As the title of this collection suggests, its main purpose is to present pedagogically focused cognitive linguistics (CL) research that might inform and improve instructed second language (L2) learning. Even if the connections attempted so far between CL and SLA have often been tenuous at best, the editors of this volume have put together a collection that successfully demonstrates areas in which CL can enhance cognitivist SLA research and pedagogy.

In Part 1, several authors argue that L2 learners are generally not able to benefit from implicit frequency effects in the same way as L1 learners. Alejo, Piquer, and Reveriego show that the lack of representative phrasal verbs in the English materials that Spanish secondary school learners are exposed to all but precludes the possibility of learners acquiring this important form. In a subsequent chapter, Stengers, Boers, Eyckmans, and Housen suggest that when teachers raise awareness of multiword chunks in written materials, students do not notice authentic chunks or expand their chunk repertoire any more than a control group. On the basis of evidence from these chapters, along with chapters by Taylor and Xiaoyan as well as Wolf, the volume’s editors indicate that CL-inspired pedagogy should be conducted mainly with intentional language learning. The rest of the collection is therefore oriented toward the development of efficient language instruction through CL research.

Part 2 focuses on using CL to make decisions about what to teach. Of particular interest is the chapter by Herrera and White. The authors explain that idioms are more common in business corpora than previously believed—they are often used in noncanonical but recognizably idiomatic expressions—and learners can therefore benefit from more instruction in recognizing and understanding idioms. Boers, Deconinck, and Lindstromberg argue that medium-frequency chunks—or multiword, formulaic sequences—should be taught in preference to the most frequent chunks, because learners have a better chance of picking up high-frequency chunks on their own. They also consider phonological motivation in the description of the most teachable chunks, citing sound patterns—like alliteration and assonance—as important factors in the explanation and retention of multiword chunks. Littlemore, Chen, Tang, Koester, and Barnden reveal how metaphor and metonymy are crucial for L2 learners in both academic and nonacademic settings. Their chapter presents two studies that indicate that nonnative English speakers in Britain not only do not realize the extent to which metaphors occur in the language around them but are often not aware of their own lack of comprehension of metaphorical expressions. Additional chapters by Neff-van Aerselaer and Bunce, Jing-Schmidt, and Eddington and Ruiz de Mendoza provide further insight into the ways that CL can contribute to efficient instructional practices.

The final section of the volume explores how to teach and suggests that CL can improve learning by helping to forge deep, form-meaning connections. Authors look at teaching the Italian passato prossimo on the basis of prototypes (Hamrick and Attardo); ways in which Japanese learners of English benefit from instruction on connections between prepositions (Cho); lexical decomposition as a vocabulary-decoding strategy (Sanchez-Stockhammer); and the acquisition of L2 pronunciation on the basis of phonological rather than semantic poles (Fraser). Hu and Fong present an interesting approach to the cross-cultural influence of metaphors and report on a study that showed how different conceptions of body, mind, and heart resulted in Taiwanese learners misunderstanding English idioms. In the final chapter, Juchem-Grundman and Krenmayr show that, with motivated metaphor themes, students respond well to “prioritized targeting” (p. 317) of linguistic and conceptual metaphors, and they suggest the importance of carefully selecting target forms and instructional techniques.

Overall, the collection provides a much-needed step toward closer integration of CL and cognitive SLA research. By taking pedagogical efficiency as its foundational premise—rather than starting from a purely CL position—the book offers convincing support for greater collaboration between these two camps with very similar pedagogical goals. Because the work tends, however, to concentrate on issues that are somewhat outside of mainstream SLA (e.g., metaphor, idioms, and prototypes), it is probably most appropriate for those researchers who are already interested in CL and wish to see specific, concrete classroom applications. De Knop, Boers, and De Rycker’s book is nonetheless a valuable resource for applying the insights of CL to relevant issues in SLA research and pedagogy.