Abstract
The –ING construction has a number of uses in the English language and teaching it to speakers of other languages poses some challenges, as learners tend to interpret the construction as a verbal one, in the progressive aspect, which is only one part of the picture. Bearing this in mind, we have developed a corpus-based research into the form-meaning/function pairing (Goldberg, 1995, 2006) of the construction, relying on Construction Grammar (Fillmore; Kay, 1999; Goldberg, 1995, 2006) and Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 1987, 1990, 1991, 2008), apart from a semantic approach to the –ING construction (Wierzbicka, 1988), essential for describing the –ING construction from a conceptual perspective within the wide-ranging scope of Cognitive Linguistics (Geeraerts, 2006), which also included Prototype Theory (Rosch, 1973) and Radial Categories (Brugman, 1981; Lakoff, 1987). In regard to methodology, we have taken both a quantitative and qualitative approach to data (Cook; Reichardt, 1979; Richardson, 1985; Creswell, 2010) compiled from an English/Spanish parallel corpus of 1199 verbal –ING occurrences. Our main hypothesis is that the –ING construction, in its verbal function, is more central or prototypical (Rosch, 1973; Brugman, 1981; Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 2008) in respect to its conceptual network and its other functions, namely nominal, adjectival and adverbial. These functions, in turn, exhibit a more peripheral role and are linked to the verbal function through metaphorical extension relationships (Goldberg, 1995, 2006). By performing a corpus-based analysis of the data (Berber-Sardinha, 2002, 2004) we finally argue that there is a radial organisation (Brugman, 1981; Lakoff, 1987) for the –ING construction, which goes from a more concrete level, being this more situated or grounded and thus more objectified (as a “here and now process”), until it gets to a more abstract level, therefore, less situated and more subjectified (taken as a “thing”).
Highlights
Teaching English as a foreign language poses a number of challenges to the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher
While we recognise that all these functions of the construction are related through a constructional network of both semantic and syntactic functions (Wierzbicka, 1988; Kay & Fillmore, 1999; Goldberg, 1995, 2006; Langacker, 2008), we argue that such differentiation in function and use relies on a more objective or subjective construal (Talmy, 2000; Langacker, 1987, 1990, 1991, 2008) of the scene described, which tends to be more grounded or less grounded (Langacker, 1990, 2008) on spatial and/or temporal deixis
The main contribution of this paper is to propose a constructionist approach to the -ING construction which brings together its core functions in English in a close relation with other languages, such as Spanish, whose uses clearly resemble the ones found in the English language
Summary
Teaching English as a foreign language poses a number of challenges to the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher. One of these is the teaching of the -ING construction, especially to students of romance languages, such as Spanish and Portuguese. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a constructionist approach to the -ING construction which brings together its core functions in English in a close relation with other languages, such as Spanish, whose uses clearly resemble the ones found in the English language. We focus on the main concepts which support our conceptual perspective on the subject, outlining our objectives and hypothesis against a number of data collected from an English/Spanish parallel corpus (Berber-Sardinha, 2002, 2004) (section 3). We perform a corpus-based analysis, based on both quantitative and qualitative data (Cook; Reichardt, 1979; Richardson, 1985; Creswell, 2010) (section 4) and we draw some conclusions based on our findings
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