A COGNITIVE APPROACH IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION: METHODOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS
B. V. Saprygin
Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguodidactics, semantics, analytical philosophy, anti-mentalism, conceptual models, conceptual metaphor, experientalist realism, concept, prototype, cognitive structure, mental representations
Abstract
Introduction. The paper discusses the issue of applying the results of cognitive linguistics to linguodidactics. The cognitive approach to teaching a foreign language assumes that the student comprehends the mental structures that control the linguistic thinking of the native speaker of this language, and it enables him to master it. However, the question arises as to both the validity of cognitive linguistics itself and the possibility of using it for linguodidactic purposes. The aim of the article is to discuss these issues. Methodology and methods of the research. The methodological basis of the study is the ideas of some analytical philosophers concerning the essence of cognition and the formation of scientific knowledge. They are primarily the analytical authors who developed their ideas in the spirit of epistemological relativism, conventionalism and anti-mentalism. The results of the research. The paper shows how the criticism of mentalism can affect the assessment of cognitive linguistics and the potentialities of its use in linguodidactics. First, the critical observations on cognitive linguistics by representatives of various branches of linguistics are discussed. Then a criticism from the standpoint of the anti-mentalist philosophical methodology is expressed. It is also from the perspective of the anti-mentalist methodology that the way cognitive linguistics is applied to the field of linguodidactics is criticized. It is said that the reference to mental representations, while developing and using cognitive models in the course of educational process, cannot be considered scientifically relevant and the use of such models does not make acquiring a foreign language much easier. Conclusion. It is concluded that the cognitive approach to teaching a foreign language does not quite correspond to its name, since it is not sufficiently cognitive and does not reflect the real cognitive processes in the human mind. However, this method can be used as a heuristic technique that could contribute to the acquisition of a foreign language.
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