Elephants in the Room: An “Affective Turn,” Or Just Feeling Our Way?

Prior, Matthew T.

doi:10.1111/modl.12573

Cited by 135 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Mackenzie and Alba Juez (2019) note that “across social sciences, scholars are recognizing the essential role of emotional phenomena” (p. 3) and they label this emerging interdisciplinary field as “emotionology” (back cover). This view concurs with the one in Prior’s (2019) position paper on emotion in The Modern Language Journal. He argues that scholarly interest in the emotional dimensions of language learning, teaching, and use is booming and that it is about time to acknowledge the presence of the elephant in the room.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…The time has come to study it in new ways in order to “open up this confined and crowded room and explore other spaces of language and emotional life” (p. 525). In their commentary on Prior’s (2019) position paper, Lantolf and Swain (2019) observe that interest in emotion theory and research is spreading across disciplinary boundaries. Research on learner and teacher emotions is also reaching into the political sphere by focusing on hegemonic power relations (Benesch, 2017, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Flowering of Positive Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching and Acquisition Research

et al. 2019

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The present contribution offers an overview of a new area of research in the field of foreign language acquisition, which was triggered by the introduction of Positive Psychology (PP) (MacIntyre and Gregersen, 2012). For many years, a cognitive perspective had dominated research in applied linguistics. Around the turn of the millennium researchers became increasingly interested in the role of emotions in foreign language learning and teaching, beyond established concepts like foreign language anxiety and constructs like motivation and attitudes toward the foreign language. As a result, a more nuanced understanding of the role of positive and negative learner and teacher emotions emerged, underpinned by solid empirical research using a wide range of epistemological and methodological approaches. PP interventions have been carried out in schools and universities to strengthen learners and teachers’ experiences of flow, hope, courage, well-being, optimism, creativity, happiness, grit, resilience, strengths, and laughter with the aim of enhancing learners’ linguistic progress. This paper distinguishes the early period in the field that started with MacIntyre and Gregersen (2012), like a snowdrop after winter, and that was followed by a number of early studies in relatively peripheral journals. We argue that 2016 is the starting point of the current period, characterized by gradual recognition in applied linguistics, growing popularity of PP, and an exponential increase in publications in more mainstream journals. This second period could be compared to a luxuriant English garden in full bloom.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Flowering of Positive Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching and Acquisition Research

et al. 2019

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“…I am still digesting this rich feast, but it clearly represents a real advance in theorizing emotion and affect in SLA studies. In the position paper, Prior () notes that SLA studies has long been interested in emotion/affect, but has treated it in limited and, by some accounts, highly cognitive ways. Language learning anxiety, for instance, has been conceptualized as an affective barrier to the cognitive processing required to learn additional languages (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, , as referenced in Horwitz, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the Brain: Intercorporeality and Co‐Operative Action for SLA Studies

Atkinson

2019

The Modern Language Journal

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It is widely assumed that the cognitivist era is over in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies. This critical review essay (a) questions this assumption, (b) presents alternative views from beyond the field to help it move in a noncognitivist direction, and (c) discusses prospects for a noncognitivist future in SLA studies. I begin by briefly reviewing the history of cognitivism, by which I mean a mind/brain‐centric view of human existence and behavior. I then argue that SLA studies remain under cognitivist influence. Next, I review 2 recent books that offer strong theoretical and empirical bases for studying the embodied, affective, social, and ecological nature of human action, including learning and teaching. The first book, Meyer, Streeck, and Jordan's (2017) co‐edited Intercorporeality, explores the consequences of being a body in a world of other such bodies, versus the cognitivist vision of disembodied mind/brain. The second book, Goodwin's (2018a) Co‐operative Action, develops and empirically illustrates a theory of social action wherein heterogeneous, multimodal cultural tools and practices including language combine, accumulate, and transform in moment‐to‐moment use. Both books view human existence and action as fundamentally “ecosocial”—embodied, affective, and adaptive to human and nonhuman environments—yet they differ markedly in content and implications. Goodwin's painstaking empirical analyses, for instance, including of teaching and learning, show co‐operative action unfolding in real time. I conclude by discussing current developments in SLA studies that point toward a noncognitive future for the field.

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“…A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches offers researchers the unsurpassed advantage of binocular vision, allowing them to perceive three-dimensional images of phenomena. For the field to progress researchers need to see more dimensions through different methods and epistemologies (Prior 2019). This view is expressed poetically by Pavlenko (2002): 'poststructuralist approaches will bloom best when surrounded by other flowers in the garden of theory and practice, giving rise to present and future debates and controversies' (Pavlenko 2002: 299) and it is shared by DST researchers, but their push for more emic, qualitative research may unwittingly push quantitative approaches in an underdog position.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantitative affective research in SLA, and in applied linguistics in general, offers a fertile ground for crucial interdisciplinary collaboration between applied linguists, psychologists and education specialists from different backgrounds. Such collaborations need to continue, and to grow further, not just because they can lead to much needed methodological and epistemological diversity (Prior 2019) and triangulation of elusive phenomena and hence to theoretical innovation but also because the pedagogical implications of this research can serve the foreign language teaching community, and by extension foreign language learners in general.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Vital Need for Ontological, Epistemological and Methodological Diversity in Applied Linguistics

Dewaele¹

2019

Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics: Diversifying a Discipline

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Elephants in the Room: An “Affective Turn,” Or Just Feeling Our Way?

Cited by 135 publications

References 74 publications

The Flowering of Positive Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching and Acquisition Research

The Flowering of Positive Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching and Acquisition Research

Beyond the Brain: Intercorporeality and Co‐Operative Action for SLA Studies

The Vital Need for Ontological, Epistemological and Methodological Diversity in Applied Linguistics

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