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A systematic review of time-intensive methods for capturing non-linear L2 development

  • Huixian Li ORCID logo and Yongyan Zheng ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: April 22, 2025
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Abstract

A dynamic perspective of second language (L2) development enquires into time-intensive data that are longitudinal, dense, non-linear, and individual. This article reports a collection of quantitative methods that could capture time-intensive data, termed Time-Intensive Methods (TIMs). We reviewed empirical studies published from 2008 to 2023 that have used TIMs to investigate non-linear L2 development. Seventy-eight studies were included to be further analyzed regarding their chronological trends, adopted TIMs, research topics, and theoretical contributions. Three major contributions of TIMs are identified: capturing the non-linear developmental paths, detecting the emergent group patterns, and revealing the dynamic interactions over time. Methodological rigor is discussed against how TIMs address their corresponding theoretical concepts and research questions. The findings provide insights into the current state of TIM application in L2 development research, and encourage researchers to explore a wider range of TIMs that could enhance future studies inspired by the dynamic paradigm.


Corresponding author: Yongyan Zheng, College of Foreign Languages and Literature, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai, 200433, China, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Ting Huang and Zhixing Han in the Language Education, Acquisition, and Development Laboratory (LEAD Lab) at Fudan University, who collaborated with the first author to screen and code the data.

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2023-0121).


Received: 2023-06-10
Accepted: 2025-04-01
Published Online: 2025-04-22
Published in Print: 2025-11-25

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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