Search results for "Usage-based"

Between ideologies and realities: Multilingual competence in a languagised world

2016

AbstractRecent developments in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics have put emphasis on the contrast between ideologies of distinct ‘languages’ and the multifaceted reality of linguistic practices. This article argues that recent usage-based reconceptualisations of the notions of competence and repertoire can help paint a more complex picture of the relationship between monolingual ‘ideologies’ and diverse linguistic ‘realities’. Drawing on data from interviews with highly proficient adult speakers of Finnish as a second language, I explore some aspects of how speakers’ competence can be understood as shaped by language use, and what role linguistic ideologies, social expectations and …

Valuing Variability: Dynamic Usage-based Principles in the L2 Development of Four Finnish Language Learners

2020

The general aim of this study is to trace the second language (L2) development of four beginner learners of Finnish over one academic year from a dynamic usage-based perspective. Contrary to many previous studies, this study starts out from meanings, not forms. In other words, an onomasiological approach is adopted. The aim is to investigate what kind of constructions the learners use to express 1) evaluation and 2) existentiality. In line with a dynamic usage-based approach, the goal is to investigate three aspects of development: 1) the interaction between different linguistic means used to express a certain meaning and between the instruction and learning trajectories, 2) variability pat…

Introduction: On the Complex Ecology of Language Learning ‘in the Wild’

2019

This introduction explicates the central issues informing the chapters in the volume. We outline the epistemological development of Second Language Acquisition research as it has evolved from being predominantly individual-cognitive to a more pluralistic endeavor in which social approaches to cognition and learning are becoming central. Social interaction has been recognized as key to language learning since the 1970’s but the field is still lacking in research that studies the everyday social-interactional ecology in which the L2 speaker acts. We argue that it is time to broaden contexts for empirical investigations to study language learning in the full ecology of ‘the wild’, that is, in …

Käytössä kehittyvä kieli : paikat ja tilat suomi toisena kielenä -oppijoiden teksteissä

2015

Variation and variability in L2 learning trajectories : Learning the Finnish existential construction

2022

Taking an onomasiological approach and a dynamic usage-based perspective, this study explores how four beginning L2 learners of Finnish develop in expressing existentiality (‘there is something somewhere’) before and after instruction. Data were collected weekly over a period of nine months and examined for conventionalized and non-conventionalized constructions that express existentiality. As expected from a dynamic usage-based perspective, both inter-individual variation and intra-individual variability were identified. The initial repertoires of two of the learners were quite variable, as they used several different non-conventionalized constructions before settling on more conventionali…

Toward a cognitive Discourses Semantics. Theoreticals inputs and empirical corpus-based case study in German.

2021

At the intersection between usage-based construction grammar and frame semantics, a cognitive semantic analysis is to be theorized. The present work proposes to develop for this purpose the Cognitive Discourse Analysis model. Discourse is then understood following Michel Foucault as a conceptual system based on linguistic, social and epistemic knowledge. Its linguistic operationalization is achieved through the contribution of textual linguistics and corpus following Dietrich Busse. The aim of such a methodological construction is to finely examine a corpus of recurrent texts in a cognitive perspective, and thus as close as possible to the linguistic reality, and to be able represent the en…

From conceptualization to constructions in Finnish as an L2 : a case study

2017

AbstractThis study traces the individual learning trajectories of an adult beginner L2 Finnish learner in expressing the extralinguistic concept of evaluation from a dynamic usage-based perspective. Our results provide support for the view of learner language as a dynamic system in which patterns wax and wane and in which a change in one component has the potential to affect the whole system. In the early stages of learning there was a strong preference to use lexical verbs first, and then adjectives. The study also shows that variability plays a role. Finally, the study confirms that the learning of L2 constructions is in some cases item based. However, another highly frequent and superfic…

Lexically specific vs. productive constructions in L2 Finnish

2020

ABSTRACTIt is assumed from a usage-based perspective that learner language constructions emerge from natural language use in social interaction through exemplar learning. In L1, young learners have been shown to develop their constructions from lexically specific, formulaic expressions into more productive, abstract schemas. A similar developmental path has been shown for L2 development, with some exceptions. The aim of the current study is to explore to what extent the default assumption holds for L2 learning. The development of two constructions was traced in four adults learning L2 Finnish. Free-response data, collected weekly over a period of 9 months, were used to investigate the produ…