It is clear that children acquire their first language without explicit learning. A foreign or second language is usually learned but to some degree may also be acquired or “picked up” depending on the environmental setting. So, this article mainly discusses the linguistic environmental setting for foreign language acquisition. It suggested that we should make an effective linguistic environment for foreign language acquisition in foreign language classroom.

The present contribution offers an overview of a new area of research in the field of foreign language acquisition, which was triggered by the introduction of Positive Psychology (PP) ( MacIntyre and Gregersen, 2012 ). For many years, a cognitive perspective had dominated research in applied linguistics. Around the turn of the millennium researchers became increasingly interested in the role of emotions in foreign language learning and teaching, beyond established concepts like foreign language (...) anxiety and constructs like motivation and attitudes toward the foreign language. As a result, a more nuanced understanding of the role of positive and negative learner and teacher emotions emerged, underpinned by solid empirical research using a wide range of epistemological and methodological approaches. PP interventions have been carried out in schools and universities to strengthen learners and teachers’ experiences of flow, hope, courage, well-being, optimism, creativity, happiness, grit, resilience, strengths, and laughter with the aim of enhancing learners’ linguistic progress. This paper distinguishes the early period in the field that started with MacIntyre and Gregersen (2012), like a snowdrop after winter, and that was followed by a number of early studies in relatively peripheral journals. We argue that 2016 is the starting point of the current period, characterized by gradual recognition in applied linguistics, growing popularity of PP, and an exponential increase in publications in more mainstream journals. This second period could be compared to a luxuriant English garden in full bloom. (shrink)

The field of second language acquisition (SLA) is by nature of its subject a highly interdisciplinary area of research. Learning a (foreign) language, for example, involves encoding new words, consolidating and committing them to long-term memory, and later retrieving them. All of these processes have direct parallels in the domain of human memory and have been thoroughly studied by researchers in that field. Yet, despite these clear links, the two fields have largely developed in parallel and (...) in isolation from one another. The present article aims to promote more cross-talk between SLA and memory science. We focus on foreign language (FL) attrition as an example of a research topic in SLA where the parallels with memory science are especially apparent. We discuss evidence that suggests that competition between languages is one of the mechanisms of FL attrition, paralleling the interference process thought to underlie forgetting in other domains of human memory. Backed up by concrete suggestions, we advocate the use of paradigms from the memory literature to study these interference effects in the language domain. In doing so, we hope to facilitate future cross-talk between the two fields and to further our understanding of FL attrition as a memory phenomenon. (shrink)

Previous studies have found the effect of cognitive skills on reading ability, but the role of different reading-related skills in acquisition of Chinese as a second/foreign language remains unexplored. Prior meta-analyses on the relationship between cognitive skills and reading have been conducted primarily in native English-speaking or Mandarin-speaking children. The purpose of the present meta-analysis was to examine the relationship between Chinese reading-related skills and Chinese word reading of CSL/CFL learners. A search of English and Chinese databases (...) yielded 42 effect sizes, comprising 1103 subjects met the criteria for meta-analysis and were included in the final meta-analysis. Results revealed a moderate relationship between phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, rapid automatized naming and Chinese word reading in CSL/CFL learners. In addition, a moderating effect of length of study on the relationship between phonological awareness and Chinese word reading : phonological awareness and Chinese word reading correlated more strongly for beginning learners than for advanced learners. These results suggest importance of cognitive factors in the acquisition of Chinese word reading as a second language. Results also shed light on the impact of length of study on the influence from phonological awareness to the sensitive period of phonological learning for CSL/CFL learners. (shrink)

Second/foreign language teaching has been found as one of the most emotional professions worldwide. To generate optimal academic outcomes and run an effective education, teachers and students’ emotions and feelings must be positively cared for. Given the significance of emotions in L2 education, many studies have followed positive psychology and examined various positive constructs. Nevertheless, love, as a PP variable, has been ignored in education due to its cultural/religious sensitivities. Trying to dispel the myths, recently, a new trend (...) called a “loving pedagogy” has started to find itself a place in second language acquisition research and practice. Yet, proposing a model of its application and an agenda for its research has been overlooked by scholars in this domain. Motivated by this lacuna, this research article provided the conceptualization, definitions, research bases, practical models, and implications of a loving pedagogy for SLA practitioners and future researchers. (shrink)

Influenced by the flowering of positive psychology in the field of foreign language acquisition research in recent years, the present study aimed to explore the perceived functions of playfulness, as a personality construct, among English as a foreign language learners. To this aim, an initial sample of 38 EFL learners were selected randomly from the private language institutes of Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran. They were interviewed about any perceived functions of playfulness (...) in the EFL learning context. A qualitative content analysis of the collected data led to the extraction of four categories: Fun and laughter, creativity, mastery orientation, and cultivating relationships. A further in-depth analysis of the categories and comparison with the functions of adult playfulness in psychology revealed that these four categories can be subsumed under two of the four structural components of adult playfulness; namely, other-directed playfulness and intellectual playfulness. The ability of EFL learners to turn language learning situations, tasks, and environment into enjoyable ones via their playfulness can have implications for the quality of their interpersonal interactions in class and eventually their language proficiency. The findings of this study can pave the way for the translation of the adult playfulness construct from developmental and personality psychology and family relations into the second language acquisition domain and its conceptualization in future research in this domain. (shrink)

Learning to write in a foreign language is a complex cognitive process. The process-genre approach is a common instructional practice adopted by language teachers to develop learners’ writing abilities. However, the interacting elements of procedural knowledge, linguistic knowledge, and generic knowledge in this approach may exceed the capacity of an individual learner’s working memory, thus actually hindering the acquisition of writing skills. According to the collective working memory effect, it was hypothesized that teaching writing skills of (...) English as a foreign language by adopting a process-genre approach in collaborative conditions could lead to better writing performance, lower cognitive load, and higher instructional efficiency. The reported experiment compared learning writing skills of English as a foreign language in individual and collaborative instructional conditions from a cognitive load perspective, a rarely adopted approach in this field. The results indicated that the collaborative instructional condition was more effective and efficient than the individual instructional condition in improving the quality of written products as well as in optimizing the cognitive (working memory) load experienced by the learners. Measures of cognitive load were used to support the cognitive load theory’s interpretation of the results, which is the unique contribution of this research study to the field. (shrink)

Word learning is basic to foreign language acquisition, however time consuming and not always successful. Empirical studies have shown that traditional (visual) word learning can be enhanced by gestures. The gesture benefit has been attributed to depth of encoding. Gestures can lead to depth of encoding because they trigger semantic processing and sensorimotor enrichment of the novel word. However, the neural underpinning of depth of encoding is still unclear. Here, we combined an fMRI and a behavioral study (...) to investigate word encoding online. In the scanner, participants encoded 30 novel words of an artificial language created for experimental purposes and their translation into the subjects’ native language. Participants encoded the words three times visually, audiovisually, and by additionally observing semantically related gestures performed by an actress. Hemodynamic activity during word encoding revealed the recruitment of cortical areas involved in stimulus processing. In this study, depth of encoding can be spelt out in terms of sensorimotor brain networks that grow larger the more sensory modalities are linked to the novel word. Word retention outside the scanner documented a positive effect of gestures in a free recall test in the short-term. (shrink)

Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) plays a facilitative role in FL learning and its contributing factors have been the object of scholarly attention in the Positive Psychology approach to second language acquisition (SLA). The present study examined the predictive effects of gender and academic discipline on overall FLE and each of its subcomponents in a specific Chinese EFL context. Statistical analyses based on a sample of 1,718 high school students showed that: (1) female students scored significantly higher (...) in overall FLE,FLE-Private, andFLE-Atmospherethan their male counterparts, but no significant difference was found in theirFLE-Teacher; (2) students of Humanities and Social Sciences scored significantly higher in overall FLE,FLE-TeacherandFLE-Atmospherethan students of Natural Science, though no significant difference was identified forFLE-Private. Reasons for the statistical variations and their implications were also discussed. (shrink)

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has been further developed to focus on the research of human cognitive activities. Thus, the concept of emotional intelligence, which is the topic of the current paper, was introduced by John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey and ‎Daniel Goleman. General intelligence can be defined as the capacity to carry out abstract reasoning to understand meanings, to recognize the similarities and differences between two concepts and to make generalizations. Emotional intelligence is not a part of general intelligence. (...) Emotional intelligence can be defined as an ability of a human to perceive oneself and interact with others with the help of obtained and processed emotional information. Language acquisition is mediated by the necessity to communicate with others. Consequently, the ability to manage the process of communication is of utmost importance in learning a language. Virtual learning environment reduces dramatically the immediate interaction of the participants of the process of education. It undoubtedly affects the process of acquisition and demands to reconsider the distribution of different learning activities. (shrink)

This study takes a holistic view of flow and anti-flow experiences as interactive subsystems in blended English as a foreign language learning and examines the dynamic complex construct in the field of instructed second language acquisition. We first rephrased the 22-item Classroom Flow Questionnaire to better reflect the context of blended EFL learning. The modified CFQ was then administered to 661 first language Chinese EFL learners. A final 14-item Foreign Language Flow Scale was (...) developed based on results from a series of reliability and validity tests. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results have demonstrated that foreign language learning flow is a three-dimensional construct involving Enjoyment, Boredom, and Anxiety, thus conceptualizing and validating flow as a continuum with both positive and negative ends. Moreover, participants reported that they experienced the lowest degree of enjoyment, while with respect to the negative flow, they almost experienced similar degree of boredom and anxiety. The present study contributes to the development of the conceptual framework for flow in ISLA as well as constructive pedagogical implications for L2 researchers and educators. Suggestions for future research are also provided. (shrink)

Informed by the poststructuralist theory, this study investigates the case of Ming, a Chinese professor of English, about the impacts of his first language and second language learning experience, and the changes of social contexts on his L1 and L2 identities construction. It was found that being a learner of English as a Foreign Language, Ming’s identities development aligned with the poststructuralist theory, in which it is considered dynamic, fluid and conflicting. Ming negotiated and renegotiated his (...) identities in various social contexts in China and the United States and finally gained acceptance into the L2 academic community. This study not only analyzes Ming’s experience with his language learning and identities, but also unravels that conflicts may be part of the process of identities construction, and encourages learners to be persistent and emotionally resilient, while using certain strategies to retain a stable L1 identity so that they can navigate through the negative encounters during the second language acquisition process to sustain the development of their identities and L2 abilities. (shrink)

The need for worldwide communication has made people learn as many foreign languages as they can in order to be able to send and receive information from all over the world. Realizing this situation, researchers and linguists have carried out a large number of studies in order to find out the best ways for teaching and learning English as a second or foreign language. The terms language learning and language acquisition are not new since (...) in many earlier researches language acquisition is compared to the process of learning the mother tongue whereas language learning is compared to the process when a child learns a second or foreign language. This paper aims to showcase that teaching/learning new vocabulary using pictures is much more effective than the other methods of vocabulary learning. The research also puts emphasis on the language level of learners. It demonstrates that the method of using pictures and illustrations works well with all levels of proficiency and as such, it has brought very useful results. It was carried out at the South East European University (SEEU) in North Macedonia and participants were thirty (30) students from all five Faculties, divided in three different groups based on their language proficiency. Each group consisted of ten (10) students, aged 18 to 22 years. They were of elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate level of English. The research lasted for six weeks, because the students had to be introduced to six different vocabulary topics. Since the experiment was carried out in a real classroom environment, the target vocabulary topics used for this purpose were chosen from their students’ book. Data were collected in three phases. During the first phase, students were asked to complete a questionnaire, consisting of questions regarding the vocabulary learning methods, mainly vocabulary associated with pictures. In the second phase, they were engaged in real activities in a traditional classroom setting, while in the last phase, at the end of the last session, participants took a quiz that was supposed to provide evidence and additional data about participants’ achievements. It is expected that the findings from this experiment will be useful to current and prospective teachers as they show that the method of pictures and illustrations associating the target vocabulary functions well with different levels. (shrink)

With the popularity of positive psychology research in second language acquisition since 2012, foreign language enjoyment has attracted many researchers in this domain. Several innovative quantitative and qualitative research methods have been used so far to explore FLE. However, given the dynamic nature of FLE, the development of innovative tools can contribute to the exploration of the micro-scale dynamics of FLE. This study aims to introduce enjoymeter as one of these innovative tools and provide an example (...) for its use in a foreign language learning setting. To do this, the application of enjoymeters in the exploration of the dynamics of FLE in an English as a foreign language course in China is explained. The enjoymeter data along with interviews were collected in three sessions of the course and were analyzed via thematic analysis. The findings indicated that moments of enjoyment emerged in terms of both private FLE and social FLE in these three sessions. Also, the use of enjoymeter indicated that it can enable researchers to map the dynamics of FLE session by session and even within each session of the course. The pedagogical implications of the use of enjoymeters in foreign language classes are discussed and future directions are explained. (shrink)

While child language development theory must explain invariant “success,” foreign language learning theory must explain variation and lack of success. The fundamental difference hypothesis (FDH) outlines such a theory. Epstein et al. ignore the explanatory burden, mischaracterize the FDH, and underestimate the resources of human cognition. The field of second language acquisition is not divided into camps by views on “access” to UG.

Positive psychology has recently seen unprecedented rise and has reached vast achievements in the area of quality of life improvement. The purpose of this study is to show that there are different aspects of well-being that make healthy older people motivated to learn a foreign language at a later age. The research was conducted in the Czech Republic and Poland in two groups of learners aged 55 years and more. The experimental group consisted of 105 Czech respondents who (...) were targeted with an online questionnaire with the aim to determine the level of FLL outcomes connected to QoL in healthy older adults in their L2 acquisition. The second experimental group was established of Polish seniors who attended similar language courses. The findings of the research clearly show that FLL has an irreplaceable role as one of several non-pharmacological strategies utilized to improve the aging process and reduce drawbacks of aging. The results indicate that seniors' overall satisfaction and subjective feelings of well-being are enormously high when attending foreign language classes at older age. FLL, therefore, creates an environment that can enhance QoL of older adults that can be supplemented by other means such as well-balanced diet, other social activities, sport and physical activity, music, or computer games. All these intervention methods can significantly improve QoL of older adults and the parties engaged and/or responsible for taking care of older generation should take it into serious consideration. (shrink)

It is interesting to explore the effects of second language acquisition on anatomical change in brain at different stages for the neural structural adaptations are dynamic. Short-term Chinese training effects on brain anatomical structures in alphabetic language speakers have been already studied. However, little is known about the adaptations of the gray matter induced by acquiring Chinese language for a relatively long learning period in adult alphabetic language speakers. To explore this issue, we recruited 38 (...) Indian overseas students in China as our subjects. The learned group included 17 participants who had learned Mandarin Chinese for an average of 3.24 years and achieved intermediate Chinese language proficiency. The control group included 21 subjects who had no knowledge about Chinese. None of the participants had any experience in learning logographic and tonal language before Chinese learning. We found that the learned group had significantly greater gray matter volume in the left lingual gyrus compared with the control group; the Chinese characters’ reading accuracy was significantly and positively correlated to the GMV in the left LG and fusiform gyrus across the two groups; and in the learned group, the duration of Chinese learning was significantly and positively correlated with the GMV in the left inferior frontal gyrus after correction for multiple comparisons with small volume corrections. Our structural imaging findings are in line with the functional imaging studies reporting increased brain activation induced by Chinese acquisition in alphabetic language speakers. The regional gray matter changes reflected the additional requirements imposed by the more difficult processing of Chinese characters and tones. The present study also show that the biological bases of the adaptations induced by a relatively long period of Chinese learning were limited in the common areas for first and foreign language processing. (shrink)

The “dynamic turn” in the field of second language acquisition catalyzed scholarly devotion to the complex dynamic relationships between learner and teacher variables and various academic emotions. As such, the present study examined the varying effects of the aforementioned variables on the constructs of positive and negative flow, and determined their strongest predictors, respectively. This study used a mixed-method approach to collect data from 607 Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners. In stage one of the research, the researcher first (...) assessed the participants’ levels of positive flow and negative flow in a blended learning context, then performed Pearson correlation analysis to confirm a significant, but weak positive relationship between positive flow and negative flow. Then, significant difference tests were run to determine the varied effects of those variables on flow. Finally, two multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify five predictors of positive flow, with the biggest contribution coming from learners’ attitudes toward the foreign language, and three predictors of negative flow, with the learners’ major accounting for the majority of variance. In the second stage of the research, a qualitative corpus was constructed, based on accounts of classroom experiences from 71 participants of the total sample, and further illustrated the quantitative findings. Pedagogical implications for educational psychologists and teachers of second and/or foreign languages are addressed. (shrink)

This paper, based on ethnographically obtained data, discusses German language acquisition at an early age: the discovery of the interconnection between language and corporeality is the key component of the analysis based on videostudies. The body—conceived as an intermediary and content element of education, becomes an essential base for foreign language acquisition. This will be documented by tangible data and subsequent theoretical analysis with respect to relevant terminology of cultural anthropology (Körper and Leib). The (...) principle of corporeality is further used as a means of perceiving German language education in the sense of the so called language propaedeutic concept and as a means of the legitimisation of particular qualification and the role of foreign language teachers in preschool institutions. (shrink)

The expression of time in languages is universal, whereas the means of expressing time are language specific. Hence the acquisition of a foreign language always involves the acquisition of different linguistic means to express time. Generally the writer/ speaker of a language can apply lexical means to do so, i.e. s/he may apply temporal adverbs, adjectives, substantives, prepositions, conjunctions, particles and verbs, and grammatical means, i.e. tenses, aspects, and syntactical means. Usually time is not (...) conveyed by the use of only one of these means, but by employing several means,1 what makes the acquisition of a second language all the more difficult. (shrink)

Foreign-accented speech is generally harder to understand than native-accented speech. This difficulty is reduced for non-native listeners who share their first language with the non-native speaker. It is currently unclear, however, how non-native listeners deal with foreign-accented speech produced by speakers of a different language. We show that the process of language acquisition is associated with an increase in the relative difficulty of processing foreign-accented speech. Therefore, experiencing greater relative difficulty with foreign-accented (...) speech compared with native speech is a marker of language proficiency. These results contribute to our understanding of how phonological categories are acquired during second language learning. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe investigated the impact of emotions on learning vocabulary in an unfamiliar language to better understand affective influences in foreign language acquisition. Seventy native English speakers learned new vocabulary in either a negative or a neutral emotional state. Participants also completed two sets of working memory tasks to examine the potential mediating role of working memory. Results revealed that participants exposed to negative stimuli exhibited difficulty in retrieving and correctly pairing English words with Indonesian words, as (...) reflected in a lower performance on the prompted recall tests and the free recall measure. Emotional induction did not change working memory scores from pre to post manipulation. This suggests working memory could not explain the reduced vocabulary learning in the negative group. We argue that negative mood can adversely affect language learning by suppressing aspects of native-language processing and impeding form-meaning mapping with second language words. (shrink)

This volume is both a state-of-the-art display of current thinking on second language development as a complex system. It is also a tribute to Diane Larsen-Freeman for her decades of intellectual leadership in the academic disciplines of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. The chapters therein range from theoretical expositions to methodological analyses, pedagogical proposals, and conceptual frameworks for future research. In a balanced and in-depth manner, the authors provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of second (...) class='Hi'>language development, with a wealth of insights that promise to break the status-quo of current research and take it to exciting new territory. The book will appeal to both seasoned and novice researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, bilingualism, cognitive psychology, and education, as well as to practitioners in second or foreign language teaching of any language. (shrink)

Students often face difficulties and experience negative emotions toward second language learning. The affective tutoring system is a next-generation learning approach that can detect the affective status of learning to increase performance. Therefore, for the purposes of this study, an innovative affective mobile language tutoring system was designed to support Japanese language learning. The effects of AMLTS, along with asynchronous discussion, that were intended to improve performance, were examined using a triangulation method. To investigate the effect on (...) emotion, the proposed AMLTS provides a virtual emotion agent that can interact with users and record emotional events, learning assessments, and the results of the interaction into a database. Learning effectiveness evaluations were conducted via two experiments: prototype evaluation and final evaluation. Sixty-three students, all beginners, were invited to use the AMLTS to learn Japanese. The research results show that the proposed AMLTS affective interaction design significantly improves learner engagement and performance. In the emotion feedback analysis and learning process, AMLTS helped students deepen their understanding of the content, enabled them to clearly understand the content, and to engage in peer interaction and experience positive emotions. In the evaluation of system usability, AMLTS reveals good usability for foreign language acquisition. (shrink)

Most language learners have difficulties acquiring the phonemes of a second language (L2). Unfortunately, they are often judged on their L2 pronunciation, and segmental inaccuracies contribute to miscommunication. Therefore, we aim to determine how to facilitate phoneme acquisition. Given the close relationship between speech and co-speech gesture, previous work unsurprisingly reports that gestures can benefit language acquisition, e.g., in (L2) word learning. However, gesture studies on L2 phoneme acquisition present contradictory results, implying that both (...) specific properties of gestures and phonemes used in training, and their combination, may be relevant. We investigated the effect of phoneme and gesture complexity on L2 phoneme acquisition. In a production study, Dutch natives received instruction on the pronunciation of two Spanish phonemes, /u/ and /θ/. Both are typically difficult to produce for Dutch natives because their orthographic representation differs between both languages. Moreover, /θ/ is considered more complex than /u/, since the Dutch phoneme inventory contains /u/ but not /θ/. The instruction participants received contained Spanish examples presented either via audio-only, audio-visually without gesture, audio-visually with a simple, pointing gesture, or audio-visually with a more complex, iconic gesture representing the relevant speech articulator(s). Preceding and following training, participants read aloud Spanish sentences containing the target phonemes. In a perception study, Spanish natives rated the target words from the production study on accentedness and comprehensibility. Our results show that combining gesture and speech in L2 phoneme training can lead to significant improvement in L2 phoneme production, but both gesture and phoneme complexity affect successful learning: Significant learning only occurred for the less complex phoneme /u/ after seeing the more complex iconic gesture, whereas for the more complex phoneme /θ/, seeing the more complex gesture actually hindered acquisition. The perception results confirm the production findings and show that items containing /θ/ produced after receiving training with a less complex pointing gesture are considered less foreign-accented and more easily comprehensible as compared to the same items after audio-only training. This shows that gesture can facilitate task performance in L2 phonology acquisition, yet complexity affects whether certain gestures work better for certain phonemes than others. (shrink)

Children with developmental dyslexia and at its risk have difficulties in the acquisition of foreign languages, especially non-transparent English. The problems of such pupils concern various aspects of the language system but in particular relate to the ability to read and spell. The research literature dedicated to effective preventative methods and dyslexia treatment suggests that both children with dyslexia and at its risk need phonological awareness training and multi-sensory learning. It is also known that prevention and early (...) treatment is more effective than therapeutic intervention used in older students. Experts in foreign language acquisition recommend that children have contact with longer oral texts and live language. A recently-published report on the methods of English language teaching in Polish primary schools shows that the lessons conducted there do not realise the majority of the aforementioned recommendations. As a consequence, they do not serve any pupils including those with dyslexia and at its risk. A method which meets most of the demands mentioned above is “The Good Start Method for English”. It is a new program of teaching the English language designed for five to seven-year-olds, which at the same time ensures support for the psychomotor development of children, leading to acceleration in learning progress. (shrink)

Ms. Neumer and her team began their project with a critical analysis of the various theories of the relationship between language and thought. Their aim was to develop a theoretical position concerning the issue of universalism versus relativism. This issue is closely bound up with one of the main questions of the history of East and Central Europe, namely, the question of the nation, and the possibility of mutual understanding between national cultures. The team attempted to avoid falling into (...) an all-too-common trap, that of allowing a political perspective to obscure the central theoretical issues. In a project whose outcome totalled over 1000 pages of manuscript in German, English and Hungarian, they touched on cognitive psychological, linguistic, semiotic, socio-semiotic, and other such themes. Their experience has convinced them of the fruitful heuristic possibilities of the interaction of scientific and philosophical approaches in this area of research. A preliminary analysis of the history of philosophy and inquiries into conceptual fields revealed that, in order to reach strong relativist conclusions concerning the unity of thought and language, it is required to take as a point of departure the widest possible sense of these concepts. But in fact, such an option ends up refuting itself: pursuing the premises to their final conclusion one arrives at the restriction of relativism. The team outlined a theory of the understanding of the Other which, borrowing from analytical as well as continental-hermeneutic trends, does not underestimate, on the one hand, the difficulties of understanding between various forms of life, cultures, and languages, but, on the other hand, can provide an alternative solution to the theory of incommensurabiltiy. Within the boundary of this problematic the team studied the problems of translatability, the acquisition of the mother and foreign languages, and natural or cultural determinacy of kind terms. The team regards its most original contribution to be the association of the problem of relativism-universalism and the language-thought relation with contemporary investigations into the question of orality, literacy, and secondary orality. Their conclusion was that, although certain connections can be revealed both between forms of communication and the thesis of the unity of language and thought, and between periods in the history of communication and the predominance of relativistic or universalistic tendencies, forms of communication do not unequivocally determine the answers to these questions. (shrink)

This study investigates the effectiveness of integrating short stories with task-based learning activities in English as a foreign language (EFL) class to promote vocabulary development and motivation among L2 learners. Six short stories were selected by the participants based on their interests, pre- and post-tests were conducted to evaluate vocabulary acquisition and a questionnaire was used to gather information about the perception of task-based activities after reading short stories among students. The study involved 60 intermediate level English (...) students at the SEEU Language Center, assigned to either the control or experimental group. The experimental group completed post-reading tasks such as keeping vocabulary notebooks, reading circle discussions, sequencing activities, plot structure understanding, and group poster presentations after reading each story. The findings suggest that the incorporating engaging reading activities had a favorable effect on language learning. The experimental group exhibited greater vocabulary acquisition and comprehension than the control group. The follow-up tasks created a sense of achievement, improved communication and interaction among the students. According to the study, including comprehensible input through extensive reading along with constructive output from task-oriented exercises can effectively promote language progress and enhance students’ motivation thus effectively facilitating language development in L2 learners. (shrink)

This study aims to develop and validate the four-dimension model hypothesis of deep learning to better understand deep learning in language education; investigate and promote deep learning by conducting a survey involving 533 college students in the online learning English as a foreign language teaching context in China. Concretely, this study initially synthesized theoretical insights from deep learning in the education domain and related theories in the second language acquisition and thus proposed the four-dimension model (...) hypothesis of deep learning involving the motivation of deep learning, the engagement of deep learning, the strategy of deep learning, and the directional competence of deep learning. This study subsequently undertook a questionnaire survey utilizing a standardized instrument to confirm the model hypothesis and further investigate the current status and salient differences in students' deep learning in online EFL teaching. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmation factor analysis, and Pearson's correlation test validated a positively correlated four-dimension model of deep learning with high composite reliability and good convergent validity. Moreover, the descriptive and inferential statistics revealed that the level of students' deep learning marginally reached the median, with the lowest mean of directional competence and the highest mean of motivation; students manifested more instructional motives, neglect of deploying skilled-based cognitive strategies, and deficiency of language application skills, etc.; there existed some significant differences between deep learning and four sub-dimensions across the grade, English proficiency, EFL course, and vision groups. Eventually, this study proffered primary reasons and five appropriate strategies to scaffold and promote students' deep learning in online EFL teaching. Hopefully, this study will be a pioneering effort to clear away the theoretical muddle of deep learning construct in language education and be illuminating to further improve effectiveness in the online EFL teaching context. (shrink)

Using educational robots to integrate computational thinking with cross-disciplinary content has gone beyond Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, to include foreign-language learning and further cross-context target-language acquisition. Such integration must not solely emphasise CT problem-solving skills. Rather, it must provide students with interactive learning to support their target-language interaction while reducing potential TL anxiety. This study aimed to validate the effects of the proposed method of pair programming along with question-and-response interaction in a board-game activity (...) on young learners’ CT skills and TL learning across contexts. Two Grade 6 classes, one with 16 students who were studying Chinese as a Second Language and the other with 16 students who were studying English as a Foreign Language, participated in the activity. A series of instruments on achievement assessment, questionnaires on CT skills and TL anxiety, and sequential learning behaviour analysis were used to critically examine the results. The main conclusion is that the EFL group showed better social skills of cooperation on CT and lower TL learning anxiety, while the CSL group demonstrated better problem-solving skills in CT, but presented more behaviours of trial-and-error loops. Results not only contribute suggestions for cross-disciplinary learning but also provide support for cross-context instruction beyond educational coursework. (shrink)

Within the context of China, this study seeks to examine the relationship between English language proficiency, the native dialect of the learner, and the learner’s reason, or motivation for learning English. English language proficiency can be an important vehicle for accessing high quality higher education, for interacting with non-Chinese, and for enhancing employment and career opportunities Data was gathered through an online survey with 985 usable responses recorded. Respondents included a distribution of speakers from five of the major (...) distinct dialects of China. The analysis provides empirical evidence of a diversity of propensities and motivations for English language acquisition among learners from different regions and native dialects. Access to international higher education as a type of motivation is found to have a moderating effect on English proficiency. Other findings suggest that learners in regions with more historic exposure to foreign interaction are more likely to be motivated for social reasons, those from regions with export focused commerce will be motivated for business related reasons. The results of this study may be of interest to policy makers, linguists, educators, and those with an interest in socioeconomic sustainability through language acquisition and education as a method of socioeconomic mobility. (shrink)

This article concerns sound aesthetic preferences for European foreign languages. We investigated the phonetic-acoustic dimension of the linguistic aesthetic pleasure to describe the “music” found in European languages. The Romance languages, French, Italian, and Spanish, take a lead when people talk about melodious language – the music-like effects in the language (a.k.a., phonetic chill). On the other end of the melodiousness spectrum are German and Arabic that are often considered sounding harsh and un-attractive. Despite the public interest, (...) limited research has been conducted on the topic of phonaesthetics, i.e., the subfield of phonetics that is concerned with the aesthetic properties of speech sounds (Crystal, 2008). Our goal is to fill the existing research gap by identifying the acoustic features that drive the auditory perception of language sound beauty. What is so music-like in the language that makes people say “it is music in my ears”? We had 45 central European participants listening to 16 auditorily presented European languages and rating each language in terms of 22 binary characteristics (e.g., beautiful – ugly and funny – boring) plus indicating their language familiarities, L2 backgrounds, speaker voice liking, demographics, and musicality levels. Findings revealed that all factors in complex interplay explain a certain percentage of variance: familiarity and expertise in foreign languages, speaker voice characteristics, phonetic complexity, musical acoustic properties, and finally musical expertise of the listener. The most important discovery was the trade-off between speech tempo and so-called linguistic melody (pitch variance): the faster the language, the flatter/more atonal it is in terms of the pitch (speech melody), making it highly appealing acoustically (sounding beautiful and sexy), but not so melodious in a “musical” sense. (shrink)

The article is devoted to spelling errors of Russian learners in a French-speaking environment. Based on 1,816 spelling errors, the analysis focuses on four mechanisms (transposition, insertion, omission, and substitution), and the influence of contextual and non-contextual (cognitive, inter- and intralinguistic, extralinguistic) factors is taken into account for each mechanism in question. Despite the multidimensional nature of the factors involved, the recurrence of certain errors makes it possible to distinguish clear trends in the acquisition of linguistic facts. In addition, (...) a quantitative analysis of the obtained data allows cross-sectional studies of errors, which traces back the steps in the acquisition of various aspects of Russian spelling, from A1 to C1 level for the first time. Moreover, the qualitative analysis of errors provides valuable data for pedagogical materials. (shrink)

Vocabulary learning in a second language is enhanced if learners enrich the learning experience with self-performed iconic gestures. This learning strategy is called enactment. Here we explore how enacted words are functionally represented in the brain and which brain regions contribute to enhance retention. After an enactment training lasting 4 days, participants performed a word recognition task in the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanner. Data analysis suggests the participation of different and partially intertwined networks that are engaged in (...) higher cognitive processes, i.e., enhanced attention and word recognition. Also, an experience-related network seems to map word representation. Besides core language regions, this latter network includes sensory and motor cortices, the basal ganglia, and the cerebellum. On the basis of its complexity and the involvement of the motor system, this sensorimotor network might explain superior retention for enactment. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

A fundamental goal of linguistic theory is to explain how natural languages are acquired. This paper describes some recent findings on how learners acquire syntactic knowledge for which there is little, if any, decisive evidence from the environment. The first section presents several general observations about language acquisition that linguistic theory has tried to explain and discusses the thesis that certain linguistic properties are innate because they appear universally and in the absence of corresponding experience. A third diagnostic (...) for innateness, early emergence, is the focus of the second section of the paper, in which linguistic theory is tested against recent experimental evidence on children's acquisition of syntax. (shrink)

SUMMARYEighteenth-century scientific translation was not just a linguistic or intellectual affair. It included numerous material aspects requiring a social organization to marshal the indispensable human and non-human actors. Paratexts and actors' correspondences provide a good observatory to get information about aspects such as shipments and routes, processes of translation and language acquisition, texts acquisition and dissemination.The nature of scientific translation changed in France during the second half of the eighteenth century. Beside solitary translators, it also happened to (...) become a collective enterprise, dedicated to providing abridgements or enriching the learned journals with full translations of the most recent foreign texts. That new trend clearly had a decisive influence on the nature of the scientific press itself. A way to set up science as a social activity in the provincial capital of Dijon, translation required a local and international network for acquiring the linguistic and scientific expertise, along with the original texts, as quickly as possible. Laboratory results and mineralogical observations were used to compare material facts with those described in the original text. By providing a double kind of validation – with both the experiments and the translations – the laboratory thus happened to play a major role in translation. (shrink)

Drawing on Moreno's cognitive-affective theory of learning with media, this research aims to investigate the effectiveness of different multimedia glosses on learners' vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension in a CALL environment. A total of 160 university students who learnt English as a foreign language in four classes participated in the study and were exposed to one of the four conditions: L2 definition only, L2 definition coupled with audio, L2 definition plus video, and L2 definition with picture. Participants (...) were asked to read eight hypermediated reading texts. Reading comprehension as well as vocabulary acquisition were measured using a pretest–posttest design. The results show first that all these four conditions led to students' vocabulary gains. More specifically, participants who had access to L2 definition plus picture and plus videos achieved significantly higher scores than the other two groups, L2 definition coupled with audio and L2 definition only. Concerning reading comprehension, all multimedia glossing presentation led to better reading comprehension, but no differences were found among all the glossing groups. The questionnaire and interview data indicate that students preferred L2 definition coupled with video and picture glosses, followed by audio and L2 definition only. The results reflect that multimedia glossing presentation creates a different effect on students' vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension, respectively. They also provide pedagogical implications for learning in times of COVID-19. (shrink)

How does philosophy learn to speak a new language? That is, how does some particular language come to serve as the means for the expression of philosophical ideas? In this paper, I present an answer grounded in four historical case studies and suggest that this answer has broad implications for contemporary philosophy. I begin with Jonathan Rée’s account of philosophical translation into English in the sixteenth century, and the debate between philosopher-translators who wanted to acquire – wholesale or (...) with modifications – foreign terms, and those who wished to take existing words and transform them from their ordinary to a philosophical use. I sketch how these twin processes of ‘acquisition’ and ‘transformation’ manifested themselves in philosophical translations from Greek to Latin, Greek to Arabic and both Greek and Arabic to Gə’əz and argue that comparative work in this vein could yield interesting and significant results. I suggest that not only is Rée’s approach useful for thinking about philosophical translation historically, but that philosophical translation between very different languages is important for contemporary philosophy insofar as it reveals the linguistic presuppositions of philosophical theories expressed in some particular language, and that this constitutes an argument against the prevailing monolingualism in philosophy. (shrink)

Law is known to exist only being articulated in a language and discourse, and the students’ ability to comprehend and use its meta-language is one of the main goals for English for Legal Purposes (ELP) teaching. The knowledge of terminology enables students to fit new information (linguistic, disciplinary, factual, cultural, etc.) into the framework of the legal system they are studying. The acquisition of terminology in a foreign language implies knowledge of both conceptual content and (...) the means of its verbalization. This article argues for a cognitive approach to teaching Legal English, and frame modelling as an effective method of teaching and learning legal terminology. The heterogeneous structure of legal concepts (a permanent core and dynamic periphery) suggests the possibility of framing their verbal representations. From this perspective, legal terminology is viewed as a frame structure. Depending on the instructional objective, frame modelling may be circumscribed around a specific concept or frame level. (shrink)

Debating on Second Language Acquisition is not merely in terms of concept but also the real phenomena which postulate each research result. It needs more investigation on SLA due to the various realities on how children and adults acquire and learn any language. This research aims to describe how children and adults acquire and learn their first and second language. Participants consisted of children and adults whose ages determined by the researcher based on the purposive sampling (...) technique. They were all six persons and chosen based on certain characteristics. Content analysis technique was applied in order to analyze all data gained. The result showed that since human alive inside mother’s womb especially at up to the age of three months, a fetus has tried to acquire sounds subconsciously. Language proficiency is really determined by three factors of Phased Process Approach namely Subconscious Acquisition, Conscious Acquisition, and Learning. The ideal time for learning something is begun from the age of 2 or 3 years old, by the fact that children have had the ability to bear a meaning on any input that they catch. The learning process has been begun within the process of acquisition. Based on the findings, it is clear that the children acquire the language step by step based on the development of the brain. Children acquire language is just the same as adult in acquiring the language although there will be some constraints faced by adult concern with the first language because adult has had the strong basis of the first language just than children. (shrink)

Trolley dilemmas have been tested cross-culturally, but only recently have researchers begun to assess the effect of responding to such dilemmas in a foreign language. Previous studies have found a Moral Foreign Language Effect in trolley dilemmas, whereby subjects who respond to these dilemmas in a foreign language, tend to offer more utilitarian responses. The present study seeks to test whether the MFLE holds amongst native speakers of Arabic. Additionally, the present study seeks to (...) test whether the use of visual images has any effect on responses. For such purposes, four groups were compared: 1) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English without visual images; 2) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic without visual images; 3) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English with visual images; 4) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic with visual images. (shrink)

Within the field of didactics of second language teaching, it is believed that phonic errors cannot be completely corrected due to the significant influence of L1. However, improving the processes of acquisition of an L2 implies learning pronunciation properly. Given the importance of pronunciation for communication, it is necessary to deeply know the nature of phonic errors, which requires a specific classification aimed to describe, classify and categorize them. This article is intended to test the validity and efficiency (...) of the taxonomy developed in the project AACFELE. To accomplish our objective we: a) collected the most significant phonic errors made by learners of Spanish from nine different nationalities and b) categorized those errors. As a result, we found that the classification entails plenty of trouble caused by the impossibility of marking the boundaries of the numerous phenomena involved in the pronunciation of a sound; that is why we considered the need of redefining some of the suggested categories and assessed the adequacy of maintaining other ones less useful. Despite these circumstances, the most significant outcome was the reliable proof that the taxonomy AACFELE allowed us to label and describe diverse phonic errors using common criteria, which represents the first step to accurately study phonic acquisition of a foreign language. (shrink)