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Constructions in Contact 2: Language change, multilingual practices, and additional language acquisition
Edited by Hans C. Boas and Steffen Höder
[Constructional Approaches to Language 30] 2021
► pp. 309–337

Additional language acquisition as emerging multilingualism

A Construction Grammar approach

| Kiel University
| University of Gothenburg
| Swedish Language Council

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in applying Construction Grammar to additional language (AL) acquisition as well as in constructionist approaches to language contact and multilingualism, in particular Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG; Höder, 2018). This paper combines both perspectives by proposing a usage-based constructionist model of AL acquisition as emerging multilingualism. In line with earlier work on DCxG, we assume that multilingual speakers store and process all of their languages in terms of constructions that are organized into one common constructicon. From that perspective, AL learning amounts to an extension and reorganization of the constructicon, resulting not only in the gradual entrenchment of new constructions that represent (a learner variety of) the AL, but also in modifications of previously acquired constructions and the links between them. The model is illustrated by examples from different kinds of AL acquisition scenarios and also discussed in relation to current key concepts within non-constructionist research in the field of AL acquisition.

Keywords: Diasystematic Construction Grammar, additional language acquisition, multilingualism, entrenchment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Why a constructional approach?
  • 2.Building on previous research
    • 2.1A constructionist approach to multilingualism: Diasystematic Construction Grammar
    • 2.2Additional language acquisition and Construction Grammar
    • 2.3From interlanguage to the multilingual turn: Insights from non-constructionist research
  • 3.Modelling AL acquisition in Diasystematic Construction Grammar: A proposal
    • 3.1Gradual entrenchment of constructions
    • 3.2The emerging multilingual constructicon
    • 3.3Reorganizational processes
  • 4.Summary and outlook
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.30.10hod
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