Chapter 3. Languaging and grammatical terminology

What Does Explicit Knowledge Look Like? An Analysis of Information Structure in Rule Formation by L2 Learners and Its Relationship With Guided Inductive Learning

“…Participants’ use of metalanguage and linguistic terminology was also found to vary in the present study, as has been documented in previous studies (Toth et al., 2013, 2020). Some of our participants used linguistic terminology such as “agent” and “patient” and stated grammatical categories such as subject, verb, object, and preposition.…”

“…This variability most likely reflects variability in the participants’ prior knowledge of metalanguage and linguistic terminology, as pointed out in Toth et al. (2020), as well as how prior knowledge may influence the DoP of the input, as posited in Leow (2015) and Leow et al. (2019).…”

“…Davin and Kushki (2022), for example, noted the variability in accurate descriptions of language use among members of a group co-constructing rules. Toth et al (2020) noted the variable use of (non)technical, scientific language to describe language use; and Toth et al (2013) noted the variable participation among different group members. These findings reveal that transcribed audio recordings of unplanned co-constructed rules are unpredictable, asymmetrical in terms of learner contribution, and at times amorphous in terms of their content and metalinguistic awareness.…”

“…We hypothesize that such rules will reflect a more precise level of metalinguistic awareness with definable structure. We examine the rules in terms of their reference to formal linguistic features and, like Toth et al (2020), we accept nontechnical descriptions in doing so. Finally, we employ online measures of reading and response times to explain variable rule formations with the online input processing of the structure.…”

“…In that regard, a recent research agenda grounded in sociocultural theory and cognitive–interactionist frameworks has paid particular attention to metalanguage and rule formation exclusively within GI contexts (Azkarai et al., 2022; Mattson–Prieto & Showstack, 2022; Toth & Gil–Berrio, 2022; Toth et al., 2020; Wagner & Park, 2022); such research operationalized metalanguage in terms of rule formation generated through co‐constructed classroom discourse among groups of students and then analyzed the learning process as a representation of metalinguistic awareness. Results revealed that co‐constructed metalanguage among learners is constrained by the level of expertise of the teacher who guides the process (Davin & Kushki, 2022; Wagner & Park, 2022); that it tends to focus on meaning over form (Azkarai et al., 2022; Davin & Kushki, 2022); that it varies according to task design, group dynamics, and individual‐learner agency (Davin & Kushki, 2022; Toth et al., 2013; Toth & Gil–Berrio, 2022); and that it may consist of informal, nontechnical language, variably influenced by the previous metalinguistic knowledge that learners bring to the interactive task (Toth et al., 2020). When considered together, the results leave us with a nebulous understanding of what rules “look like,” how (or if) they are systematically structured, whether they are a result of previous knowledge or induced by GI instruction, and who (among the learners) does (not) possess metalinguistic awareness of a given form–meaning connection.…”