Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "The acquisition of the Hindi case system by Dutch-speaking and German-speaking foreign language learners" "Klaas Willems" "Department of Linguistics" "This project aims to investigate developmental sequences in the foreign language acquisition of the Hindi case system. A qualitative longitudinal study will be conducted among Hindi foreign language learners in an instructed learning environment. The research will be embedded within the framework of Processability Theory, which is a second language acquisition theory that describes and explains stages of morphosyntactic development  " "Linguistic musicality: experimental research into the bond between musicality and pronunciation proficiency (intonation and accentuation) in foreign language acquisition." "Lieve Vangehuchten" "Primary and interdisciplinary care Antwerp (ELIZA), Communication for Academic and Professional purposes (C-APP)" "Recent research in Second Language Acquisition provides evidence for the existence of a correlation between musical aptitude and pronunciation proficiency. Experimental research is necessary to examine to what extent the feeling for rhythm and intonation – the basics of musicality – converge with the processes that are responsible for pronunciation proficiency in a foreign language. Corroboration of this hypothesis offers obvious perspectives for scientifically founded pronunciation training in Second Language Learning on the basis of musicological insights and pedagogical techniques." "Stylistic appropriateness in English as a foreign language: The acquisition of grammatical formality by translation trainees." "Jim Ureel" "Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TricS)" "An important component of communicative competence is sociolinguistic competence, which is the ability to use language appropriately in communication. Despite an increasing body of research into sociolinguistic features of foreign language (L2) learning, a feature that has received relatively little and/or one-sided treatment to date is the acquisition of sensitivity to (in)formal language use in L2 learners. This project addresses that gap by investigating sensitivity to grammatical formality in L2 learners of English. By using both quantitative and qualitative data, we will map – cross-sectionally and longitudinally – the acquisition of sensitivity to grammatical formality.Quantitative data from an online revision task and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews will be integrated to acquire a more nuanced understanding of how sensitivity to grammatical formality is acquired in L2 learners of English. The results will contribute to a better understanding of how sociolinguistic competence develops in L2 learners and to facilitating sociolinguistically responsive foreign language instruction." "The foreign language classroom and language proficiency: the role of teacher practices and learner characteristics" "Maribel Montero Perez" "Department of Linguistics" "While numerous studies have focused on techniques that promote foreign language acquisition in an instructed context, most studies on the effectiveness of instructional techniques have been carried out in controlled lab-based settings. Data on how foreign language teaching is realized in the L2 classroom and how this affects L2 learning are scarce. In this project, we focus on the development of language proficiency in 16-18-year-old Flemish foreign language learners of French. By means of a cross-sectional study in which data are collected in three different years of secondary education, we want to investigate the development of language proficiency. A combination of questionnaires and observations will be used to gain insight into teachers' didactic practices and learner-related characteristics and to investigate how these variables impact the development of L2 language proficiency. This project will contribute to research on instructed SLA and language didactics and will have important pedagogical implications" "Academic literacy in German as a foreign language: A corpus-based contrastive analysis of cohesion in written learner language." "Carola Strobl" "Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TricS)" "This research project investigates how advanced learners of German as a foreign language (L2) establish cohesion in their academic L2 writing. To enable effective and reader-oriented written communication in academic and professional settings, language learners must develop the ability to create cohesion, which is a crucial component of advanced communicative competence. This means that L2 learners must learn to use grammatical and lexical devices appropriately to signal the logical structure of a text to readers, connecting words into sentences, paragraphs, ideas and texts. Since the use of cohesive devices is highly language-dependent, cohesion is an important aspect of the language acquisition process, transcending traditional grammar–vocabulary distinctions. Given the importance of cohesion in high-quality writing, it is surprising that the cohesive devices deployed by language learners have received little attention in second language acquisition (SLA) research to date. While there is a growing body of research into cohesion in translation studies, which has led to theoretical insights into how languages differ in terms of cohesion, SLA research into cohesion has been limited to a handful of studies in advanced L2 English writing. SLA research into other languages – including German – has until now largely neglected cohesion as an important aspect of language acquisition. A similar lack of attention to cohesion has also been witnessed in L2 pedagogy, where cohesion is often neglected (e.g., in learning materials). As a result, L2 writers often make non-nativelike choices with respect to cohesion, even at advanced stages of language proficiency. Our project sets out to fill the two gaps above by proposing a comprehensive analysis of cohesion in academic L2 German writing, more specifically, summary writing. Our aim is threefold: (1) analyse similarities and differences in the use of cohesive devices by native (L1) and non-native (L2) writers in German; (2) investigate specific characteristics of cohesion in learners with L1 Dutch. To this aim, we will compile, annotate and publish a corpus of texts written by advanced Dutch-speaking L2 learners of German and (3) suggest fruitful applications of our theoretical findings to L2 pedagogy. We will adopt repeated contrastive corpus-based analysis, which is a new method consisting, in our project, of the comparison of three purposefully selected comparable corpora: (1) an existing corpus of summaries produced by L1 writers of German, (2) an existing corpus of summaries produced by L2 writers of German with different L1 backgrounds and (3) our newly created corpus of summaries produced by L2 writers of German with L1 Dutch. In so doing, we contribute to the growing body of learner corpora, which are gaining momentum in SLA research. In addition, we advance the theoretical knowledge of learner language by identifying L1-specific and L1-independent characteristics of cohesion in academic learner language, using novel methods and proposing evidence-based innovation in advanced L2 pedagogy." "The development of Dutch syntax in learners of Dutch as a foreign language: effects of immersion, language background and training by means of syntactic priming." "Sarah Bernolet" "Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)" "Background: In these days of mass migration, many people learn a brand new language at a later age. This is not easy: Languages have both similarities and differences in the sentence structures with which they express particular meanings. For instance, the Dutch and French active sentences are similar in both languages (Le chat chasse la souris - De kat jaagt op de muis [The cat cases the mouse]), but Dutch has three different forms for the full passive sentence, whereas French has only one (La souris est chassée par le chat). How do learners deal with this? Aims: Previous research suggests that bilinguals share information about sentence structure across their languages, whenever these structures are similar enough. Hartsuiker and Bernolet (2017) proposed a developmental model for second language syntax in which learners go through several consecutive learning stages before they share syntax between languages. The challenging aspect is our goal to test that theory in ecologically valid settings. More specifically, we investigate the influence of immersion in the L2 and of knowledge of related languages on the development and the representation of Dutch syntax in students who learn Dutch as a foreign language. Additionally, we investigate whether and how syntactic priming experiments can aid the develoment of native-like production preferences in Dutch as an L2. Methodology: All studies in the project use syntactic priming as a tool (Branigan & Pickering, 2017): all sentences that need to be produced or comprehended are preceded by a prime sentence with the same or a competing syntactic structure. If a prime structure is represented in memory, it will influence the production and the comprehension of the upcoming sentence, within and across languages. We will investigate the syntactic representations in different speakers of Dutch: 1) Flemish students with Dutch as their only native language; 2) Walloon students who learned Dutch at the age of 10; 3) first generation immigrants learning Dutch as their first or second Indo-European language. The first production study compares groups 1 and 2. We investigate the representation of Dutch syntactic structures that lack a similar counterpart in the learners' native language (French) and we compare the production preferences for Walloon learners of Dutch living inan immersion context with the preferences of learners living in a monolingual French context. The second study investigates how we can boost the production of Dutch syntactic structures that are dispreferred due to influence of a native language. Studies 3 is a longitudinal study that explores the differences between the learning trajectories for Dutch syntax in native Arabic speakers who learn Dutch as their first or second Indo-European language (after English). Impact: By documenting the different stages in L2 syntactic development with actual learner data, this project will have a strong impact on both the psychology of language and on second language acquisition research. Additionally, this project will provide valuable information on the learning trajectory for Dutch syntax, more specifically on the influence of native language syntax, and on the effects of immersion, knowledge of related languages and specific training on the development and the final representation of Dutch syntax. Hence, the project outcome will be relevant to teachers and trainers of Dutch as a foreign language." "Speech intelligibility and foreign accent: New perspectives on the perception of non-native Dutch" "Ellen Simon" "Department of Linguistics, Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication" "Oral proficiency targets in foreign language learning are typically expressed in terms of intelligibility. However, what makes non-native speech intelligible and accented is ill understood. The proposed project examines the link between intelligibility, foreign accentedness, and listeners' attitudes towards non-native Dutch. The results will contribute to our understanding of these concepts and underpin the teaching of Dutch as a foreign language." "ExpoVoc: Exposure to English and vocabulary learning: the unique case of young English-as-a-foreign-language learners in Flanders" "Elke Peters" "Language, Education and Society, Antwerp Campuses" "Exposure to foreign language (FL) input has proven to be beneficial for language acquisition. Usage-based models of language learning have stressed the key role of frequency and salience in input. However, little is known about the effect of exposure on vocabulary learning by young learners without any formal instruction in English. This project examines the effect of out-of-class exposure to English on the vocabulary knowledge of 12-year old learners in Flanders. Unlike their peers in other European countries, learners in Flanders only start learning English in school at the age of 13-14, as it is their second FL after French. Yet, they have already been exposed to large amounts of English at a young age. The use of new tests and in-depth case studies will allow us to determine the extent to which vocabulary acquisition may occur through exposure to different types of English language input and which learner-related and language-related factors might influence this learning process." "CLIL in primary education" "Hannelore Simpelaere" "Onderwijsinnovatie, Pro Teaching" "Research shows that multilingual education has a positive impact on the learning and development process of students. The age at which children are exposed to a second (or third) language has a strong influence on the neurological maturation process of the child (Van De Craen, 2009; Mondt et al., 2011). The earlier the child learns a second language, the greater the influence on his brain development and the better the language acquisition if there is sufficient language contact. At school you can increase language contact and therefore the effectiveness of language education through CLIL (Peters, 2021). Both national and international research shows that the CLIL method produces much better results compared to 'more traditional' foreign language education. An example of this is a recent Swiss study that showed that children who had followed CLIL in primary education had a significant advantage in language skills (Peters, 2021). Language development teaching, (inter)active working methods and communication play a key role in this. (Allain et al., 2005; Van de Craen, 2009; Van de Craen & Surmont, 2017; Lorenzo et al., 2010). Precisely because of the great advantages that CLIL didactics offer, it has already been incorporated into many European primary schools. In contrast to secondary education in Flanders, there is not yet a policy framework to implement CLIL in primary education, even though in practice we notice that teachers and management are requesting it. The European Union also promotes multilingual education. Recent research shows that most Member States are responding to the call to increasingly focus on early foreign language education. According to the same study, Flanders starts this quite late (Hooft et al., 2019). In the PWO project 'CLIL in primary education' we worked with a group of teachers to implement CLIL in primary education in Flanders. We identified their perceptions of CLIL and their concerns (as well as those of their students and parents) and supported them in designing and testing lessons in CLIL. The survey revealed, among other things, the great need for support for broad evaluation, which is confirmed in the literature (Vanbuel, 2023). In this follow-up project we want to meet the need of teachers for a clear framework and a concrete approach for evaluation within CLIL. Questions such as 'How can we map out both the substantive goals and the language acquisition process? How can we evaluate broadly within CLIL? What difficulties do teachers experience when evaluating in CLIL? What uncertainties or obstacles they have in this regard are central. We therefore provide teachers with concrete tools for evaluating in CLIL. To this end, we are setting up a professional learning community in which we arrive at some good practices based on 'joint learning'. We also support teachers and schools in further implementing CLIL in their schools. Various studies confirm the necessity of a broad CLIL didactic training of teachers for a strong multilingual language policy (Hilligsmann, 2017; Vanbuel, 2023). Finally, we inventory high-quality practical examples from a clear framework for broad evaluation in CLIL. We will spread this through a publication so that other teachers are also inspired to get started with CLIL." "Is 'leuk' sufficiently cool? The social meaning of English loanwords: an acquisitional perspective." "Eline Zenner" "Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics (QLVL), Brussels Campus" "Strong statements are repeatedly made on the threat of Englishization to the vitality of local languages. This project aims to empirically assess the validity of these claims by consulting a so far underrepresented group, namely the speech community of tomorrow: how do children and young adolescents use English alongside source language alternatives ('BFF' vs. 'hartsvriendin'), what (contextual) social meanings do they attach to English loans and what evolution can we see in the dimensions shaping these as children grow older? Three case studies are proposed, applying various methods from different (sub)disciplines such as variational linguistics, psycholinguistics and social psychology. The project as such not only serves the empirical purpose of shedding light on the vitality of Dutch, it also theoretically and methodologically contributes to (i) the socio-pragmatic turn in Anglicism research, and (ii) research on social meaning and variation in language acquisition."