Volume 48, Issue 4

A methodological shortcoming in previous second language (L2) acquisition studies has been that researchers have assumed an overly homogenous first language (L1) ignoring dialect differences. In the current study English and German vowel production data were collected from 72 English-speaking learners of German from three distinct North American English dialect regions – the Inland North, North Central, and Western Canada. Following Flege (e.g., 1995), who proposed that L2 segments with L1 counterparts would be more difficult to perceive and produce than new L2 segments, we show that subjects did not transfer their L1 /u/ to German but rather produced the German counterpart in a manner expected in neither German nor English. Instead, this was reflected in terms of formant (F1, F2 or F3) values that varied according to the L1 dialect of the learner. In particular, learners from the North Central dialect region whose English /u/ was produced with the lowest F2 values – though not significantly different from the Inland North learners' /u/ – produced the German /u:/ with the highest F2 values of all three dialect regions. Speakers from all dialect regions were also able to manipulate their acoustic space to allow for the addition of the new German segment /y:/; however, they differed in how they ultimately established the German /u:/–/y:/ contrast. Learners from the two American dialect regions contrasted these vowels according to F2 values, while learners from Western Canada made the contrast utilizing F3. Based on these results, we conclude that L2 vowel formant values differ by dialect region even when the learners' L1 dialects differ only subtly. Lastly, results provide further evidence that this influence is not simply the result of direct L1 transfer.

Affective factors in language learning have long attracted attention. While research findings indicate substantial links between affect and achievement, further inquiry into the role and contribution of affect in language learning has been limited by a narrow focus on single emotions and on the disruptive effects of emotion. Drawing on social cognitive theory and research on the intelligent processing of emotions we propose an approach to understanding affect in SLA. This approach emphasizes the reciprocal nature of relationships among emotions, their individual and social antecedents and their effects on learning and achievement. Evidence from a qualitative study into the regulation of affect conducted with 19 independent learners of Russian demonstrates how students' emotions and their regulation of emotions are affected by the learning environment and by the quality of relationships available to them within that environment. Results also reveal how students' cognitive appraisals mediate their experiences of emotions, and that intelligent processing of emotions can impact positively on their experience of language learning. We argue that a broader perspective on affect and affective experiences can illuminate further the interdependence between the social context and cognitive processes in language learning.

Construction grammars (Lakoff, Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the Mind, University of Chicago Press, 1987; Langacker, Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical pre-requisites, Stanford University Press, 1987; Croft, Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective, Oxford University Press, 2001; Goldberg, Constructions at work: The nature of generalisation in language, Oxford University Press, 2006) are changing our perception of Second Language Acquisition but their impact our instruction has been muted. This article derives an applied model from the controversies surrounding such grammars. It argues for the usage based model of constructions (Stemberger and MacWhinney, Are inflected forms stored in the lexicon?, Academic Press, 1988; Croft, Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective, Oxford University Press, 2001; Tomasello, Constructing a language: A usage based theory of language acquisition, Harvard University Press, 2005; Goldberg, Constructions at work: The nature of generalisation in language, Oxford University Press, 2006) already found in emergentist SLA theory (Ellis and Larsen-Freeman, Applied Linguistics 27: 558–589, 2006) and recounts an intervention where the teacher found ways to help students identify and learn such forms. It shows how exploring constructions' productivity and ensuring usage not only results in enhanced uptake but also impacts favourably upon the accuracy of written work.