The present study takes a variationist perspective to explore the varietal repertoires of adult learners of German as a second language (L2), that is, their variable use of standard German, Austro-Bavarian dialect, and mixture varieties. Forty L2 learners completed a virtual reality task involving interactions with dialect-speaking and…

We inquired whether introducing variability into a word-learning task would facilitate, inhibit, or have a neutral effect on adults' speech production and language learning. Twenty young adults from the U.S. Midwest with typical development participated. They repeated four novel words 10 times sequentially (blocked practice) and another four novel…

The teacher's oral corrective feedback is the hallmark in teaching speaking. It is a daily input given by teachers to improve students' speaking skill. However, it is rarely known the effects of the OCF to students' psychological domain. Therefore, the present study investigated the students' psychological problems after receiving teacher's oral…

The present study investigated the effects of exposure to Chinese orthography on learning phonological forms of new words in learners of Chinese as a second language. A total of 30 adult learners of Chinese studied spoken label and picture associations presented either with phonologically accurate characters, characters with partial phonological…

Language repertoires have been traditionally construed as a set of chronologically determined compartments (first language, second language, etc.), a scheme which upholds several validity and ethical issues when operationalized in research and education (Ortega, 2019). Complex dynamic systems theory (also complexity theory, here CDST) has been…

Adult second language (L2) learning often exhibits great variability in its rate and outcome. Although research shows that learning trajectories are partly shaped by social and contextual factors (e.g. Larson-Hall, 2008), certain learner factors play an important role in enhancing L2 pronunciation learning by helping L2 learners notice and process…

Cross-organizational "learning conversations" are an important source of informal learning among professionals, though little is known about whether specific characteristics of conversational interaction contribute to different learning outcomes in such conversations. This mixed-methods study examined the relationship between…

Individual differences (IDs) largely contribute to success in adult second language attainment (e.g., Dörnyei, 2006). Heritage language (HL) studies have also explored the role of IDs, namely psychosocial variables, and biographical factors with an adult HL learner population. However, the specific contribution of these variables to HL learners'…

Adult learners know that language is for communicating and that there are patterns in the language that need to be learned. This affects the way they engage with language input; they search for form-meaning linkages, and this effortful engagement could interfere with their learning, especially for things like grammatical gender that often have at…

This paper examines the use of turn-initial "yeah" in learner English, focusing on non-canonical uses of "yeah." By showing how NSSs use "yeah" in ways different from that of native speakers (NSs), this paper aims to provide a nuanced view of the function it serves in NSSs' speech. It demonstrates that…

Hesitation, when speaking a foreign language, is studied through its components: beginnings, pauses, and repetitions. This paper aims to identify, through the study of this phenomenon, vulnerable zones among Iranian learners when they speak French. A case study of 30 adult learners shows that hesitation is not random and at different levels (A1 to…

In the 4/3/2 activity learners deliver the same talk three times under increasing time pressure. The activity is intended first and foremost to foster fluency, but accuracy and complexity have also been said to benefit from this activity. The present study investigates whether immediate repetition of monologues under increasing time pressure…

We present the outcomes of a pronunciation training program conducted in a workplace setting with second language speakers who had lived in an English-speaking environment for an average of 19 years. The research questions concerned whether improvement would occur in the learners' perception of certain segments and prosody; in the…

The goal of this research was to examine the effects of phonological familiarity and rehearsal method (vocal vs. subvocal) on novel word learning. In Experiment 1, English-speaking adults learned phonologically familiar novel words that followed English phonological structure. Participants learned half the words via vocal rehearsal (saying the…

Second language acquisition studies can contribute to the body of research on the influence of language on thought by examining cognitive change as a result of second language learning. We conducted a longitudinal study that examined how the acquisition of Spanish grammatical gender influences categorization in native English-speaking adults. We…