Abstract
A major rationale for study abroad (SA) from the perspective of second language acquisition is the presumed opportunity available to sojourners for naturalistic second language (L2) “immersion”. However, such opportunities are affected by variations in the linguistic, institutional and social affordances of SA, in different settings. They are also affected by the varying agency and motivation of sojourners in seeking second language (L2) engagement. For example, many sojourners prioritize mastering informal L2 speech, while others prioritize academic and professional registers including writing. Most will operate multilingually, using their home language, a local language, and/or English as lingua franca for different purposes, and the types of input they seek out, and language practices they enter into, vary accordingly. Consequently, while researchers have developed varied approaches to documenting L2 engagement, and have tried to relate these to measures of L2 development, these efforts have so far seen somewhat mixed success. This article reviews different approaches to documenting SA input and interaction; first, that of participant self-report, using questionnaires, interviews, journals, or language logs. Particular attention is paid to the popular Language Contact Profile (LCP), and to approaches drawing on Social Network Analysis. The limitations of all forms of self-report are acknowledged. The article also examines the contribution of direct observation and recording of L2 input and interaction during SA. This is a significant alternative approach for the study of acquisition, but one which poses theoretical, ethical and practical challenges. Researchers have increasingly enlisted participants as research collaborators who create small corpora through self-recording with L2 interlocutors. Analyses in this tradition have so far prioritized interactional, pragmatic and sociocultural development, in learner corpora, over other dimensions of second language acquisition (SLA). The theoretical and practical challenges of corpus creation in SA settings and their wider use to promote understandings of informal L2 learning are discussed.
Highlights
Second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have been attracted to study abroad (SA) as a site for research on adult second language (L2) learning for some decades, with a notable boost from the 1990s onward (Freed, 1995)
More narrowly linguistic factors are in play, including the level of proficiency that participants bring to their SA experience (Issa and Zalbidea, 2018), and the increasingly multilingual nature of the SA experience (MartínezArbelaiz et al, 2017; Tullock and Ortega, 2017), including the increasing use of English both as medium of instruction and as global lingua franca (Dafouz and Smit, 2019; Kalocsai, 2013)
This section reviews instruments used to capture participants’ perceptions and accounts of the language input they receive, and the social interactions they engage in, during SA. (An earlier review of quantitative approaches is provided by Dewey, 2017.) Underlying all of this work is first of all the general assumption that the SA environment is rich in meaningful target language (TL) input, spoken, written, multimodal and/or online, but that SA participants may engage with these affordances in different ways, or may neglect them in favour of first language (L1) or other languages, so that different patterns of engagement may have different language learning consequences
Summary
Second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have been attracted to study abroad (SA) as a site for research on adult second language (L2) learning for some decades, with a notable boost from the 1990s onward (Freed, 1995). To address point 1, which is initially articulated in very abstract terms, Taguchi and Collentine propose mixed-methods research combining both qualitative and quantitative elements They make ambitious proposals for a corpus linguistics approach, developing reference corpora in the target language (TL) for domains of practice typical of study abroad (classroom and academic discourse, service encounters, talk in homestays and student residences, etc.). They all acknowledge the need for better understanding of the immediate face-to-face interactions in which sojourners engage, making explicit reference to constructs deriving from the Interaction Hypothesis (input, output, feedback) They raise the need for a better understanding of the different “domains of [linguistic] practice”, which are characteristic of SA, and their relationship with L2 proficiency development. We divide our discussion into indirect research approaches, which essentially collect and interpret SA participants’ self reports regarding their social relationships and language practices, and direct approaches, which collect and analyse samples of naturally occurring L2 input and interaction in SA settings
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