Volume 45, Issue 1 - Positive Psychology in Applied Linguistics: Asian Perspectives Guest Editors: Stephen Ryan & Honggang Liu

This paper provides an overview of positive psychology (PP), or the study of elements that make life most worth living (Peterson, 2006), and demonstrates its efficacy by detailing five intervention studies. By aligning PP objectives and linguistic aims in second language teaching and learning, the studies show multiplied, concurrent results, heightened teacher and learner wellbeing and improved language proficiency. One important caveat is that PP interventions work best when they cater specifically to individual learners.

This study investigates anxiety in foreign language learning from a positive psychology perspective, and in doing so, it considers some of the ways in which anxiety can interact with other aspects of language learner psychology to contribute to improved learning outcomes and improved learner well-being. The paper reports on a small-scale mixed-method study of English learners at a university in northern Japan. It shows how for many learners some of the most anxiety-provoking episodes were also the most rewarding and enjoyable, suggesting a need to reconsider simplistic accounts that present anxiety as an impediment to successful language learning. This is done by shifting to a positive psychology perspective. The paper concludes with a tentative model of how anxiety, when reframed as tension, can function as a core component of a more productive language learning experience.

Recent research has confirmed the predictive effect of general foreign language (FL) achievement on Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA). However, few studies have examined the effect of domain-specific language achievement in shaping FL learning emotions. The present study thus aims to examine how FLE and FLCA are linked to overall FL achievement and self-perceived achievement in six different domains across listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar. A total of 1, 415 Chinese senior secondary students participated in the questionnaire survey. Regression analyses showed that 1) both FLE and FLCA were predicted more by self-perceived general English proficiency, while less by actual English achievement; 2) perceptions of speaking and grammar competence were significant predictors of both emotions; 3) perceived reading competence predicted FLE significantly but not FLCA; and that 4) perceptions of listening, writing, and vocabulary competence predicted neither FLE nor FLCA. The implication is that domain-specificity should be taken into consideration in future explorations of FL emotions.

While academic resilience has been a hot topic in positive psychology, there is still scope for researchers to explore it in the field of applied linguistics. Drawing on the framework of L2 (second language) learners’ resilience proposed by T. Y. Kim and Y. K. Kim (2017), the current study aims to examine senior high school students’ English academic resilience (EAR) and its relationship to their English achievement (EA). This study comprises a survey of 454 senior high school students. Follow-up interviews were carried out to triangulate the quantitative findings. The descriptive results demonstrate that students’ EAR is above the average, and its five subscales obtain medium to medium-higher levels due to the mean scores. It shows that students have good EAR that enables them to deal with academic adversity. The correlational analysis shows a low positive correlation between EAR and EA in general, and the subscales share medium to low correlations with students’ EA. EAR has a certain influence on EA, but the correlation may be influenced by other learner variables. Based on the results, suggestions on improving students’ EAR are provided.

This study examined the influence of semantic and phonological priming on L2 speech planning, as well as the difference between native and non-native speakers of English in terms of lemma activation. Two potential explanations for the contrast between the performance of L2 speakers and native controls were considered. The first of which was that L2 speakers’ phonological forms are activated before selection of syntactic frame occurred, whereas the reverse is true for native speakers. The second explanation posits that the organisation of the speech production procedure is fundamentally similar in native and L2 speakers, and the disparity in performance arises from difference in the levels of activation of stored items. The results of the present experiment suggest that lemma selection is indeed what drives syntactic frame selection. However, lemmas in L2 speakers can be primed through a chain of connections demonstrated as: L2 phonological form → L1 phonological form → L1 lemma.

The present study compares the discourse markers (DMs) of “saying” in Mandarin Chinese ke yi shuo (lit. “can say”) and ying gai shuo (lit. “should say”) with their equivalents in English, by drawing the parallel corpora from The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (Volume III) (henceforth The Works ), so as to uncover the pragmatic motivation for the variation in translating the DMs of “saying.” The analysis is conducted within a theoretical framework of speech act theory, by grouping the DMs according to their personal pronouns. Moreover, by comparing the uses of personal pronouns in English and Chinese, the current study confirms that The Works keeps the consistency between the two languages as well as with the characteristics and styles of Deng Xiaoping’s locution. It also finds that modalized DMs of “saying” (e. g., “ I should say ”), as a parenthesis, lose their status as matrix clauses and help reduce the tone of affirmation.

Corrective feedback is crucial for pronunciation teaching. However, in current pronunciation teaching practice, the corrective feedback provided usually fails to locate pronunciation problems and inform learners of the differences between their mispronunciations and the correct form. Based on the motor theory, this study attempted to explore a new way of corrective feedback for pronunciation teaching. Specifically, the learners’ speech output was modified and then was played back to them as an input model for learning. In this way, the learners can imitate the pronunciation model of their own voices, achieving self-imitation. This study included two experiments. The first explored the viability of obtaining one’s self-perceived voice through delayed feedback paradigm. The second experiment examined the effectiveness of self-imitation for English intonation learning. Results showed that imitating the pronunciation model of one’s own voice can reduce the learners’ phonological memory load, assist critical listening and facilitate accurate phonetic realizations of the target intonation.

In the era of globalization, English as an international language (EIL) is also the medium of intercultural communication for the international community. Based on the theory of cultural linguistics (CL), which regards language as culture-oriented rather than structure-oriented, Sharifian (2009, p. 4) has proposed that varieties of English which constitute EIL result from the interaction between the English language and different local cultures. CL suggests that China English (CE) should be understood in this light: It is not a substandard interlanguage, but a variety of English with its own cultural value and right. This paper intends to systemically analyze the nature of CE and its value in intercultural communication so as to better understand current intercultural education. Over a long time, much emphasis has been laid on the importance of adapting to the target language culture to the neglect of home language culture in our College English classrooms, thus resulting in what is known as Chinese cultural aphasia. In the light of CL, intercultural communication competence (ICC) encompasses not only knowing English and adapting to its culture, but also using CE to introduce the native culture in which CE plays an irreplaceable role. Therefore, CE is undoubtedly a key remedy for Chinese cultural aphasia. More research on CL should be conducted as it provides felicitous disciplinary guidance for our college intercultural education.

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) and the scaffolding theory are very different, both in terms of their theoretical origins and connotations, and can even be said to be very different. However, during the development of the two concepts, some scholars have misunderstood them, resulting in the two being mistaken for similar concepts and therefore often confused. Professor James Lantolf from Pennsylvania State University (State College, USA) was interviewed by Professor Lili Qin from Dalian University of Foreign Studies (Dalian, China) and provides an in-depth analysis of these issues. The interview begins with the theoretical roots, connotations and definitions of the ZPD and scaffolding concepts, and then unravels the story of how they have been “mistakenly loved for life”, and ultimately it is made clear that the two concepts are completely different in their practical application to language teaching and should not continue to be used interchangeably.