From theoretical to pedagogical grammar: The challenges of writing a textbook on cognitive grammar

Ronald Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991, 2008) offers an innovative and psychologically-plausible model for analysing texts and discourses. It is, however, fundamentally a theoretical grammar and despite receiving considerable interest from applied linguists, there have been few successful attempts to present it in a suitable and accessible pedagogical format to support students undertaking textual analysis for the first time. This chapter examines the process by which we worked on our forthcoming book Cognitive Grammar in Stylistics: A Practical Guide (Giovanelli and Harrison 2018). Through a number of examples, we outline the various decisions we faced and made in reconfiguring key aspects of Cognitive Grammar in order to present and articulate the model for novice learners. In doing so, we examine how the process of writing the book helped our own understanding of the affordances and limitations of Cognitive Grammar and led us to re-evaluate the pedagogical value per se of Langacker’s model.