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Article published In: Selected Papers from Constructionist Approaches to Language Pedagogy 4
Edited by Thorsten Piske and Thomas Herbst
[Pedagogical Linguistics 7:1] 2026
► pp. 38–66

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Constructicons as resources for language pedagogy — and vice versa

Experiences from Swedish

ORCiD logo with link | University of Gothenburg
 | University of Gothenburg
 | University of Gothenburg
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Gothenburg.

Published online: 17 November 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.25004.lyn
Abstract
This article addresses the usefulness of constructicons, and of the Swedish Constructicon (SweCcn) in particular, in application to (additional) language teaching. We present a number of small case studies on pedagogical application of SweCcn: some of which are classroom studies of construction-based teaching of Swedish as an additional language, and others concerned with identification of pedagogically relevant constructions by text analyses of teaching aids. The combined overall outcome of these case studies is one of mutual benefit: constructicons may, indeed, be a valuable resource for construction-oriented language pedagogy, and the experiences from teaching application, in turn, feed back into further development of the resource. The text analyses also highlight the importance of not only treating individual constructions, but also addressing the interplay between constructions in combination.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Constructions in language education
    • 2.1Arguments for constructional approaches to language pedagogy
    • 2.2Pedagogical construction grammar takes shape
  • 3.Constructicon resources for language pedagogy
    • 3.1More than words
    • 3.2Overview of constructicon features for pedagogical application
    • 3.3The Swedish constructicon
  • 4.Classroom studies based on SweCcn
    • 4.1Testing pattern finding and type case exercises in the L2 classroom
    • 4.2A cluster of case studies on constructions in the language classroom
  • 5.Identifying relevant constructions by analysis of teaching aids
    • 5.1From text analysis to constructions
    • 5.2Potentially difficult structures
      • 5.2.1Structures with implicit elements
      • 5.2.2Complex noun phrases
      • 5.2.3Complex coordinations
      • 5.2.4Temporal expressions
      • 5.2.5Metaphors
      • 5.2.6Complex combinations of constructions
  • 6.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Glossing abbreviations used in this paper
  • References
  • Investigated teaching materials
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