Language is subject to a variety of pressures. Recent work has documented that many aspects of language structure have properties that appear to be shaped by biases for the efficient communication of semantic meaning. Other work has investigated the role of social pressures, whereby linguistic variants can acquire positive or negative evaluation…

Since its inception in 2005, YouTube has grown to become one of the most trafficked online platforms in the world. Accordingly, second language (L2) research interest on the topic has also increased, with studies investigating its use in formal and informal settings. Given this, the goal of this conceptual paper is to identify patterns within L2…

As second language (L2) research adapts to the dynamics of multimodal instruction, researchers are exploring the role of captioning and textual enhancement (TE) on learner development. The present experiment assesses the differential effects of textually enhanced captions on learners' elicited imitation of L2 Spanish grammar. Twenty-eight…

To probe the limits of attention raising through form-focused instruction, second-language research must adapt to the needs of a technologically driven learning environment. In this study, we used a randomized control design to investigate the effect of captioned media on the learning of vocabulary and grammar in L2 Spanish (n = 369 learners).…

Indigenous communities, organizations, and individuals work tirelessly to #KeepOurLanguagesStrong. The COVID-19 pandemic was potentially detrimental to Indigenous language revitalization (ILR) as this mostly in-person work shifted online. This article shares findings from an analysis of public social media posts, dated March through July 2020 and…

The phenomenon of regularization -- learners imposing systematicity on inconsistent variation in language input -- is complex. Studies show that children are more likely to regularize than adults, but adults will also regularize under certain circumstances. Exactly why we see the pattern of behaviour that we do is not well understood, however.…

Based on recent research in cognitive science, interaction, and second language acquisition (SLA), I describe a sociocognitive approach to SLA. This approach adopts a "non-cognitivist" view of cognition: Instead of an isolated computational process in which input is extracted from the environment and used to build elaborate internal…

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…

A study was conducted to examine production variability in American Sign Language (ASL) in order to gain insight into the development of motor control in a language produced in another modality. Production variability was characterized through the spatiotemporal index (STI), which represents production stability in whole utterances and is a…

Second language (L2) learners of tone languages do not perceive and produce the different tones of the target language with equal ease. The most common explanation for these asymmetries is that acoustically salient tones are the easiest to learn. An alternative explanation is that tones are easiest to learn when they are highly frequent in the…

This study investigates the dynamics in the Spanish classroom between heritage language learner (HLL) dyads, second language learner (L2L) dyads, and mixed HLL-L2L dyads. Specifically, it examines oral, written and embodied discourse that informs our understanding of how learners attend to language. Analysis for this dissertation examined…

Tasks and interactional feedback have received much attention in instructed second language acquisition research in recent years. However, little research exists that has investigated feedback and task factors together during naturally occurring teacher-student interaction in classroom settings. To bridge this gap, the current study explored the…

The School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham hosted the fifth annual conference in the "Innovative Language Teaching at University" series. Under the heading "Enhancing participation and collaboration" the conference, organised by Cecilia Goria, Oranna Speicher and Sascha Stollhans, took…

The advance of digital video technology in the past two decades facilitates empirical investigation of learning in real time. The focus of this paper is the combined use of real-time digital video and a networked linguistic corpus for exploring the ways in which these technologies enhance our capability to investigate the cognitive process of…

This paper presents the results of a small-scale study of codeswitching (CS) between Chinese and English in primary English classrooms with a view to informing classroom interaction with young learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). It analyzes CS of two teachers participating in the Primary English Curriculum Innovation (PECI) project in…