Ghsoon Reda

This paper argues that grading in the EFL/EIL (English as an international language) lexical syllabus takes place within the limitations of the basic area of English vocabulary. This is shown to be a consequence of the non-departure from ‘general interest’ topics, or topics that are deemed central to learning a target language, in the lexical aspec...

This paper examines the construction of figurative language within the approach to metaphoric complexes provided by the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM). This approach specifies the ways in which metaphors or metaphors and metonymies operate together at different levels of meaning construction, forming metaphtonymies, metaphoric amalgams and meta...

The Lexical Constructional Model (LCM) describes ironic constructions as containing echoes that invoke two contrasting situations: expected and real. The reconciliation of the contrast, which happens at the implicational level, gives rise to specific meaning effects in terms of speaker’s emotional reaction (see Ruiz de Mendoza & Galera Masegosa, 20...

This study examines the interpretation of evidential propositions using insights from the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM), including its recent classification of situational scenarios (cognitive models) into three sub-types: descriptive, attitudinal and regulatory. The aim is to show that processing the meaning of an evidential proposition can r...

Cognitive-oriented work on simile has developed out of attempts to pinpoint features distinguishing simile and metaphor. This development has had such consequences as 1) focusing on simile as an analogy-based process and 2) giving very little attention to the way simile and metaphor work together, treating them as independent rather than cooperatin...

This study is concerned with the power of speech/thought reports. It aims to demonstrate that such reports do not simply echo the words or thoughts of a speaker. Rather, cooperating with contrast operations (comparisons focusing on differences between concepts), they bear an illocutionary value (e.g., explaining, advising, etc.) that can activate p...

The authors of Integrated Education and Learning were asked how they would see the future of their field 30 years later. This chapter presents the authors’ views on cognitive semiotics as an integrated field of science in 2050, along with thinking skills (computational thinking, scientific thinking, and critical thinking); early childhood education...

Constructivism is adopted as the twenty-first century education model because it rests on stimulating thinking development. Constructivist practice, however, is surrounded by controversies that center around such issues as the effectiveness of different techniques on learning different areas or skills, the learning environment, and the student–teac...

Behind-the-screen communication can improve learners' willingness to communicate (WTC) in a foreign/second language (L2). During the Covid-19 pandemic, however, online education gave instructors ample opportunity to observe learners' communicative behaviour. The study reports observations showing that the new situation affected some learners' L2 WT...

Due to the complex diglossic situation in Arabic, the question of what variety of the language to teach has always occupied a central position in work on teaching Arabic as a foreign language (AFL). Basic Standard Arabic may have been the most supported answer to the above question, but the field is not short of proposals for teaching dialectal var...

This paper proposes a cognitive-semiotic model for teaching English prepositions within teacher training programs. The model is presented as a three-session grammar module that involves 1) creating an environment for the learners to see prepositional polysemy as multiple ways of viewing Trajector (TR)-Landmark (LM) spatial configurations (Tyler & E...

This paper suggests a theoretical model for teaching syntactic relations to foreign students of English Linguistics using insights from Cognitive Grammar as developed in Langacker (e.g. 1987, 1991, 1999) and elaborated on in Radden and Dirven (2007). The model deals with syntactic relations as participants in a prototypically structured network of...

Ferdinand de Saussure's thoughts on language came to light in 1916 with the publication of Cours de linguistique générale by his students. A hundred years on, the influence of his thoughts on modern linguistics is still being pinpointed. This paper reviews Saussure's influence on the cognitive approaches to meaning and grammar. The main objective i...

This study concerns itself with the prevalence of gender stereotypes and classification of professions in Saudi Arabia. A survey and follow-up interview were administered to 80 female university students to determine whether young Saudi females’ classification of professions carries evaluative connotations related to gender. The results show that t...

This paper reviews the Cognitive Linguistics (CL) approach to teaching the vocabulary of English as a foreign/international language in the light of Vyvyan Evans‟s “protean” approach to meaning and some related insights from work on meaning as a “continuum” (e.g. Radden, 2002; Dirven, 2002). The main objective is to show that the CL-inspired approa...

This paper provides an analysis of the use of the verb to show. It places the analysis in the framework of Vyvyan Evans’s theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (LCCM) – a protean approach to meaning composition and construction that deals with the way linguistic and conceptual structures interact, giving rise to meanings that can be place...

In this book, Khalid Al-Seghayer offers a thorough study of the history and status of English language teaching in Saudi Arabia, highlighting deficiencies and suggesting remedies in an attempt to cure the current standards of English education, particularly in public schools which, in his own words, “have deteriorated perhaps beyond hope of recover...

This paper examines two Qur’anic counterfactuals from the perspective of the Combined Input Hypothesis. This is a model of figurative meaning construction developed by Ruiz de Mendoza and others between 1999 and 2003 as an alternative model to Conceptual Blending Theory (see Fauconnier & Turner 2002, 2003). The purpose of the study is twofold: 1) t...