Clarifying Some Issues in Construction Grammar Studies

“Form-meaning pair”is not a distinctive feature of constructions,but a universal feature of all things.A construction must be a structure.Morphemes are the smallest sound-meaning assemblies,but they only represent a symbolic relationship which has no internal structure;thus,they are not constructions.In addition,if morphemes are also treated as constructions,there is a problem of“heterogeneity”in understanding the“form”of constructions.As to the rising“constructionist”and the traditional“atomist”dichotomy,we feel the“constructionist”approach complies better with the actual linguistic life.Construction Grammar leads people to pay close attention to the integrity of constructions and the cognitive mechanisms behind linguistic facts.Therefore,it is of great value both theoretically and practically.However,since Construction Grammar has not yet displayed a distinct value in terms of methodology,we must be careful not to overrate it or overestimate it.

Trend Analysis of the Research on Construction Grammar in CSSCI Journals from 2010 to 2020

This study aims at analyzing the tendency and change in the research on construction grammar from 2010 to 2020.Descriptively,this study includes the publication year,research topic,research direction,research content,and the research methods.Twenty-four CSSCI journals were selected as the research samples using the keyword–“Construction Grammar.”The research topics mainly include Chinese construction research,foreign language construction research,and comparative studies on Chinese and other language constructions.The results showed that there are many Chinese construction research,but the other two research topics still require improvement.Ontology research was the main focus;acquisition research and teaching research are worthy for further exploration.Case studies and theoretical studies were the most concerned contents,whereas studies on language acquisition,pedagogy,and corpus construction were feeble.Qualitative description and theoretical review were the most popular methods,while empirical,quantitative,and diachronic analyses were less frequently used.After analyzing the trends,it has been predicted that the research on construction grammar would continue to heat up in the future,and there would be more research directions and contents along with diversified research methods.

The 5C Model of Linguistic Creativity: Construction Grammar as a Cognitive Theory of Verbal Creativity

Creativity is a design feature of human language.This paper presents a cognitive model of verbal creativity that draws on insights from the psychological research into creativity-particularly Glaveanu's 5A model that distinguishes five crucial perspectives on a creative act(actors,audience,artefacts,actions and affordances).The paper will outline a linguistic version of this model that adopts Construction Grammar as its theoretical foundation.The resulting"5C model of constructional creativity"argues that the central elements of linguistic creativity are constructors,co-constructors,constructs,constructional blending and the constructional network.

Language Transfer Evidence in the Acquisition of Double Object Construction by Chinese EFL Learners

Based on the theory of language transfer in second language acquisition, this study explored the dynamic acquisition of English double object construction by Chinese EFL learners through comparative analysis. Altogether 120 subjects participated in this experiment and were required to take the proofreading exercise in limited time. The experimental results showed that Chinese EFL learners at different levels of proficiency acquired the core subclass of double object construction better than peripheral ones;meanwhile, learners at higher levels of proficiency outperformed those at lower levels, especially in the peripheral types. Relevant theoretical interpretations were given thereafter to the above research findings, with the hope to shed some light on the learning of double object construction by Chinese EFL learners.

A Study of English Ditransitive Construction and Its Enlightments on SLA

English ditransitive construction is a significant component of Goldberg's construction grammar which is based on cognitive linguistics. It aims to enlighten teachers and learners of SLA. It presents backgrounds and the basic concepts of Goldberg's construction grammar, depicts what English ditransitive construction is and its semantic constraints, and refers to enlightments of English ditransitive construction on SLA from four perspectives.

A Comparative Study on the Acquisition of English Middle Construction between Chinese English Majors and Non-English Majors

Since the Keyser and Roeper,English middle construction(EMC)has attracted the linguists successfully with its complex syntactic and semantic features.The essential feature of EMC is active in syntactic form and passive in semantic meaning.Semantically,EMC is characterized by non-eventivity,genericity,agentivity and modality.Syntactically,the argument of EMC sentence is the internal argument of the verb,and the verb usually takes the modifier of an adverb or modal verb.Due to the complexity of EMC,many English learners encounter some difficulties in learning the second language.Based on Construction Grammar,this paper mainly investigates the following questions:first,is the learners’acquisition on EMC related to their English proficiency?Second,for typical and untypical EMC,which one is more difficult for them to learn?According to the research objectives,the research finally selects 32 valid papers and divides the subjects into advanced and elementary groups according to their scores in CET-6 and TEM-8,and R Studio is adopted to analyze their acquisition of EMC.The research results show that:first,the learners’acquisition on EMC is related to their English proficiency.Second,for typical and untypical EMC,both of them acquire typical EMC better than the untypical one,so the typical EMC is more difficult for the them to learn.