Discourses of foreign language development in study abroad : Social networks and other intervening factors

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Issue date
2022-03-21Suggested citation
Mas-Alcolea, Sònia;
Torres Purroy, Helena;
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(2022)
.
Discourses of foreign language development in study abroad : Social networks and other intervening factors.
Foreign Language Annals, 2022. In Press.
https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12612.
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Many scholars have highlighted the great variability of second language acquisition outcomes and, thus, the inconsistencies and inconclusiveness in the study abroad literature. These have called for longitudinal, case-based research that focuses on the students’ processes (rather than outcomes) and that showcases the heterogeneity of experiences in two ways: by pointing at students’ socialization abroad as a key aspect affecting outcome and by accounting for other interlinking factors that may affect the students’ different trajectories. From a discourse-analytic approach, this article presents a longitudinal, qualitative multiple-case study of the Erasmus experience of nine Catalan-Spanish undergraduate students in Italy, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. The focus will be on the reported linguistic impact of their sojourn abroad; how this is related to the social networks formed abroad; and the factors that shaped the participants’ socialization patterns and ultimately their second language learning and use trajectories.