Second Language Anxiety: Affective or Linguistic Variable?
Richard L. Sparks
Aug 2025 · Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching Book 31 · Channel View Publications
Ebook
312
Pages
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infoThis book will become available on August 12, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
This book traces and summarises theoretical insights and empirical findings on the topic of whether or not anxiety for language learning could be a causal variable for individual differences in language learning. The author brings together three decades of research to show that first language (L1) skills and second language (L2) aptitude are confounding variables in studies of language anxiety and that learners’ levels of anxiety for L2 learning are strongly related to their levels of language achievement. These findings have suggested that language anxiety instruments reflect students’ (accurate) self-perceptions of their language skills and their levels of L1 achievement and L2 aptitude, but don’t reflect their anxiety. The research presented in this book holds the potential to change the ways in which L2 educators and researchers think about language anxiety, how language anxiety is assessed, how investigations into language anxiety are conducted and how L2 teachers respond to anxiety in the classroom.
About the author
Richard L. Sparks is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Graduate Education at Mount St. Joseph University, USA. His research interests include L2 aptitude, L1-L2 relationships, language and learning disabilities, and foreign language anxiety, and he has published extensively in foreign language and learning disability journals. He is the author of Exploring L1-L2 Relationships: The Impact of Individual Differences (Multilingual Matters, 2022).
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