Article published in:
Construction Grammar across Borders
Edited by Tiago Timponi Torrent, Ely Edison da Silva Matos and Natália Sathler Sigiliano
[Constructions and Frames 12:1] 2020
► pp. 121–148

From construction grammar to embodied construction practice

| Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles
In recent years, foreign language pedagogy has recognized the need to focus on larger meaningful sequences of words and on communicative goals. Construction grammar (CxG) has a number of assets to address these issues. First, with the postulate of meaningful schematic templates, CxG makes it possible to establish a structured inventory of abstract constructions. In this paper, this is illustrated by the inventory of German constructions with the preposition bis ‘up to, until’. Second, constructions, having a certain degree of schematicity, are particularly suitable to be practiced as whole sequences. Interactive activities based on ‘embodied teaching and learning’ can help foster the entrenchment of constructions.
Keywords: applications of construction grammar, foreign language teaching, foreign language learning, construction practice, embodiment, German preposition bis ‘up to/until’
Published online: 29 July 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.00037.kno
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