Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T15:44:43.565Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A comparative study of animation versus static effects in the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach on EFL learners’ cognitive processing of request strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2021

MASAHIRO TAKIMOTO
MASAHIRO TAKIMOTO*
Affiliation:
Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study evaluates the relative effects of two cognitive linguistic approaches – using animated versus static scenes in an illustration based on the spatial concept-oriented metaphor – and a non-cognitive linguistic approach on the Japanese EFL learners’ processing of request strategies with degrees of politeness. The cognitive linguistic approach consisted of applying the metaphor politeness is distance in the teaching of different degrees of politeness. It involved a spatial concept projection through which participants could understand degrees of politeness in terms of the spatially visualized concepts of near–far and high–low relationships associated with three social variables – closeness, power, and speaker difficulty – in either animated or static illustration. In contrast, the non-cognitive linguistic approach involved rote learning of target English polite requests in a list. The results demonstrated that the static version of the cognitive linguistic approach enabled participants to process degrees of politeness and perform as well as those who underwent the animated version. Moreover, the animation effects did not appear to have had a major impact on the overall performance of groups subjected to both cognitive language approaches. The results also showed that the cognitive linguistic approach groups outperformed the non-cognitive linguistic approach and control groups.

Keywords

politenessmetaphorspatial conceptcognitive processing
Type
Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 191 - 226
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

references

Alcón-Soler, E. (2013). Teachability and bilingual effects on third language knowledge of refusals. Intercultural Pragmatics 9(4), 511–541.Google Scholar
Arnett, C., Suñer, F. & Pust, D. (2019). Using cooperation scripts and animations to teach grammar in the foreign language classroom. Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association 7(1), 31–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2013). Developing L2 pragmatics. Language Learning 63(1), 68–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berendi, M., Csάbi, S. & Kövecses, Z. (2008). Using conceptual metaphors and metonymies in vocabulary teaching. In Boers, F. & Lindstromberg, S. (eds), Cognitive linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary and phraseology (pp. 101–132). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Boers, F. (2013). Cognitive linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary: assessment and integration. Language Teaching 46(2), 208–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boers, F. & Lindstromberg, S. (2009). Optimizing a lexical approach to instructed second language acquisition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. D. (2014). Testing in language programs: a comprehensive guide to English language assessment. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Couper, G. (2011). What makes pronunciation teaching work? Testing for the effect of two variables: socially constructed metalanguage and critical listening. Language Awareness 20(3), 159–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Csάbi, S. (2004). A cognitive linguistic view of polysemy in English and its implication for teaching. In Achard, M. & Niemeier, S. (eds), Cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition and foreign language teaching (pp. 233–256). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Knop, S. & Mollica, F. (2016). A construction-based study of German ditransitiv phraseologisms for language pedagogy. In De Knop, S. & Gilquin, G. (eds), Applied construction grammar (pp. 53–88). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DuFon, M. A. (1999). The acquisition of linguistic politeness in Indonesian as a second language by sojourners in a naturalistic context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Hawaii at Manoa.Google Scholar
Gao, L. & Meng, G. (2010). A study on the effect of metaphor awareness raising on Chinese EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition and retention. Canadian Social Sciences 6(2), 110–124.Google Scholar
Gradel, V. (2016). The acquisition of the German case system by foreign language learners through computer animations based on cognitive linguistics. Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association 4(1), 113–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grady, J. (1999). A typology of motivation for conceptual metaphor: Correlation vs. resemblance. In Gibbs, R. & Steen, G. (eds), Metaphor in cognitive linguistics (pp. 79–100). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halenko, N. & Jones, C. (2011). Teaching pragmatic awareness of spoken requests to Chinese EAP learners in the UK: Is explicit instruction effective? System 39, 240–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendriks, H. & Hickman, M. (2015). Expressing voluntary motion in a second language: English learners of French. In Cook, V. & Bassetti, B. (eds), Language and bilingual cognition (pp. 315–339). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Higuchi, K. (2019). KH coder 3 reference manual. Ritsumeikan University.Google Scholar
Holme, R. (2012). Cognitive linguistics and the second language classroom. TESOL Quarterly 46(1), 6–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IBM Corp. (2019). IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. IBM Corp.Google Scholar
Jamrozik, A., McQuire, M., Cardillo, E. R. & Chatterjee, A. (2016). Metaphor: bridging embodiment to abstraction. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 23(4),1080–1089.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kanaplianik, K. (2016). Animation of grammar – interplay of cognitive linguistics and multimedia learning: the example of German modal auxiliaries. Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association 4(1), 135–151.Google Scholar
Kasper, G. (2001). Classroom research on interlanguage pragmatics. In Rose, K. & Kasper, G. (eds), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 33–62). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasper, G. & Rose, K. (2002). Pragmatic development in a second language. Ann Arbor, MI: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar: Volume I. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Li, Q. (2012). Effects of instruction on adolescent beginners’ acquisition of request modification. TESOL Quarterly 46, 30–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liddicoat, A. & Crozet, C. (2001). Acquiring French interactional norms through instruction. In Rose, K. & Kasper, G. (eds), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 125–144). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Littlemore, J. (2009). Applying cognitive linguistics to second language learning and teaching. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Littlemore, J. & Low, G. (2006). Figurative thinking and foreign language learning. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, R. K. (2003). Animation and learning: selective processing of information in dynamic graphics. Learning and Instruction 13(2), 157–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, R. E., Hegarty, M., Mayer, S. & Campbell, J. (2005). When static media promote active learning: annotated illustrations versus narrated animations in multimedia instructions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 11(4), 256–265.Google Scholar
Narita, R. (2012). The effects of pragmatic consciousness-raising activity on the development of pragmatic awareness and use of hearsay evidential markers for learners of Japanese as a foreign language. Journal of Pragmatics 44(1), 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, T. (2013). Instructional effects on the acquisition of modifiers in constructive criticisms by EFL learners. Language Awareness 22(1), 76–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niemeier, S. (2017). Task-based grammar teaching of English: where cognitive grammar and task-based Language teaching meet. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Panther, K. & Thornburg, L. (2003). Metonymies as natural inference and activation schemas. In Panther, K. & Thornburg, L. (eds), Metonymy and pragmatic inferencing (pp.127–147). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reif, M. (2012). Making progress simpler: applying cognitive grammar to tense–aspect teaching. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Roche, J. & Scheller, J. (2008). Grammar animations and cognition. In Barber, B. & Zhang, F. (eds). Handbook of research on computer-enhanced language acquisition and learning (pp. 205–219). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sardegna, V. & Molle, D. (2010). Videoconferencing with strangers: teaching Japanese EFL students verbal backchannel signals and reactive expressions. Intercultural Pragmatics 7(2), 279–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheller, J. (2009). Animationen in der Grammatikvermittlung: Multimedialer Spracherwerb am Beispiel von Wechselpräpositionen. Berlin & Münster: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Suñer, F. & Roche, J. (2019). Embodiment in concept-based L2 grammar teaching: the case of German light verb constructions. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching. e2018-0362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabachnick, B. G. & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Taguchi, N. (2015). Instructed pragmatics at a glance: where instructional studies were, are, and should be going. Language Teaching 48(1), 1–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takahashi, S. (2001). The role of input enhancement in developing interlanguage pragmatic competence. In Rose, K. & Kasper, G. (eds), Pragmatics in Language Teaching (pp. 171–199). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takahashi, S. (2005). Noticing in task performance and learning outcomes: a qualitative analysis of instructional effects in interlanguage pragmatics. System 33(3), 437–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takahashi, S. (2010). The effect of pragmatic instruction on speech act performance. In Martínez-Flor, A.. & Use-Juan, E. (eds), Speech act performance: theoretical, empirical and methodological issues (pp. 127–144). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takimoto, M. (2009). The effects of input-based tasks on the development of learners’ pragmatic proficiency. Applied Linguistics 30(1), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takimoto, M. (2020a). Exploring the effects of proximal–distal metaphor on the development of EFL learners’ knowledge of the degrees of certainty. Language Teaching Research 24(3), 317–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takimoto, M. (2020b) Investigating the effects of cognitive linguistic approach in developing EFL learners’ pragmatic proficiency. System 89, e2020-102213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Volume I: concepts structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. (1983). Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics 4(2), 91–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, B., Morrison, J. & Betrancourt, M. (2002). Animation: Can it facilitate? International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 57(4), 247–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, A., Mueller, C. & Ho, V. (2010). Applying cognitive linguistics to instructed L2 learning: the English modals. AILA Review 23(1), 30–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, A., Mueller, C. & Ho, V. (2012). Experiment #2: comparing the efficacy of a CL-based approach with a traditional approach to teaching to, for and at . In Tyler, A. (ed.), Cognitive linguistics and second language learning (pp. 160–164). New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yasuda, S. (2010). Learning phrasal verbs through conceptual metaphors: a case of Japanese EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly 44(2), 250–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar