The goal of this brief article is to highlight a specific methodological consideration pertaining to the examination of linguistic transfer in sequential language acquisition: When and how can transfer be meaningfully disentangled from issues pertaining to developmental trajectories of the target language? While this methodological issue is…

Recent years have witnessed major development in plurilingual pedagogies which support the use of learners' repertoire of languages in language learning contexts (Payant & Galante, 2022; Piccardo, 2013). However, little research has been undertaken to examine adult plurilingual learners' perceptions towards the use of their languages during…

Traditionally, transfer is described as interference and consequently as an unintentional mechanism. More recently, however, the perception of control in transfer has changed and it is now commonly accepted that transfer can occur both automatically and strategically. Studies have previously employed think-aloud protocols during writing tasks to…

This study explores the source of transfer in third language (L3) English by two distinct groups of Catalan-Spanish bilinguals, simultaneous bilinguals and late bilinguals. Our study addresses two research questions: (1) Does transfer come from the first language (L1), the second language (L2), or both? and (2) Does age of acquisition of the L2…

Since the year 2000 and the massive arrival of immigrants to the Spanish region of Catalonia, the Catalan language has vastly augmented its number of students. In the meantime, the Catalan government continues to apply educational and language policies from the EU related to the new public management and knowledge economy. Neoliberal technologies…

In this article, we examine the experiences of 18 Galician language learners who participated in what Garland [(2008). "The minority language and the cosmopolitan speaker: Ideologies of Irish language learners" (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of California, Santa Barbara] refers to as a "language-learning holiday" in…

This study examines how Chinese ESL learners recognize English words while responding to a multiple-choice reading test as compared to Romance-language-speaking ESL learners. Four adult Chinese ESL learners and three adult Romance-language-speaking ESL learners participated in a think-aloud study with the Michigan English Language Assessment…

Adult students of Catalan are worthy of study because they reveal complexities underlying taken-for-granted assumptions about Catalan speakers and Castilian speakers. Far from fitting into neat bundles aligning language of origin, social class, and national orientation, the students in this study exemplify the breakdown of boundaries traditionally…

Language learners' increased mobility and the ubiquity of virtual intercultural encounters has challenged traditional ideas of "cultures". Moreover, representations of cultures as consumable life-choices has meant that learners are no longer locked into standard and static cultural identities. Language learners are better defined as…