are believedto be extended from the deontic uses (You must come home before midnight) via inferences (if youoblige someone to do something, for instance, then it is highly likely that it will get done).

A particularly fruitful branch of CL has been Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) (e.g.Kovecses 2010), which demonstrates how we project our knowledge of concrete, familiardomains of life onto abstract domains in an attempt to come to grips with the latter. Alongwith the structure that the ‘source domain’ lends to the ‘target domain’ come words andphrases associated with the source domain, but which subsequently adopt an additional,figurative sense. For example, one of the source domains we sometimes resort to in ourthinking and communicating about learning is that of eating/drinking (a version of a moregeneric learning-as-intake metaphor). This is reflected in utterances like Anna has a great thirst

for knowledge; These students are expected to swallow a lot of nonsense; Good teachers try to spice up their

classes; I cannot digest so much information and Don’t just regurgitate what the teacher said.Let’s now turn to the ways in which the above kinds of portrayal of polysemy and figurative

multiword items have been adapted by pedagogy-oriented CL advocates for purposes ofvocabulary instruction.

3. Examples of CL-inspired proposals for vocabulary instruction

A considerable number of pleas have been made for introducing the aforementioned CLideas (especially CMT) to L2 vocabulary teaching (e.g. Danesi 1992; MacLennan 1994; Scott1994) and some authors have gone on to develop resources intended to be in accordancewith CL tenets for language learners (Rudzka-Ostyn 2003) and for teachers (Lindstromberg& Boers 2008a).

One common thread in CL-style instruction is the attempt to make non-basic uses ofpolysemes more memorable by (re-)establishing associations with the basic uses that theyare derived from. This may simply involve informing or reminding learners of the literalcounterpart of a conventionalised figurative use of a word, when that word is met in a text:the literal sense of rake when students encounter The banks were raking in a lot of profits, the literalsense of dodge in The PM dodged all the questions about the war, and so on. The literal counterpartscan be clarified verbally, but their meaning can often be made more memorable throughenactment (Lindstromberg & Boers 2005) or the use of pictures and drawings (Boers et al.2008). Cognitive engagement can further be stimulated by asking learners themselves tomake an educated guess at the meaning of a metaphorically used word, such as fledgling in A

fledgling democracy, aided by information about its literal counterpart (fledgling in the sense of a




young bird). These are very brief interventions – and by no means unique to CL-informedteaching. CL-style treatment of highly polysemous words, however, has typically involvedmore extensive teaching, which starts with the identification of a prototypical meaning,followed by a step-by-step explication of meaning extensions from that prototype until asemantic network comprising most of the uses of the word is established (e.g. Tyler & Evans2004, for an account of the preposition over, and Lindstromberg 2010, for a pedagogicaltreatment of English prepositions at large).

A second common thread in CL-style pedagogy is the attempt to make idioms and phrasalverbs easier to learn by showing how these instantiate common conceptual metaphors.Expressions such as Simmer down, He blew up at me, He’s hot under the collar, She was fuming, He’s

blowing off steam and Don’t add fuel to the fire can all be categorised as instantiating the metaphorsTHE BODY IS A CONTAINER FOR THE EMOTIONS and ANGER IS HEAT. (It is customary inConceptual Metaphor Theory to use small capitals to refer to conceptual metaphors.) Idiomscan also be categorised according to their source domain, that is, the experiential domain inwhich they are/were used in their literal sense. For example, Clear the decks, On an even keel, Give

someone a wide berth, Walk the plank, Take on board, Out of your depth and A leading light can all be tracedback to seafaring. Additional stimuli for cognitive engagement can be given. Learners canbe asked to propose reasons why a certain conceptual metaphor ‘makes sense’. For instance,it seems natural to talk about emotions such as anger in terms of heat, because of thephysiological changes that coincide with passionate emotions. Learners can also be asked tomake comparisons with their L1 to see if the metaphors are shared (Deignan, Gabrys & Solska1997). They can be asked to propose reasons why a certain source domain is drawn uponstrikingly often in the target language. For example, the abundance of seafaring expressionsin English can easily be motivated with reference to Britain’s history as a seafaring nation.Learners can be asked to group figurative expressions under the headings of conceptualmetaphors or to identify their common source domains themselves. For instance, Set the stage

for something, Be waiting in the wings, Take centre stage, In the limelight, Play to the gallery, Behind

the scenes and The curtain comes down should suffice for learners to recognise the theatre as asource domain. Again, the meaning of the idiom can be made more memorable via pictorialelucidation of its literal reading (Boers et al. 2009; Szczepaniak & Lew 2011) – provided itis congruent with the figurative meaning, of course. Cognitive engagement can further bestimulated by asking learners themselves to make an educated guess at the meaning of anidiomatic expression, such as Being on the ropes, aided by a hint about its source domain – boxing.

CL proponents’ expectation that the above kinds of teaching initiatives will benefit learners’retention of the targeted words and phrases rests on three premises. Firstly, the attempt tostimulate cognitive engagement with target vocabulary ties in with the Levels of Processingmodel of memory (Cermak & Craik 1979), which holds that ‘deep’ processing of information(including vocabulary) is conducive to retention. Deep processing, in this model, is processingthat involves semantic elaboration (Craik & Tulving 1975). Secondly, the type of semanticelaboration that is prompted by CL-style teaching typically involves mental imagery. Theexpectation that this will aid retention ties in with Dual Coding models of memory (Paivio1986; Sadoski 2005), according to which associating an abstract lexical item with a mentalimage renders the item more concrete and hence more memorable. Thirdly, if CL-stylepresentations of lexis succeed in convincing learners that the L2 lexicon is more systematic




than they had hitherto realised, then this may instil confidence in them. This is because thetask of learning a large number of items is likely to appear more manageable if the itemsare organised somehow, for example when different phrasal verbs are shown to reflect thesame conceptual metaphor and when diverse idiomatic expressions are shown to share thesame source domain.

4. Does it work?

Table 1 is an inventory of published quasi-experimental intervention studies in which theretention of words or phrases by groups of learners who received CL-style instruction wascompared to that of groups who received a different type of instruction about the same items.The rightmost column of the table indicates whether the post-treatment test scores weresignificantly better for the group(s) to whom the lexical items were presented along CL lines:‘yes’ means statistically significant at least at p 0.05, unless indicated otherwise. This was thecase in the vast majority of the studies, and in none of the studies (apart from one of fourtrials in Condon’s 2008 study) did comparison groups outperform the CL groups.

There is a fair amount of diversity among and within the studies, of course. The numberof participants ranged from just 24 (Boers, Demecheleer & Eyckmans 2004) to 127 (Li 2009,study 4). Some studies measured whether participants could remember the meaning of theitems (e.g. Verspoor & Lowie 2003), others measured whether they could reproduce them(e.g. Boers 2000a, b), and still others measured both (e.g. Boers 2001).

I have included in the inventory only studies concerned with vocabulary. For CL approachesto other kinds of targets, I refer the reader to chapters in De Knop & De Rycker (2008), Holme(2009), Littlemore (2009), De Knop, Boers & De Rycker (2010) and Littlemore & Juchem-Grundmann (2010). It is in the area of vocabulary that most of the empirical work on theeffects of CL-style instruction has been done so far, though, and the inventory indicates thatby and large that work has been favourable towards CL.

It is worth mentioning that this inventory represents but a segment of the existing researchliterature on CL-style vocabulary instruction. Excluded are quasi-experimental studies thatdo not investigate effects on RETENTION, but rather focus on the benefits of CL-style pedagogyfor vocabulary comprehension (e.g. Lindstromberg & Boers 2005; Guo 2007). Also excludedare studies in which variants of CL-inspired instruction are weighed against each other (e.g.Skoufaki 2008) and investigations of the influence of learner characteristics (such as cognitivestyle) on the effectiveness of CL instruction (Boers, Eyckmans & Stengers 2006). Nor arestudies included that did not involve a comparison group (Tyler 2008), that is, a group thatengaged with the target items for a similar amount of time as the CL-instructed group butwas guided by a different kind of instruction.

I cannot guarantee that my inventory is complete, as some published studies may haveescaped my attention. Besides, there are certainly several UNpublished studies (such as Ph.D.and M.A. dissertations), which are not represented here.

Also, some caution is in order when interpreting the results of individual studies. Firstly, itcould be argued that some of the studies (e.g. Boers 2000a) lack sufficiently precise pre-testmeasures. Secondly, some of the studies (e.g. Boers 2000b, study 1) involved only an immediate




Table 1 An inventory of quasi-experimental intervention studies on the effect of CL-informedtreatments on vocabulary retention.

Study Targets for learningCL group better retentionof treated lexical items?

Kovecses & Szabo (1996) Phrasal verbs with up and down Yes, but no significancecalculated

Boers (2000a) Metaphoric word uses in economics (e.g.hurdles; bail out; wean off)

Yes

Boers (2000b, study 1) Metaphors to talk about anger (e.g.fuming; bite someone’s head off)

Yes

Boers (2000b, study 2) Phrasal verbs with in, out, up and down YesBoers (2000b, study 3) Metaphoric word uses in economics (e.g.

plunge; peak; soar; slide)Yes

Boers (2001) Figurative idioms (e.g. a dummy run; get

into gear; a chink in one’s armour)Yes

Verspoor & Lowie (2003) Metaphoric word uses (e.g. bulge; grapple;

smother)Yes

Csabi (2004) Uses of hold and keep (incl. phrasal verbsand idioms)

Yes

Boers, Demecheleer &Eyckmans (2004)

Figurative idioms (e.g. cut no ice with

someone; waiting in the wings)Yes

Morimoto & Loewen (2007) Uses of break and over The sameBerendi, Csabi & Kovecses

(2008)Metaphors to talk about anger (e.g. blow

off steam; add fuel to the fire)Yes

Condon (2008) Phrasal verbs with in, out, up and down Yes, in 3 of 4 trialsLi (2009, study 1)a Metaphoric word uses (e.g. regurgitate;

downhill; erupt)Yes

Li (2009, study 4) Figurative idioms (e.g. hit the ceiling; call

the shots; blow the whistle)Yes

Li (2009, study 5) Proverbs (e.g. a rolling stone gathers no moss;

look before you leap)Yes

Cho (2010) Uses of the prepositions at, in and on YesGao & Meng (2010) Metaphors to talk about anger Yes in 1 of 3 trialsTyler, Mueller & Ho (2010) Modal verbs could, would, should and must YesYasuda (2010) Phrasal verbs with into, up, down, out and

off

The sameb

Notes:a. Li’s (2009) publication of the author’s Ph.D. dissertation (2002) reports five quasi-experimentalstudies. Studies 2 and 3 are not included here because they compare variants of CL-informedinstruction rather than comparing CL instruction to a non-CL treatment.b. In Yasuda (2010) one of the aims was to assess the learners’ ability to autonomously apply theCL insights they had acquired during instruction about one series of phrasal verbs to work out thecorrect particle of phrasal verbs in another series. While the CL groups did not outperform thecomparison groups on the ‘taught’ items, they did outperform them on the items assumed to be newto the students. Kovecses & Szabo (1996) reported a similar finding. An evaluation of the possibilityof learners using CL techniques independently, for example outside the language classroom, is madein Boers (2011).




post-treatment test: no delayed post-test to ascertain whether the benefits for retention weredurable. Thirdly, in some of the studies the superior performance of the CL groups may beascribed to more than the CL ingredient in their input. For example, the comparison groupwould in some studies (e.g. Boers 2000b, study 2) receive target vocabulary in the formatof one longish list, whereas the same input would be segmented in the CL treatment toreflect metaphor categories. Better retention in the latter condition is thus not necessarily theproduct of metaphor awareness per se, but perhaps (also) a side effect of having cut up theinformation into more easily digestible bits (something I call ‘goulash versus nouvelle cuisine’design). Another example is when the recall test followed a treatment where the CL groupacquired a better understanding of the lexical items, which is likely to have given them anedge over the comparison group (e.g. Berendi et al. 2008). Potentially confounding variablesare also found in studies where the CL treatment engaged the participants not only differentlybut also in more ways than the comparison treatment (e.g. Li 2009, study 5) or where the CLgroup devoted more time to the lexical items that would be the object of the post-test (e.g.Tyler, Mueller & Ho 2010).

It must also be conceded that in two of the studies the gains between pre-test and post-testobtained through the CL-style instruction were arguably too small to warrant pedagogicalrecommendations. While the CL groups outperformed the comparison groups to a statisticallysignificant degree, this was probably due to the poor performance of the latter. For example,in Tyler et al.’s (2010) study (on modal verbs), the students who had received the CL-inspiredinstruction gained on average just 2.6 out of 32 test items between pre- and post-test. Thecomparison group made no progress. In Cho’s (2010) study (on prepositions) the CL groupgained on average only 1.5 on a 26-item test. The comparison group actually regressed.Cho (2010) is an exception among the studies reviewed here in that a statistical measureof effect size is reported (partial eta squared 0.17 in the delayed post-test). I have not beenable to work out an average effect size across the collection – as has become customaryin meta-analyses – because standard deviation data is absent from too many of the (older)publications.

In short, there are undeniably a number of problems with the individual studies listed inthe above inventory. At the same time, it is also undeniable that, collectively, the studies beginto constitute a body of evidence that is hard to dismiss out of hand. As always, more researchwould definitely be welcome to confirm and fine-tune the findings. In addition, it would beworth finding out if the effectiveness of CL-informed interventions could be enhanced byaligning them better with insights from ‘mainstream’ approaches to L2 vocabulary. That isthe question we will turn to next.

5. Talking to the ‘mainstream’

5.1 The desirability of distributed learning

The CL-style presentation of figuratively used words and phrases used in the interventionstudies often involves groupings under the conceptual metaphors or source domains thatthey are derived from. Whether presenting vocabulary items in sets facilitates learning is a




matter of some debate, however. Several studies have revealed that learning new words thatare semantically related (e.g. words for professions, words for clothes, words for personalitytraits) takes longer than learning semantically unrelated words (Tinkham 1997; Waring 1997;Finkbeiner & Nicol 2003; Erten & Tekin 2008). Apparently, the semantic commonality ofthe co-presented words increases the risk of confusion. This risk is especially high when thewords show formal resemblances as well. Teaching the words lemon and melon together in a setof words for fruit is not advisable. The risk of confusion is reduced if one of two confusablewords has had the time to settle down in long-term memory first: if lemon is already wellestablished in its allotted semantic space, then melon, as a new kid on the block, is less likelyto compete for that space. In short, the obvious way of reducing the risk of erroneous cross-associations between related words is to learn one word well first and only learn the other wordlater.

The CMT-type groupings of figurative expressions seem different from the semantic setsthat have been found unadvisable, however. Let’s take the following set of idioms from thesource domain of boxing: flex your muscles, lower your guard, take it on the chin, be on the ropes, andthrow in the towel. Each occupies a slot in a scenario or ‘frame’. This is comparable to a set ofwords such as castle, dark, haunted and scream, which also conjure up a frame (a ghost story).This is the kind of organisation of vocabulary which IS believed to be helpful for learning(Nation 2000). Still, even in this kind of grouped presentation, it would probably be unwiseto present a lot of (unfamiliar) items in one go. Items (e.g. stick your neck out, be in a tight corner

and be down for the count) can be added when the time is ripe.A radical adherence to distributed learning is not easy to marry with the exigencies of

vocabulary building that we lamented in the introduction to this article, so we may have tosettle for a compromise. But what are we to make of the way highly polysemous words, suchas prepositions and multipurpose verbs, have been presented in the CL intervention studies?This typically involved lessons on the diverse uses of a couple of words and how these usesform a semantic network around a core sense. This may seem memory-friendly at first sight,but digesting information about a dozen different uses of a word (e.g. on the bus; on Sunday; on

the phone) and their distinction from neighbouring words, each also with a dozen different uses(e.g. in bed; in the morning; in trouble; at work; at night; mad at him) is a case of massed learning, justthe same. It is not surprising that it is precisely the studies which presented participants withthis kind of learning challenge that produced the smallest effects.

A systematic approach to polysemy need not in pedagogical practice coincide with anintensive ‘let’s now learn everything there is to know about this word’ procedure. As withidioms, teachers can draw students’ attention to a novel usage of a ‘known’ polyseme as ithappens to come up in context and so trace the connection to its basic sense as the opportunitypresents itself. It seems to me that this ‘teach as the need arises’ approach could make CL-styleinstruction more palatable.

It would also make the approach more faithful to the usage-based nature of language. Itis remarkable that in the majority of the studies reviewed here, the target vocabulary waspoorly contextualised, so the input was lacking in cues regarding common usage patterns:just the kind of cues that fuel L1 acquisition.

Unfortunately, there is still a dearth of research into the effects of distributed (‘as theopportunity presents itself’) CL-style interventions.




5.2 Issues of selection

Of course, researchers sometimes choose low-frequency words as target items in learningexperiments in order to control for prior knowledge, and this also holds true for some ofthe studies reviewed here. Still, one may wonder about the utility of the type of lexical itemsthat are targeted in some of them. A question I have often been asked is why we wouldwant to spend precious class time on idioms. This scepticism is certainly warranted, as thereare so many more frequent words and formulaic sequences that deserve prioritisation in avocabulary programme. Still, there are some reasons why a blanket dismissal of idioms astargets for learning would not be in the best interest of at least some groups of learners. Firstly,idioms pose comprehension problems, even in contexts that are rich in clues (e.g. Boers,Eyckmans & Stengers 2007). Littlemore et al. (2011), for example, report that universitylecturers’ use of figurative phrases is a major source of misunderstandings for internationalstudents. Cross-cultural differences throw up extra obstacles for L2 idiom comprehension(Hu & Fong 2010). Misunderstanding idioms can put a strain on communication especiallybecause idioms fulfil crucial socio-pragmatic functions, such as conveying an evaluation andsteering the course of conversation (O’Keeffe, McCarthy & Carter 2007: 80−99).

A second reason why idioms cannot be discarded out of hand as items worthy of learningat least for some groups of learners is that, as a class, they are not as rare as has oftenbeen assumed. Boers & Lindstromberg (2009: 67), for example, found a higher frequency offigurative idioms (e.g. on the same wavelength; off the hook) in a popular crime novel than they foundstrong verb-noun collocations (e.g. make a decision; tell the truth) (ibid: 42). The irony is that Ihave seldom heard anyone question the usefulness of learning collocations, even though theyare generally considered less likely to cause comprehension problems. Still, it is self-evidentthat efforts need to be made to align targets for learning with the needs of the learners, andCL pedagogy as described so far does appear most at home when this alignment is made at arelatively high level of proficiency, when learners are ready to turn their attention to the lessfrequent uses of words.

The quest for non-arbitrary phenomena in vocabulary goes on, however. One novelty isthe exploration of motivation at the level of phonology rather than semantics. For example,there is robust evidence that phonological repetition (alliteration, rhyme, etc.) plays a partin the formation of word partnerships (Boers & Lindstromberg 2009, Ch. 6). In a bank of5,667 multiword units sampled from the Macmillan English Dictionary, no fewer than 737 (13%)display alliteration (e.g. time will tell; peer pressure; cut corners). If rhyme and assonance are addedto the mix (e.g. brain drain; small talk), the proportion of phonologically repetitive multiwordlexis reaches almost 20%. Some types of formulaic sequences, such as binomial phrases (e.g.part and parcel) and similes (e.g. busy as a bee) are particularly prone to these phonologicalrepetitions (32% and 54%, respectively). It seems safe to say that in the development of wordpartnerships, sameness attracts. Importantly for the purpose of this article, experimentalevidence suggests that alerting language learners to alliteration, rhyme or assonance in theword strings they meet positively influences their retention (Lindstromberg & Boers 2008b,c). Another addition to the bag of tricks for engaging learners with vocabulary exploits theoccasionally felt ‘fit’ between the form and the meaning of a word. For example, when askedwhether the rare word harageous means kind or brutal, many a respondent will (correctly) guess




it is the latter. The form or sound of words is not a reliable clue to guess the meaning of aword, of course, but asking students to judge whether the meaning of a newly learned wordfits its form/sound does appear to help retention (Deconinck, Boers & Eyckmans 2010).

5.3 Different kinds of learning, different kinds of knowledge

In the introduction to this article, we mentioned the processing advantage that formulaicsequences afford native speakers: they facilitate fluency in processing and in speech. Nativespeakers enjoy this advantage thanks to familiarity with the conventionalised word stringsthey have been exposed to time and again. According to Wray (2002), though, this is notthe only explanation for the fact that natives process formulaic sequences faster than non-natives. Put simply, in her model the native speaker’s resource of formulaic language consistslargely of sequences that were acquired (in childhood) holistically, so they are ready to beretrieved from the lexicon as prefabricated units. Adult L2 learners, she believes, are muchmore inclined to adopt an analytic, word-by-word mode of processing. It has been suggested(e.g. Lewis 1997) that L2 learners should try to bypass the word-by-word learning modeand learn formulaic sequences as integral chunks. It should be clear from the examples ofCL interventions given throughout this article that, instead of steering learners towards amore holistic mode of processing multiword lexis, CL pedagogy actually intends to harnesslearners’ analytic abilities (e.g. Liu 2010). CL encourages learners to wonder why certainwords collocate, how the meaning of an idiom is connected to its original use, how differentuses of a word are interrelated, and so on. Let’s face it: these are mental pleasures that nativespeakers seldom indulge in.

There is no absolute reason, of course, why L2 learning should mimic L1 acquisition.Given the different matrices of L1 acquisition and adult L2 learning, it is to be expected thateven highly advanced L2 learners’ performance will be fuelled by knowledge of a differentnature from that of the native speaker. If the cognitive engagement brought about by CL-styleinstruction helps to compensate for the far fewer opportunities for incidental learning thatthe adult L2 learner enjoys in comparison with L1 acquisition, then, surely, this is to becherished. As long as one appreciates that the (explicit) knowledge it generates is not theideal fluency facilitator. (See Barcroft, Sommers & Sunderman, 2011, concerning anothermnemonic technique – one outside the CL camp – the Keyword Method.) Let’s put it thisway: if successful, a CL approach may serve as a high-speed train to Word City, but itsterminus is in a suburb. That’s okay, as long as one realises it’s still a bit of a stroll downtown,where the real action is.

That is why the language-focused learning strand needs to be complemented by otheropportunities for learning, provided by message-focused input, message-focused output andfluency development activities (Nation 2007). One of the great dilemmas for languageinstructors is, time and again, to decide whether to ‘teach’ a linguistic item/feature or to‘leave it alone’. It is decision-making informed by the chances of incidental uptake of theitem, and those chances will depend on a complex interplay between the profile of thelearners (including likely interference from their L1), the samples of target language they areexposed to and in what mode (reading or listening), and the frequency therein of the linguistic




item/feature concerned (e.g. Alejo, Piquer & Reveriego 2010, on phrasal verbs in the SpanishEFL programme). How much leeway is given to the language-focused learning strand insidethe classroom will obviously depend on the extent to which the other strands are present inthe students’ lives outside the classroom, but the general need to strike a balance inevitablycalls for a judicious use of instructional techniques, including CL-inspired ones.

6. By way of conclusion

Is there a niche for CL in L2 vocabulary instruction? I believe there is. Non-arbitrary featuresof language can serve as stimuli for learners’ cognitive engagement with at least some L2words and phrases, and this engagement aids vocabulary retention. In the face of the dauntingchallenge of vocabulary learning this is a welcome resource, even if the knowledge it generatesis qualitatively different from that acquired by native speakers.

More empirical studies (especially longitudinal ones) would be welcome to fine-tune theevidence for the pedagogical merits of CL applications and to explore ways of enhancingtheir effectiveness. With regard to the latter, the incorporation of insights about distributed,in-context learning seems a way forward. Last but not least, the recent interest in motivationat the level of linguistic form (such as the role of alliteration as a match-maker) looks promisingas a means of extending the scope of pedagogy-oriented CL.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the five anonymous reviewers for their useful feedback on an earlydraft of this article. I would also like to express my gratitude to the organisers of the 2011Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics for inviting me to give the plenaryaddress on which this article is based.

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FRANK BOERS is an associate professor at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies ofVictoria University of Wellington. His initial interests were lexicology and metaphor, but most of hisrecent research concerns second language acquisition, especially the teaching of L2 vocabulary andphraseology. His work has appeared in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching Researchand System. He is co-author (with Seth Lindstromberg) of Optimizing a lexical approach to instructed secondlanguage acquisition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and co-editor of two collective volumes in Mouton deGruyter’s Applications of Cognitive Linguistics Series.


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