ABSTRACT
Cognitive linguistic theories propose that the forms of a language that speakers learn and use can be described and conceptualized as constructions or form-meaning mappings. A construction can denote a specific meaning (when one form expresses a single meaning; e.g., avocado) or sets of meanings. The linguistic form of a construction and its use in communication is built up over time through usage and agreed upon by a community of speakers. Building on the understanding of constructions as building blocks of language, the language input that speakers are exposed to and use are a critical source for building knowledge of that language. The cognitive mechanisms used by humans to learn language are described as domain-general because humans are understood to learn a language in the same ways that they learn any other ability or skill. A feature of crosslinguistic influence research is that it seeks to understand the ways in which a speaker’s experience with one or more languages influences.
