Descripción y contextualización de la asignatura

This course is offered in the first term of the Master’s degree. Its main goal is to familiarize students with the application of semantics, the study of meaning, to the didactics of language teaching, in particular to teaching English as a foreign language. This course on semantics, together with the courses on phonetics, pragmatics, and morphosyntax that are also part of the Master’s degree, contributes to a full understanding of language and language acquisition.

Convocatoria ordinaria: orientaciones y renuncia

The type of assessment is continuous. Students will be assessed according to their performance in the following two assignments:



- Assignment 1: Class presentation of an article/chapter of a book: 40%:

- Assignment 2: Paper: 60%:



Class participation/class attendance will also be taken into account.



Withdrawal from an exam call: Not submitting one of the assignments qualifies as an automatic withdrawal [no presentado/a] from the corresponding call.

Convocatoria extraordinaria: orientaciones y renuncia

The mark will be based on the same assignments as in the first call (convocatoria ordinaria) (100%). Those assignments which earned a passing grade in the first call may be kept in the second call.



Marking criteria: The same marking criteria apply as in the first call.



Withdrawal from an exam call: Not submitting one of the assignments qualifies as an automatic withdrawal [no presentado/a] from the corresponding call.

Temario

During the course, the following topics will be addressed:

1. Semantic analysis and didactics of language: setting the scene

2. Prepositions

3. Vocabulary

4. Lexicalization patterns

5. Constructions

6. Word order constructions

(7. Modals)

Bibliografía

Materiales de uso obligatorio

A list of obligatory articles will be made available for the students at the beginning of the course.



The students will also be provided with a list of the articles to prepare their class presentation.







The reading material dealing with the theoretical topics will be supplemented with a number of practical exercises to be carried out in the classroom to ensure full understanding of the issues. Futhermore, the readings will serve as a model for the development of research skills, including that of writing academic papers. The exercises will help students apply the theoretical constructs to language teaching and learning.

Bibliografía básica

Unit 1: Theoretical foundations



Celce-Murcia, Marianne. (1991). Grammar Pedagogy in Second and Foreign Language Teaching. TESOL Quartely 25(3): 459-480.



De Rycker, Antoon and De Knop,Sabine. (2009). Integrating Cognitive Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching – Historical Background and New Developments. Journal of Modern Languages 19(1): 29-46.



Taylor, John. (2008). Some pedagogical implications of cognitive linguistics. In Knop, S. and De Rycker, T. (eds.), Cognitive Approaches To Pedagogical Grammar: A Volume In Honour of René Dirven, pp. 37-65. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.



Unit 2: Prepositions



Tyler, Andrea. (2012). Applying cognitive linguistics to English prepositions. Chapter 5. Cognitive linguistics and second language learning. New York: Routledge.



Unit 3: Vocabulary



Boers, Frank. (2010) Metaphor Awareness and vocabulary retention. Applied Linguistics 21(4): 553-571.



Macis, Marijana and Schmitt, Norbert. (2017). The figurative and polysemous nature of collocations and their place in ELT. ELT Journal 71(1): 50-59.



Unit 4: Lexicalization patterns



Cadierno, Teresa. (2008). Motion events in Danish and Spanish: a focus-on-form pedagogical approach. In de Knop, S. and De Rycker, T. (eds.), Cognitive Approaches to Pedagogical Grammar: A Volume in Honour of René Dirven, pp. 259-294. Berlin; New York: Moutoun de Gruyter.



Unit 5: Constructions



Goldberg, Adele and Bencini, Giulia. (2005). Support from Language Processing for a Constructional Approach to Grammar. In Tyler, A., Takada, M., Kim, Y., and Marinova, D. (eds.) Language in use: Cognitive and discourse perspectives on language and language learning, pp. 3-18. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press.



Unit 6: Word order constructions



Blyth, Carl. (2000). Toward a Pedagogical Discourse Grammar: Techniques for Teaching Word-Order Constructions. In Lee, J. and Valdman, A. (eds.), Form and Meaning: Multiple Perspectives, pp. 183-229. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.



(Unit 7: Modals)



Tyler, Andrea. (2008). Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Instruction. In Robinson, P. and Ellis, N. (eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, pp. 456-488, London/New York: Routledge.