Despite much research on how multilingual learners view the linguistic properties of language, how they perceive languages as cultural capital has been far less investigated. Drawing on the theories of social cognition, this study explores how multiple foreign language learners' impressions, as a lens to observe their multilingual awareness, are…

Developing young learners' language awareness is becoming an important educational goal in a rapidly globalised world characterised by linguistic and cultural diversity. Drawing upon previous research in the field, the article highlights the importance of promoting language diversity and nurturing language awareness from an early age. We present a…

Research has pointed to the importance of introducing social aspects of language at the beginning stages of second language (L2) acquisition (Yates, 2017). This proof-of-concept study therefore sought to determine if an explicit pedagogical intervention consisting of various types of sociolinguistic awareness activities could be implemented with…

This article discusses a sociocultural usage-based perspective on the development of sociolinguistic competence. Previous research has focused on learners' acquisition and use of alternative ways of 'saying the same thing' (i.e. native-like variation) in relation to study abroad, contact with native speakers, and pedagogy. Missing from the…

This paper argues for bringing insights from linguistics into the world language classroom. At any level of study, such insights can add intellectual interest to the study of a target language (TL), and can also help students accept and acquire aspects of the TL that are different from their first language or that are inherently challenging. As a…

This article reports on a study of second language (L2) French learners' self-generated use of gesture to think through and resolve a metalinguistic awareness-raising task during small-group work with an expert mediator. Although the use of gesture in L2 communication and pedagogy has recently received increasing attention, little research has…

The main goal of this study was to investigate whether computer-mediated communication (CMC) intercultural exchange offers the conditions necessary for the development of the sociolinguistic competence of second language learners. Non-native speakers (NNS) of French in British Columbia interacted through CMC with native speakers (NS) of French in…

In this paper, the authors explore a methodology for assessing learners' meta-pragmatic awareness of variation in French language use. "Meta-pragmatic awareness" is defined as knowledge of the social meaning of variable second language forms and awareness of the ways in which these forms mark different aspects of social contexts, and is therefore…