This study offers a bibliometric analysis of research trends in task-based language teaching (TBLT) from 1985 to 2020. The analysis covers research questions related to the publication trends, venues for publication, productive authors, highly cited articles and references and, more importantly, the most frequently explored TBLT-related topics and…

The traditional definition of language aptitude sees it as "an individual's initial state of readiness and capacity for learning a foreign language, and probable facility in doing so given the presence of motivation and opportunity" (Carroll, 1981, p. 86). This conception portrays language aptitude as a trait, in the sense of exhibiting…

Working memory (WM) is inherently dynamic and complex, being a multi-faceted system that links storage and processing components; yet it is widely understood as internal. Hence, in second language (L2) research, its connection to complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) remains underspecified. This paper seeks to bridge a gap between CDST and WM in…

This paper examines possible psycholinguistic mechanisms governing stem vowel changes of irregular verbs in intermediate English learners of German as a foreign language (GFL). In Experiment 1, nonce-infinitives embedded in an authentic fictional text had to be inflected for German preterite, thus testing possible analogy-driven pattern…

This paper examines the process of acquiring L2s that are closely related to the L1 through data on how adult French speakers learning L2 Spanish in a formal setting develop knowledge and use of past tenses in this L2. We consider the role of transfer and simplification in acquiring mental representations of the L2 grammar, specifically in the…