The consciousness-pill thought experiment
The connection principle isn't controversial, even in an extreme form. It's just an interesting possibility—and because the possibility isn't controversial, there's nothing wrong with Searle's account.
Imagine that a consciousness pill were invented that made normally unconscious processes—eg principles of language use—conscious; in essence constituting an extreme version of the connection principle. But such a pill wouldn't refute cognitive linguistics or cognitive science in general.
Jerry Fodor and Ernie Lepore (1994).