How Social Interaction Affects Students’ Formulaic Development in L2 German in a Multilingual SA Context

A longitudinal study into learners’ productive collocation knowledge in L2 German and factors affecting the learning

“…This might be explained by the fact that 5 months might be quite short for collocation development, or by the fact that also the students going to a non-German-speaking country continued studying German at the universities abroad. It might also depend on students' active engagement with the L2 in social interaction abroad (e.g., González Fernández & Schmitt, 2015), which might take place outside the target language country too (e.g., Boone, 2021). Also here, qualitative interview data, for example on students' L2 exposure and use or their L2 learning experience during SA, could yield relevant information.…”

“…Some studies have indeed observed a positive effect of L2 immersion abroad on learners' collocation knowledge (González Fernández & Schmitt, 2015;Groom, 2009;Macis & Schmitt, 2017;Siyanova & Schmitt, 2008). In other studies, it was found that a stay in the target language country did not lead to an appreciably higher or more accurate use of L2 collocations (Boone, 2021;Li & Schmitt, 2010;Nesselhauf, 2005). Because findings have been mixed, L2 immersion will be added as a variable in our analysis.…”

Exploring collocation development in L2 German from students’ perspective: A contrasting case study

“…For the effective collocation learners, the SA experience was found to be important for collocation development, whereas for the less effective collocation learners, the SA experience was useful to boost their self-confidence. Studying abroad -both in and outside the L2 country -offered all students opportunities to practice German in social interaction, which has been found to be beneficial for learners' formulaic development (Boone, 2021;Dörnyei et al, 2004). However, students' collocation development appeared to depend strongly on the quantity and quality of input, output, and interaction abroad.…”

“…Active participation in meaningful interaction with L1 speakers of the L2, for example, may help orient the L2 user's attention towards the language form (Ellis, 2015). Social networking with the members of the target speech community has indeed been suggested to promote students' formulaic development (Boone, 2021;Dörnyei et al, 2004). Also in a migratory context, language use and social networks were detected as factors that distinguished high-performing from low-performing L1 Swedish L2 French users in terms of collocation knowledge and nativelikeness (Forsberg Lundell & Arvidsson, 2021).…”

“…Item-related factors include, for example, L1-L2 congruency (Boone et al, 2023;Ding & Reynolds, 2019;Vu & Peters, 2022;Wolter & Gyllstad, 2013) and corpus frequency (Durrant, 2014;Ellis, 2002). Learner-related factors or individual differences (IDs) include factors -often interrelated -such as age of onset (Foster et al, 2014), memory-based language aptitude (Bolibaugh & Foster, 2013;Ellis & Sinclair, 1996), motivation (Arvidsson, 2021;Dörnyei et al, 2004), exposure (Bolibaugh & Foster, 2013;Foster et al, 2014), social interaction (Boone, 2021;Dörnyei et al, 2004), and self-efficacy and self-regulation (Arvidsson, 2021). While in the broader field of formulaic language research findings thus suggest the influence of a number of IDs on learners' formulaic competence, less research has been conducted on IDs influencing learners' collocation competence.…”