In:Usage-based Perspectives on Language and Language Acquisition: In honour of Heike Behrens
Edited by Karin Madlener-Charpentier, Marjolijn H. Verspoor, Mirjam Weder and Annelies Häcki Buhofer
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 35] 2026
► pp. 224–247
Chapter 8Second language learning as local and long-term process in and
for social interaction
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Drawing on conversation analysis and usage-based models of
language, this chapter is part of larger on-going projects exploring
the social-local worlds of second language (L2) speakers’ daily
lives and investigating and mapping out their L2 learning, in situ
and over time. The projects describe and analyze L2 learning as a
matter of developing resources in and for social interaction — that
is, they tackle L2 learning as a matter of locally instantiated,
observable behaviors and long-term development of linguistic
resources for accomplishing actions in concert with others in social
interaction.
Drawing on a longitudinal corpus of L2 Icelandic data from
the everyday life of a Canadian English-speaking learner of
Icelandic, I will show how two linguistic patterns (subject-verb
congruence in 1st person plural present tense and congruence between
a modal verb and adjacent main verbs) are exemplar-driven in
learning and how productive construction templates emerge in repair
sequences.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Usage-based SLA
- 3.CA-SLA
- 4.Combining UBL and CA
- 5.Socially situated emergence of constructions
- 5.1Tracing við
- 5.2Tracing geta
- 6.Conclusions and next steps
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