Creating a Discourse for Understanding Second Language Acquisition and Anxiety

초록

There has been a lengthy discussion concerning the idea that anxiety interferes with or diminishes the capacity for second language learning. Those included in the discussion are scholars, researchers, instructors, and L2 learners themselves. At issue is the question of how significant the influence of anxiety on inhibiting language learning really is. This article explores second language acquisition and discusses the implications related to ‘anxiety’. While the concept of anxiety is multi-faceted, the main area of interest for researchers and practitioners alike focuses on how anxiety actually influences language learning. Numerous types of anxiety have been identified including state anxiety, trait anxiety, situation-specific anxiety, and achievement anxiety just to name a few. Many have theorized that it is the wide variety of anxiety-types that is partly to blame for the mixed and confusing results of research done on this topic. Scovel (1978) states that anxiety is “not a simple, unitary construct that can be comfortably quantified into ‘high’ or ‘low’ amounts” (p. 137). Typically language anxiety or foreign language anxiety (FLA) is categorized as a situation-specific anxiety (Ellis, 1994), similar in type to other familiar manifestations of anxiety such as stage fright or test anxiety.

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