A cognitive-functional approach to utterance pairs: A critical review of dialogic construction grammar

Abstract

The combination of construction grammar and dialogic syntax in cognitive linguistics facilitates a novel cognitive-functional approach to investigating dialogues, which highlights the engagement of interlocutors and aims to examine the cognitive motivation and mechanism underlying the resonances and temporary constructions in utterance pairs. Nevertheless, studies on dialogic construction grammar are scarce and unsystematic, some of which concern theoretical explanation instead of practical application with sufficient data. As a result, it is demanding to testify its explanatory force in diverse types of utterance pairs in natural language. Basically grounded on the monograph Dialogic Construction Grammar: A Theoretical Framework and Its Application, this review sorts out the development of dialogic construction grammar, and manages to presents how the Event domain-based Schema-Instance model is constructed to explore the cognitive mechanism of common types of utterance pairs, particulary, wh-question and answer pairs, namely wh-dialogues, with the intention to  explain how dialogic construction grammar theory is applied to investigate the cognitive-functional properties of common utterance pairs in linguistic communication, at the same time pointing out the future work that might be done in the studies on construction grammar.