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In:Usage-based Perspectives on Language and Language Acquisition: In honour of Heike Behrens
Edited by Karin Madlener-Charpentier, Marjolijn H. Verspoor, Mirjam Weder and Annelies Häcki Buhofer
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 35] 2026
► pp. 224–247

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Chapter 8
Second language learning as local and long-term process in and for social interaction

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 | University of Southern Denmark
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 21 May 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.35.08esk
Abstract
Drawing on conversation analysis and usage-based models of language, this chapter is part of larger on-going projects exploring the social-local worlds of second language (L2) speakers’ daily lives and investigating and mapping out their L2 learning, in situ and over time. The projects describe and analyze L2 learning as a matter of developing resources in and for social interaction — that is, they tackle L2 learning as a matter of locally instantiated, observable behaviors and long-term development of linguistic resources for accomplishing actions in concert with others in social interaction.
Drawing on a longitudinal corpus of L2 Icelandic data from the everyday life of a Canadian English-speaking learner of Icelandic, I will show how two linguistic patterns (subject-verb congruence in 1st person plural present tense and congruence between a modal verb and adjacent main verbs) are exemplar-driven in learning and how productive construction templates emerge in repair sequences.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Usage-based SLA
  • 3.CA-SLA
  • 4.Combining UBL and CA
  • 5.Socially situated emergence of constructions
    • 5.1Tracing við
    • 5.2Tracing geta
  • 6.Conclusions and next steps
  • Acknowledgment
  • References
  • Appendix
References (63)
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Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Aziez, Feisal, Szilvia Bátyi, Simone E. Pfenninger & Marjolijn Verspoor
2026. A longitudinal dynamic usage-based study on peer interaction at an Indonesian pesantren . In Usage-based Perspectives on Language and Language Acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 35], ► pp. 272 ff. DOI logo
Ellis, Nick
2026. What’s in a word?. In Usage-based Perspectives on Language and Language Acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 35], ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Köylü, Zeynep
2026. Verb-argument constructions in advanced L2 English. In Usage-based Perspectives on Language and Language Acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 35], ► pp. 248 ff. DOI logo
Römer-Barron, Ute
2026. Usage-based language acquisition research: Where to next?. In Usage-based Perspectives on Language and Language Acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 35], ► pp. 331 ff. DOI logo

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