How strongly a verb is associated with a construction plays a crucial role in the learning of argument structure constructions. We examined the effect of verb-construction association strength on second language (L2) constructional generalization by analysing L2 learners' production and comprehension of two complex constructions (i.e. ditransitive…

Usage-based approaches explore how we learn language from our experience of language. Related research thus involves the analysis of the usage from which learners learn and of learner usage as it develops. This program involves considerable data recording, transcription, and analysis, using a variety of corpus and computational techniques, many of…

The work of L.S. Vygotsky was popularised in the West between two great waves of educational thought: constructivism and cognitivism. Reception was therefore colored by three metaphors introduced by Jerome Bruner: 'construction', 'scaffolding' and 'narrative'. Narratives were to be characterized by features we call SELF: Subjects, Expectancy and…

Structural priming (or syntactic priming) is a speaker's tendency to reuse the same structural pattern as one that was previously encountered (Bock, 1986). This study investigated (a) whether the implicit learning processes involved in long-lag structural priming lead to differential second language (L2) improvement in producing two structural…

Many studies have shown that listeners can segment words from running speech based on conditional probabilities of syllable transitions, suggesting that this statistical learning could be a foundational component of language learning. However, few studies have shown a direct link between statistical segmentation and word learning. We examined this…

The rapid spread of learning networks based on asynchronous written communication--Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALNs)--makes it crucial to assess the possibilities offered by these new environments to facilitate and promote learning processes and learning outcomes. Our interest in this area is specifically directed towards the study of…