In this article we introduce Positive Psychology (PP), a relatively new subfield of psychology, and outline its development since the year 2000. We describe ways in which PP represents an exciting addition to the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) literature and the ways it is already influencing trends in education generally, thus creating…

This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of…

Users of digital language archives face a number of barriers when trying to discover and reuse the materials preserved in the digital collections created by current language documentation projects. These barriers include sparse descriptive metadata throughout many collections and the prevalence of audio-video materials that are impervious to…

This article discusses ideas that will likely figure prominently in the development of the field of heritage language (HL) studies over the next five decades. Drawing on the ideals that prompted the launch of the Heritage Language Initiative 20 years ago and building on the accomplishments of the field since then, we make several proposals for…

Italy is characterized by a considerable amount of language variation. Only a few spoken vernaculars enjoy institutional support and are officially recognized as minority languages. Among these, Friulian is one of the largest in terms of number of speakers. In the past decade, the assessment of Friulian language vitality has yielded discordant…

This paper discussed the relationship between language, ecology, and culture, and claimed that the study of linguistic communication as pragmatics should not be confined to the traditional context, but should focus on a broader ecological environment. It analyzed the context of practical communication from the perspective of language ecology…

Digital language data provide accessible and enduring records for world languages. While legacy data collections may offer new insights into small or endangered languages, their digitization can raise practical challenges in terms of navigating vast databases of files with limited metadata. This paper demonstrates the practical benefits of…

SLEXIL (Software Linking ELAN XML to Illuminated Language) is a web application designed to allow users to create animated HTML files from time-aligned transcriptions made in ELAN. Unlike earlier projects with similar goals, SLEXIL is a zero-installation web app developed strictly on user-centred principles, designed with the goal of transferring…

The aim of the present academic discussion note is to generate feedback on a recent project that revisits the nature of speech acts as analytic constructs for politeness theory. While speech act has been largely discredited in the field, we believe that they need to be kept in the core of politeness inquiries, in particular if we approach them in…

This paper introduces "Kwaras" and "Namuti," two new tools for building, managing, accessing, and mobilizing ELAN-based language documentation corpora. Kwaras integrates WAV files, ELAN annotations, and document metadata into a web-based corpus, allowing immediate access to annotations and recordings. Namuti builds from Kwaras…

This commentary discusses some theoretical and methodological issues related to research on the spacing effect in second language acquisition research (SLA). There has been a growing interest in SLA in how the temporal distribution of input might impact language development. SLA research in this area has frequently drawn upon the rich field of…

The global COVID-19 pandemic has put into high relief the need for better remote communication and collaboration tools, but also serves as an opportunity to focus on building community capacity and promoting greater community agency in the language documentation process. This paper describes a method for remotely supporting and monitoring a…

As is typical across Turtle Island, the Hul'q'umi'num' (Coast Salish) language revitalization movement is being carried by adult language learners (Haynes 2010; McIvor 2015) but becoming a proficient Hul'q'umi'num' speaker is challenging given the complexity of its sound system. In this paper, we share our experiences using the speech analysis…

Multisite research (MSR) offers the key advantages of greater statistical power and external validity via larger and more diverse participant pools. In second language acquisition (SLA) research, recent developments in meta-analysis have created a robust foundation for MSR. Although logistical and financial obstacles can complicate expansion…

In this paper, the role and nature of language and language development will be discussed. Research and theory in second language acquisition has demonstrated that (i) language is an abstract, implicit and complex system. Input (ii) plays a key role in language development; despite the fact that some knowledge of language is innate (iii). Overall,…