An Overview of Cognitive Strategies in SLA of English in 21st Century

Abstract

Cognitive linguistics scrutinizes the close relationship between the human brain, mind and SLA. Since the beginning of the 21st century, many new paradigms and approaches have emerged in this domain of SLA. Based on English as L2, this paper delves into the review in cognitive dimension from three main aspects: cognitive linguistics represented by constructional grammar, empirical cognitive science represented by neural-brain science and corpus research, as well as category and metaphor-related theories in cognitive semantics. These cognitive perspectives and strategies are interconnected and complementary, constituting a general and comprehensive sketch of new paradigms in cognitive SLA. This paper summarizes and analyzes how cognitive linguistics and cognitive science in the 21st century can provide coherent and appropriate theoretical guidance and methodological reference for the study of SLA, and meanwhile criticize and reflect on the shortcomings of the current research field and offers suggestions for future research directions.