A Cognitive Approach to English Grammar

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.