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Publications (100)
This article presents a theoretical review of and methodological guidelines for the study of two key notions in second language acquisition research, complexity and difficulty. The term complexity has gained considerable currency over the past decades and has taken on a wide range of meanings. We argue for a more restricted interpretation, focusing...
We investigated the predictive processing of grammatical number information through stem-vowel alternations in German strong verbs by adult first language (L1) speakers and Dutch-speaking advanced second language (L2) learners of German, and the influence of working memory and awareness (i.e., whether participants consciously registered the predict...
We investigate the role of awareness in learning non-salient grammar features in a second language during oral interaction. We conducted a learning experiment during which forty-eight adult Dutch-speaking advanced learners of German and a native German-speaking experimenter engaged in a scripted oral dialogue game. The experimenter and learner in t...
This study investigates whether re-thinking the separation of lexis and grammar in language testing could lead to more valid inferences about proficiency across modes. As argued by Römer, typical scoring rubrics ignore important information about proficiency encoded at the lexis–grammar interface, in particular how the co-selection of lexical and g...
This study builds upon previous research investigating the construct validity of phraseological complexity as an index of L2 development and proficiency. Whereas previous studies have focused on cross-sectional comparisons of written productions across proficiency levels, the current study compares the longitudinal development of phraseological com...
Since the 1990s, researchers in applied linguistics and second language acquisition have given increasing attention to how instruction affects the acquisition and mastery of language features, and whether some types of language features are more effectively instructed than others. Type of language feature has typically been considered in terms of w...
We investigated whether adult German native speakers and Dutch-speaking second-language learners of German exploit German regular verb morphology for predictive sentence processing and whether such predictive processing is moderated by working memory capacity and awareness of the predictive cue. In a picture-matching task with visual-world eye-trac...
This study partially replicates Paquot’s ( 2018 , 2019 ) study of phraseological complexity in L2 English by investigating how phraseological complexity compares across proficiency levels as well as how phraseological complexity measures relate to lexical, syntactic and morphological complexity measures in a corpus of L2 French argumentative essays...
International Journal of Learner Corpus Research (in press)
In applied linguistics, second language acquisition (SLA) and language education research, complexity, accuracy and fluency (henceforth CAF) have been considered as major components and basic dimensions of performance, proficiency and development in a second or foreign language.
This chapter aims to illustrate the potential of the dynamic usage-based (DUB) approach for yielding insights into the interrelationships between various complexity dimensions in second language (L2) learners' performance and proficiency in the course of L2 development by applying a number of techniques proposed in the DUB literature to the L2 Engl...
This chapter aims to help the complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) approach to second language acquisition reach its full potential by critically appraising its current applications to complexity in L2 writing development. To further this end, we first review five representative empirical CDST-inspired studies on complexity in L2 writing. Second,...
The present study analyses the impact of a bilingual Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programme vis-à-vis a regular monolingual programme on the development of different aspects of L2 learners’ linguistic (syntactic, morphological and lexical) complexity. Five pupils enrolled in a Dutch–English CLIL programme in a secondary school in...
This eye-tracking study investigates whether L1 and L2 speakers of German exploit the grammatical information encoded through verb inflection to predict upcoming input during auditory sentence processing. By comparing the results to measures of explicit knowledge, we can distinguish between the existence of knowledge and its usage in real-time comp...
Preliminary data of the following study were presented at EuroSLA 29 in Lund on 30/08/2019.
Abstract: In sentence comprehension, native speakers constantly integrate lexical, morphosyntactic, pragmatic and contextual information to interpret what is being said and to predict upcoming input (Altmann & Kamide, 1999; Huettig, Rommers, & Meyer, 2011; T...
en This special issue, focusing on different types of variation in syntactic complexity, offers a critical discussion of the role of variation in syntactic complexity research in SLA. Special attention is paid to inter‐learner variation (i.e., individual developmental trajectories of acquiring syntactic complexity) and to interactions with related...
In the past decades, there has been a surge in interest in the study of language complexity in second language (L2) research. In this article we provide an overview of current theoretical and methodological practices in L2 complexity research, while simultaneously framing these within the broader scientific interest into the notion of complexity. I...
Full conference abstract: Although much L2 learning takes place through communication, scientific knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of uninstructed grammar learning, and how these differ from learning processes under conditions with explicit instruction, is still sparse. There is a growing body of psycholinguistic research comparing SLA und...
The present poster summarizes the current state of a research design. The stimuli are still in the making, so the testing phase has not begun yet and we still need to make some choices about additional measures that we are going to integrate in the design. [ABSTRACT: In L1 comprehension, we constantly integrate lexical, morphosyntactic, pragmatic a...
This is a 10 minutes presentation that I held at the PhD Day of my university. As the audience consisted to large extent of non-linguists, I paid attention to making the presentation accessible and tried not to use any complicated linguistic terminology. The methodology that we use in the study in question (that is, a learning experiment that uses...
The present study aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of how the L2 production of L2 learners varies over time in terms of syntactic complexity by analyzing a substantive number of English L2 writing samples (n = 11) produced by a sizable group of learners (n = 10) over a relatively long period of time (19 months), using a judicious select...
While SLA through immersion is very common, our knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of uninstructed SLA is restricted. Although there has been a growing body of psycholinguistic research investigating explicit and implicit L2 knowledge, learning and training (DeKeyser, 2003), comparative studies have often been biased toward advantages for ex...
Syntactic and linguistic complexity have been studied extensively in applied linguistics as indicators of linguistic performance, development, and proficiency. Recent publications have equally highlighted the reductionist approach taken to syntactic complexity measurement, which often focuses on one or two measures representing complexity at the le...
Clause linkage, or the combination of multiple propositions in one complex syntactic unit, is an important concept to be mastered by anyone acquiring a language. Though its role in both first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition has been studied before (Diessel & Tomasello 2001, Véronique 2004, Klein & Perdue 1997), an overarching approach to...
Structural simplicity/complexity is an important variable with which New Englishes and native varieties are identified and conceptualised, but predicting such variation in complexity has received little attention in the literature. New Englishes, especially the outer circle varieties such as Nigerian or Indian English, differ in form and function f...
Studies in second language acquisition (SLA) increasingly rely on measures of linguistic complexity to assess second language (L2) proficiency and development. While an important number of studies have risen to the call of studying a broader range of complexity related constructs (Bulté and Housen, 2012; Norris and Ortega, 2009), few have examined...
INTRODUCTION: COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVES ON DIFFICULTY AND COMPLEXITY IN L2 ACQUISITION - Volume 38 Issue 2 - Alex Housen, Hannelore Simoens
This paper reports on a study on the nature and extent of the development of English L2 writing proficiency of 45 adult ESL learners over the time of an intensive short-term EAP program as evaluated by means of objective measures targeting different components of lexical and syntactic complexity. In addition, we compare the scores on these measures...
This study takes a new look at the topic of developmental stages in the second language (L2) acquisition of morphosyntax by analysing receptive learner data, a language mode that has hitherto received very little attention within this strand of research (for a recent and rare study, see Spinner, 2013). Looking at both the receptive and productive s...
Recent research suggests that multilingual students tend to use their complete language repertoires, particularly their L1, when writing in a non-native language (e.g. Cenoz & Gorter 2011; Wang 2003). While there is some international research on the L2 and L3 writing process among bilinguals, the L2/L3 writing process of bilingual and multilingual...
مقاله حاضر به گزارش پژوهشي ميپردازد كه در چارچوب انگاره نمود (اندرسن و شـيراي 1996؛
باردووي-هارليگ 2000؛ سالابري و هاوزن 2013 (سامان يافته است. انگارهاي كه كاربست و يادگيري
ساختِ زمان-نمود فعلها را در حين فراگيري زبان دوم، تابع معناي سرشتي نمود واژگاني بـنواژهـاي
فعل ميداند. عامل مهم ديگري كه در كاربست و فراگيري ساخت زمان-نمود فعلها در زبان دوم مؤ...
This paper aims to analyse the role of time concentration of instructional hours on the acquisition of formulaic sequences in English as a foreign language (EFL). Two programme types that offer the same amount of hours of instruction are considered: intensive (110 hours/1 month) and regular (110 hours/7 months). The EFL learners under study are adu...
Since the mid-1990s applied linguistics and SLA research have given increasing attention to how instruction affects language features, such as forms, items, structures, patterns, and rules, and whether some features are more effectively instructed than others. These issues are of relevance to various stakeholders. For SLA researchers, knowing how t...
Although Belgium is characterized by a widespread consensus that a functional proficiency in the two major national languages, Dutch and French, as well as in English is desirable, educational provision to achieve such proficiency has long been constrained by an official language policy which mandates that education must be monolingual in Dutch, Fr...
This eye-tracking study tests the hypothesis that more attention leads to more learning, following claims that attention to new language elements in the input results in their initial representation in long-term memory (i.e., intake; Robinson, 2003; Schmidt, 1990, 2001).
Twenty-eight advanced learners of English read English texts that contained 12...
This chapter takes a critical look at complexity in L2 research. We demonstrate several problems in the L2 literature in terms of how complexity has been defined and operationalised as a construct. In the first part of the chapter we try to unravel its highly complex, multidimensional nature by presenting a taxonomic model that identifies major typ...
This chapter takes a critical look at complexity in L2 research. We demonstrate several problems in the L2 literature in terms of how complexity has been defined and operationalised as a construct. In the first part of the chapter we try to unravel its highly complex, multidimensional nature by presenting a taxonomic model that identifies major typ...
This paper investigates the extent to which productive use of formulaic sequences by intermediate students of two typologically different languages, i.e., English and Spanish, is associated with their oral proficiency in these languages. Previous research (e.g., Boers et al., Language Teaching Research 10: 245261, 2006) has shown that appropriate u...
This paper reports on a study that investigates the impact of learning context on the L2 acquisition of English by German-speaking pupils. Learning context is operationalized in terms of the relative prominence of the L1 and the L2 within the learning context, which in turn reflects the functional roles and domains of use allocated to the L2 and L1...
IntroductionA Conceptual Framework for Investigating L2 InstructionEvaluating Research and Empirical Findings on the Effects of InstructionConclusions and Implications for Teaching PracticeReferences
This article aims (a) to explore the operationalisation and definition of lexical L2 proficiency and related constructs with a view to identifying a set of measures that can adequately capture the dynamics of lexical L2 proficiency development over time, and (b) to shed more light on the development of lexical proficiency in French Foreign Language...
In Brussels, the officially Dutch-French bilingual but predominantly francophone capital of Belgium, a monolingual Dutch-medium and French-medium school system operate in parallel and independently from each other. Lately, an increasing number of francophone parents have sent their children to the Dutch-medium schools in, expecting that this will p...
The role of inherent lexical aspect in the use and development of tense-aspect morphology has been a rich area of research in the last two decades. The general conclusion of early reviews of research on the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen 1991) was that, some variations in emphasis and differences in methodology between studies and a few disconfirmator...
This study investigates the commonly-held belief in the SLA community that second language acquisition is somehow influenced by the learner’s personality. It builds on previous research on the relation between one personality variable, extraversion, and second language acquisition but is innovative in three ways. First, it examines L2 learners’ spe...
In the officially bilingual Belgian capital Brussels, two independent education systems operate in parallel: a Dutch-language education system and a French-language education system. Pupils and parents can choose between both systems freely and independently of their home language background. Many Francophone parents prefer to enrol their children...
The publication of Hugo Baetens Beardsmore’s book Bilingualism: Basic Principles by Multilingual Matters in 1982 coincided with an unprecedented upsurge of interest in bilingualism. A major reason for this was the acknowledgement that bilingualism is far more common than was previously thought, and perhaps even the norm. The number of bilinguals at...
Book synopsis: This volume contributes to the debates about the social aspects of bilingualism, focusing on the various opportunities and challenges bilingualism presents to today's society. The contributions in this volume are of a prospective stance, delineating directions for future research on bilingualism and/or identifying important issues wh...
Following previous work in L1 acquisition, SLA has witnessed a veritable explosion of research activity in the domain of temporality since the mid 1980s. In the hefty book under review here, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, for several years one of the most active protagonists in the field, sets out to organize the dislocated array of findings, methods, an...
This paper evaluates the implementation and implications of the recent Education Act in Latvia for the education of language minority children in Latvia. By analysing the output, contextual and operational variables that determine language education policy, comparisons are made with two established Western European models of multilingual education,...
This paper reports findings from two studies of the relationships between curricular and extra-curricular aspects of the guided L2 learning context, the kind of L2 learning opportunities which they create, and the L2 learning outcomes that they result in. The first study compares levels of English L2 achievement by Italian learners in four differen...
This article reports on an experimental study investigating the differential effects of two different modes of implementation of explicit instruction on classroom learners’ability to produce a grammatical structure (the French present conditional) in three different controlled language tasks. Three groups of Dutch-speaking secondary school pupils l...
This article discusses aspects of the European Schools model of multilingual and multicultural education, with a particular emphasis on its language component. European Schools (ES) cater to a linguistically and culturally diverse population and operate in up to nine languages at the same site. Pupils receive most of their education in their respec...
This collection of papers examines, from an international perspective, opportunities and challenges of societal bilingualism in the new millennium. The 18 papers include the following: "Introduction: Opportunities and Challenges of Bilingualism" (Li Wei, Jean-Marc Dewaele, and Alex Housen); "'Holy Languages' in the Context of Societal Bilingualism"...
In this chapter, Housen presents the results of a cross-sectional, corpus-based study into the acquisition of the basic morphological categories of the English verb system, intended to test empirically current hypotheses. Using annotated oral corpus data from learners grouped into four different levels of proficiency, plus native speaker baseline d...
Book synopsis: The publication of Hugo Baetens Beardsmore’s book Bilingualism: Basic Principles by Multilingual Matters in 1982 coincided with an unprecedented upsurge of interest in bilingualism. A major reason for this was the acknowledgement that bilingualism is far more common than was previously thought, and perhaps even the norm. The number o...
Studies on the L2-acquisition of Tense-Aspect (TA) have argued that the emergence and development of verb morphology is constrained by semantic-conceptual prototypes in a way that coincides with the claims of the Aspect Hypothesis (AH) (Andersen & Shirai 1996). This paper presents results from a longitudinal study of the development of TA in L2 Eng...
Analysis of multilingual acquisition processes in the European School of Brussels reveals how both curricular and extra-curricular factors combine to account for high levels of proficiency in three or four languages. The school operates in seven languages, and all pupils must learn at least three, though the combination is open to choice. Curricula...
The present article is a review of both the theoretical and the empirical literature on the effects and effectiveness of instruction for second language acquisition. Following De Graaff and Housen (2009), the term effect refers to any observable change in learner's outcome that can be attributed to an instructional intervention, and instruction is...
A group of 125 Dutch-speaking students from five different secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium, were tested for oral production and listening comprehension proficiency in both English and French as part of a pilot study intended to examine outcomes and causal factors in the simultaneous learning of two foreign languages in an educational context...
