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EMOTIONS IN INCIDENTAL LANGUAGE LEARNING

AN INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES APPROACH

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2019

Zachary F. Miller Open the ORCID record for Zachary F. Miller [Opens in a new window]  and
Aline Godfroid
Zachary F. Miller*
Affiliation:
U.S. Military Academy at West Point
Aline Godfroid
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Zachary F. Miller, Department of Foreign Languages, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, West Point, NY 10996. E-mail: zachary.miller@westpoint.edu
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Abstract

We investigated how positive, negative, and neutral mood states influence aspects of second language acquisition, either directly or in interaction with certain personality characteristics (openness, intuition, emotional intelligence, foreign language anxiety, and impulsivity). After completing individual differences questionnaires, 120 participants were randomly assigned to either a Comparison group or one of three emotionally induced treatment groups. They were trained on a semiartificial language under incidental learning conditions. Immediate testing measured participants’ knowledge of the target syntactic forms, while source-attribution data gauged the nature (implicit, explicit, or a combination of both) of their knowledge. Contrary to some previous studies, knowledge gains were chiefly conscious-explicit. Participants exhibited substantial variability in how emotions impacted their learning, with self-reported stress management and premeditation resulting in higher learning in the Negative group. Overall, participants that claimed higher levels of intellect showed the best results.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 115 - 141
Open Practices
Open materials
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

The experiment in this article earned an Open Materials badge for transparent practices. The materials are available at www.iris-database.org/iris/app/home/detail?id=york:936433.

This study was supported by doctoral dissertation research funding from the Second Language Studies Program at Michigan State University. We would like to thank Shawn Loewen, Jason Moser, and Paula Winke for their contributions to this work as members of Zachary Miller’s dissertation committee.

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