Language acquisition Archive

Results in BLC Posts

Lecture by Catherine Doughty, April 9, 2001

Effects of Instruction in Second Language Acquisition by Catherine Doughty, University of Hawaii at Manoa This talk will present an up-to-date survey of the recent explosion of empirical research on the effects of instruction on second language acquisition.  The findings will be discussed in terms of L2 learning rate, sequences, processes, and ultimate attainment.  We…

Lecture by Stephen Krashen, November 17, 2000:

Comprehensible Input:  Still a Good Idea by Stephen Krashen, Professor, Division of Learning and Instruction Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California The Input (or Comprehension) Hypothesis claims that we acquire language and develop literacy in only one way:  When we understand messages.  There is overwhelming evidence that this hypothesis is correct.  It successfully…

Lecture by Sue Gass, April 5, 2000

Second Language Learners’ Perception of Feedback by Susan Gass, University Distinguished Professor English Language Center, Michigan State University Theoretical claims for the benefits of conversational interaction have been made by Gass (1977) among others.  The interaction hypothesis suggests that negotiated interaction can facilitate SLA.  This may be because these interactional features function as implicit negative…

Results in L2 Journal Articles

“I won’t talk about this here in America:” Sociocultural Context of Korean English Language Learners’ Emotion Speech in English

This article examines the relationship between language and emotion, especially drawing attention to the experiences and perspectives of second language (SL) learners. Informed by the sociocultural perspective on the construction of emotion and its representation, this study highlights the intertwined relationship among emotions, cultural contexts, perceived identities, and languages...

The “Gift”: Synesthesia in Translingual Texts

This interdisciplinary article explores the relationship between multilingualism and synesthesia (neuro-psychological blend of senses). In the absence of research in any of the related fields, the author (a multilingual, a L2 scholar, a writer, and a synesthete all at once) views synesthesia through the lens of “translingual texts” ...

Learners’ perceptions of culture in a first-semester foreign language course

Researchers have voiced concerns about current teaching practices regarding the effective integration of culture within the foreign language curriculum as more than an add-on (Durocher, 2007; Knutson, 2006; Kramsch, 1993; Magnan, 2008; Omaggio Hadley, 2001; Perraudin, & Porfilio, 2011; Schulz, 2007; Wilbur, 2007). This study takes an emic perpective to explore ...

The Acquisition of Verbal Agreement in Instructed Italian L2A

Researchers propose that L2 learners acquire the abstract features of agreement at relatively low levels of L2 proficiency (Bruhn de Garavito, 2003a, 2003b). However, some argue that there is also evidence for the use of default forms in learners’ errors (McCarthy, 2007, 2008), and that these may be predicted based on ...

The Cultural Identities of Foreign Language Teachers

Foreign language teachers are often migrants. They have traveled and lived in other countries either to learn or to teach a language. In 2005, Domna Stanton characterized language teaching as a cosmopolitan act-- “a complex encounter made in a sympathetic effort to see the world as [others] see it and, as a consequence, to denaturalize our own views” (629). Do foreign language teachers ...

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