Introduction

This book gathers a collection of selected contributions from the “9th International Contrastive Linguistics Conference” (ICLC9), which was organised by the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Genoa (Italy) and held on 20–21 May 2021. It approaches the field of Contrastive Linguistics and explores some of its core topics from a robust perspective that combines the tenets of Construction Grammar and Cognitive Linguistics. In doing so, it shows how their integration can help to successfully research contrastivity through updated theoretical frameworks and applied methodologies that combine language and thought. It compares ten different languages—Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish—with a view to analysing constructions at the levels of morphology, syntax, lexis, and discourse, and identifying the cognitive motivations that instantiate the phenomena under scrutiny. The linguistic data, retrieved from authentic corpora, are analysed by means of various methodologies and discussed in the light of core notions, such as contrastive equivalence, frequency, salience, lexicalisation preference, typological classes, and stance variability, among others. Overall, this collection endows the traditional approach of Contrastive Linguistics with constructional and cognitive tools, and, at the same time, enriches Construction Grammar and Cognitive Linguistics with the most recent findings in contrastive studies.