ABSTRACT
There has been a consensus among scholars that the very foundations of cognitive linguistics (CL) make it well suited for shedding light on second language acquisition (SLA). The usage-based principle lies at the heart of the connection between CL and SLA. In order to explain the impact of CL on SLA research and language pedagogy, this chapter first discusses the key tenets of CL and their implications for SLA, and then moves to the usage-based theory of language acquisition, followed by a review of CL-inspired approaches to L2 instruction, and finally concludes with suggestions for future research.
