Emotions in SLA: New Insights From Collaborative Learning for an EFL Classroom

Emotions in SLA: New InsightsFrom Collaborative Learningfor an EFL ClassroomYASUHIRO IMAISophia UniversityCentre for the Teaching of Foreign Languages inGeneral Education7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-kuTokyo 102-8554, JapanEmail: [email protected]

What is the role and meaning of emotions in the second language learning process? Torespond to this question, this article focuses on how learners’ emotions manifest in their ver-bal communication over the course of a semester-long joint task. Recognizing interpersonal,functional, and developmental aspects of emotions, I illustrate how a group of English-as-a-foreign-language learners discursively constructed and shared their emotional attitudes towardtheir group work and how such emotional intersubjectivity pushed the group, in their knowl-edge co-construction, to challenge assigned tasks and material. I argue that emotions do notmerely facilitate, filter, or hinder an individual’s inner cognitive functioning; rather, they canin any forms mediate development, especially when learning is embedded in an interpersonaltransaction. I end by considering implications of the study and its limitations.

RESEARCHERS IN THE FIELD OF SECONDlanguage acquisition (SLA) have acknowledgedaffect as a crucial component of individual dif-ferences in learning outcomes (Ellis, 1994). Therange of affective variables covered by this termhas expanded to touch not only emotional andmotivational aspects of human behavior (e.g.,Dornyei, 1998, 2003, 2005; Gardner, 1985, 2001;Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Horwitz, 1986, 2001)but also personality characteristics (e.g., Chapelle& Roberts, 1986; Dewaele & Furnham, 1999;Ehrman, Leaver, & Oxford, 2003). However, SLAresearchers have hardly brought the integral com-ponent of affect–emotions in their own right–tothe foreground of their research foci in a holis-tic manner. In the field of psychology, emotionsand moods are considered to be two essentialconstituents of affect (e.g., Forgas, 2000, 2001).Emotions are “intense, short-lived and usually

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have a definite cause and clear cognitive con-tent (e.g., anger, or fear),” whereas moods are“low-intensity, diffuse and relatively enduring af-fective states without a salient antecedent causeand therefore little cognitive content (e.g., feel-ing good or feeling bad)” (Forgas, 1992, p. 230).Thus, the meaning of affect primarily lies in itsemotional and mood dimensions. In agreementwith this understanding, SLA researchers often re-fer to emotions as the principal element of affect,along with feeling and mood (Arnold & Brown,1999; Brown, 2000). Nevertheless, they have es-sentially “reduce[d] emotions to a laundry list ofdecontextualized and oftentimes poorly definedsociopsychological constructs, such as attitudes,motivation, anxiety, self-esteem, empathy, risk-taking, and tolerance of ambiguity” (Pavlenko,2005, p. 34) and dealt with these as individualfactors.

It should be fully recognized that the con-tribution of previous work has advanced ourknowledge on specific affective factors in SLA.However, I call for more substantial attention tothe wide range of emotions toward the fuller

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understanding of the role and meaning of af-fect in SLA. Furthermore, if a learner’s successdepends on “what goes on inside and betweenthe people in the classroom” (Stevick, 1980, p. 4)rather than on techniques and materials, shed-ding light on emotions between the people–or thesocial aspects of emotions–is clearly needed tocomplement our knowledge base formed by previ-ous SLA research exploring affective factors withina learner.

This article introduces an exploratory studythat examined the social aspects of emotions inthe context of language learning. In doing so,first I highlight mainstream assumptions preva-lent in SLA research that are individualistic, cogni-tive, dichotomous, and product-oriented. Second,I frame the social aspects of emotions by intro-ducing several conceptions from contemporarythinking on emotions in interpersonal contexts.Although recognizing wide disagreement amongtheorists as to the definition of emotions (e.g.,Fehr & Russell, 1984), I take a particular view:Emotions are not just an individual’s private in-ner workings in response to external stimuli butare socially constructed acts of communicationthat can mediate one’s thinking, behavior, andgoals. Third, I provide findings from a study (Imai,2007) informed by these conceptions. Accordingto the sociocultural theory of mind (Vygotsky,1978, 1986; Wertsch, 1985), collaborative relation-ships are consequential to an individual’s learn-ing. Thus, emotions are possibly implicated in theways that collaboration takes place and ultimatelyin one’s cognitive development. With this view,I examine how emotions come into play in theway a group of Japanese university students jointlyorganize tasks and procedures in their collabo-rative work for an English-as-a-foreign-language(EFL) class and co-construct new knowledge. Themain analytical concern here is not to identifycausation between emotions and learning out-comes. Rather, it is to understand whether andhow the participants’ emotions are discursivelymanifested, co-constructed, and shared with eachother while being closely interwoven with theircollective thinking process. Finally, I end by con-sidering implications of the study and acknowl-edging its limitations.

ASSUMPTIONS OF THE MAINSTREAM SLARESEARCH ABOUT AFFECTIVE FACTORS

To highlight mainstream assumptions in SLAresearch on affective factors, I limit the scope byadopting Scovel’s (1978) definition of affectivefactors: “emotional reactions and motivations of

the learner; they signal the arousal of the limbicsystem and its direct intervention in the task oflearning (p. 131). Specifically, I briefly review rel-evant work in three major affective domains: Lan-guage anxiety, second language (L2) motivation,and neurobiological factors.

SLA researchers have viewed language anxietyas the most influential emotional factor in lan-guage learning (Oxford, 1999), and many authorshave extensively documented the phenomenon(e.g., Clement, Gardner, & Smythe, 1977, 1980;Gardner, 1985; Horwitz, 1986, 2001). Languageanxiety has been considered essentially situation-specific (i.e., apprehension and fear about com-munication, negative social evaluation, or poortest or academic performance) and a measurableindividual variable that “interfere[s] with the ac-quisition, retention, and production of the newlanguage” (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991, p. 86).Accordingly, researchers have principally adoptedquantitative approaches to seek causality betweennumerous related variables and language profi-ciency and/or achievement.1 To this end, variousmeasurement instruments have been developed,such as the French Class Anxiety Scale (Gardner &Smythe, 1975) and Foreign Language ClassroomAnxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986),most of which rely on scaled self-report question-naires. Not all anxiety is negative, however. Someresearchers suggest the existence of helpful or fa-cilitating anxiety (e.g., Ehrman & Oxford, 1995;Young, 1992), whereas others propose a more op-erational concept, tension, to denote multiple di-mensions of anxiety that could be either detri-mental or conducive to language learning (Guy &Radnovsky, 2001).

Another affective domain of SLA that has cap-tured considerable scholarly attention is L2 mo-tivation. L2 motivation research has traditionallycentered on combinations of two motivation di-chotomies: Integrative/instrumental and intrin-sic/extrinsic (e.g., Dornyei, 1998; Dornyei & Otto,1998; Gardner, 2001; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1991,1993). In this milieu, the integrative and intrin-sic constructs are considered the most powerfulpredictors of successful language learning. Morerecently, researchers have developed alternativeconceptualizations of L2 motivation, such as self-determination theory (e.g., Noels, 2001; Noels,Clement, & Pelletier, 2001), attribution theories(e.g., Williams, Burden, & Al-Baharna, 2001),and willingness to communicate (e.g., Clement,Baker, & MacIntyre, 2003; MacIntyre, Baker, &Donovan, 2002). Analogous to the language anx-iety research tradition, major L2 motivation re-search has conventionally treated motivation as a

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measurable variable and predominantly adoptedquantitative approaches to see how the sustenanceof motivation, or lack thereof, influences lan-guage learning and outcomes (Ushioda, 2003).Yet, some researchers also call for conductingqualitative and ethnographic studies that com-plement the quantitative research paradigm (e.g.,McGroarty, 2001; Ushioda, 2003).

Finally, based on neurobiological and psy-chophysiological studies (e.g., Damasio, 1994;LeDoux, 1986) and the appraisal theory of emo-tion (e.g., Ellsworth, 1991; Lazarus, 1982, 1984),Schumann (1998, 2001) claimed that stimulus ap-praisal (one’s evaluation of potential harms orbenefits of external stimuli in any given situation)forms the basis of motivation, which, in turn, de-termines the degree of success in language learn-ing. Positive appraisals facilitate success, whereasnegative alternatives hinder it. The generationof stimulus appraisal is subject to an individual’sneurocerebral mechanism, which is also respon-sible for motor and somatosensory behavior. Assuch, individual differences in motivation andachievement are ascribed to differences in neu-rocerebral processing and neurobiological func-tioning across learners. Inspecting questionnaireitems and texts in memoirs, Schumann (1998)contended that it is essentially stimulus appraisalsthat constitute the rubric of major L2 motivationresearch and autobiographical and diary studiesin SLA. His contemplation has recently culmi-nated in the conception of learning as a formof foraging for knowledge, skills, and information(Schumann, 2001).

Through this brief overview of the literatureemerge several assumptions intrinsic to the main-stream SLA research on the affective domains.First, affective factors are viewed as essentiallyintrapsychic phenomena; they take place withinan individual in response to external stimuli.Although there has been a call for incorporat-ing situational or social factors, such as tasks,learning environments, and social groups (e.g.,Julkunen, 2001; McGroarty, 2001), they are oftentreated as another external measurable variablethat supposedly constitutes or influences an in-dividual’s affective state associated with languagelearning and outcomes. Second, although mu-tual interplay between cognition and affect hasbeen acknowledged (Arnold, 1999), cognition isprioritized. This priority is particularly impliedin Schumann’s (1998) contention that cognitiveappraisals are the sole antecedent of emotion,motivation, and, accordingly, subsequent actions.Third, mainstream SLA researchers examine agiven affective phenomenon using dichotomies;

they determine whether its characteristics arepositive or negative, beneficial or harmful, orexistent or nonexistent. This dualistic treatmentultimately feeds affectively sensitive pedagogicalinterventions that aim for increasing positive af-fective variables while decreasing negative ones(e.g., Moskowitz, 1999; Richard-Amato, 1988). Fi-nally, underlying all these assumptions is a viewthat conceives learning as mastering knowledgeand skills or seeking and processing information.In sum, the mainstream SLA research on themajor affective domains can be characterizedas individualistic, cognitive, dichotomous, andproduct-oriented in its assumptions and foci.

Although the mainstream research paradigmdescribed has certainly advanced the field of SLA,there are several limitations for a fuller under-standing of the complexity of affect—emotionsin particular—in the learning process. First, themainstream SLA investigations have prioritizeda particular type of negative emotion (languageanxiety), whereas other emotions that one mayexperience over the course of language learningand use, such as enjoyment, relief, anger, happi-ness, hope, gratitude, jealousy, love, and so on,have been sidelined. Second, the individualisticview of affect and language learning dismisses theinterpersonal and communicative dimension ofone’s emotionality. Some emotion researchers ar-gue that whereas emotions are aroused in peo-ple’s adaptation and survival, they are most likely,if not exclusively, aroused in interpersonal rela-tionships (Berscheid, 1987; Ellis & Harper, 1977;Simon, 1967) and in sharing emotion-laden ex-periences with others (Rime, Corsini, & Her-bette, 2002). Third, a large majority of researchersrely on reflective appraisal methods to measurelearners’ affective states, such as retrospectiveself-report questionnaires or reflection in inter-views, or memoirs, instead of observing learners’real-time emotional experiences in naturalisticsettings. Accordingly, most research findings arenot so much the respondent’s real-time emo-tional experience of the moment but rather an es-sentially abstracted representation of emotionallycolored past memories. Fourth, stimulus appraisalresearchers argue the cognitive appraisal to be thesole antecedent of emotion and motivation. How-ever, an array of psychological research providesempirical evidence that moods can affect one’sjudgment and interpretation of a situation. Thisreverse causal relationship is known as the mood-congruent effect (Johnson & Tversky, 1983) or affect-infusion (Forgas, 1995). Particularly, Johnson andTversky showed that not only is a causal relation-ship between appraisals and moods or emotions

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far from straightforward, but, when mediated bymoods or emotions, the appraisal of a given ob-ject or situation may not always have a one-to-onemapping. As such, the interplay of cognition andaffect is more complex and nonlinear than main-stream SLA research has assumed.

In sum, although mainstream affect studiesin SLA have contributed to increasing knowl-edge in the field, they illuminate only a smallcorner of the complexity of affect in languagelearning. To offer a complementary understand-ing, the field needs holistic, interpersonal–communicative, and nonlinear perspectives tostudy emotions in naturalistic settings of languagelearning.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Definitions of emotion vary greatly in bothcommonsense and scholarly understandings. Yet,all acknowledge either one or more of fourcharacteristics of emotion—namely, situationalappraisals, action tendencies, bodily sensations,and expressive or display behaviors (Parkinson,1995). Conventionally, these characteristics areseen as one’s private, inner experiences. Thus,I introduce complementary understandings ofemotion—ones that incorporate more interper-sonal and communicative dimensions.

Emotions in Social Interaction

Oatley (1992, 2000) argued that the essentialfunction of emotion is to serve specific socialgoals—protection, affiliation, and dominance—that are integral to the establishment of societyand, more fundamentally, to human cooperation.In achieving these social goals, correspondingemotions emerge: Attachment on the basis offear or anxiety that serves the goal of protection,affection or warmth based on happiness that isdirected to the goal of affiliation, and assertionor aggression accompanying anger that feed thegoal of dominance. The emergence of these emo-tions depends on the extent to which these so-cial goals are achieved in the course of humanactivities. In serving the three social goals, overtime these emotions become enduring emotionalstates called sentiments. A “sentiment commits theperson to a course of action and a certain set of be-liefs” (Oatley, 2000, p. 86), which are implicatedin three modes of distributed cognition in hu-man activity: Social distribution (i.e., cooperatingwith each other to accomplish what one cannotdo individually); externalization (i.e., translatingabstract thoughts or difficult task ideas within an

individual’s mind into a manageable form, withthe help or mediation of technology or culturalartifacts); and temporal distribution (i.e., transmit-ting human discoveries and procedures as culturalforms from the expert to the novice, or from onegeneration to the next) (Hutchins, 1995, 1998).

In Oatley’s (2000) explanatory model, emo-tions are manifested, shaped, and constructedas people pursue the three fundamental socialgoals in conjunction with the three modes of dis-tributed cognition that encompass human activ-ity. These emotions in turn structure relationshipsbetween people as they move within the interac-tional space that is afforded by the configurationof the social goals and the different modes of dis-tributed cognition.

Thus, altogether, emotions are not merebyproducts of human social interaction; they un-derpin it, ultimately configuring how human ac-tivity is organized, operated, and accomplished.As such, emotions should be given a more centralposition in the study of human activity. In doingso, it is important to understand the synthesis ofan individual’s cognition, emotion, and behaviorwithin social interaction and with their environ-ments, in addition to viewing these phenomenaas discrete components of an individual’s innerproperties.

Emotional Intersubjectivity

Emotional intersubjectivity is another concept inwhich emotions are seen as a social phenomenon.According to Denzin (1984), emotional intersub-jectivity is “an interactional appropriation of an-other’s emotionality such that one feels one’s wayinto the feelings and intentional feeling statesof the other” (p. 130). It is understood as theemotional arena of social interaction wherebypeople interpret each other’s expressions of emo-tions from their own and/or others’ points ofview. Note, however, that emotional intersubjec-tivity does not necessarily refer to a static, purelyvicarious exchange of a given emotion or feel-ing between individuals. Rather, it denotes vari-ous levels of joint emotional attention to specificobjects or events, which evolve as the interactionunfolds. Denzin (1984) categorized six modes ofemotional intersubjectivity by their contents: (a)Feelings in common (sharing the emotional valueand meaning of a feeling or experience), (b)fellow feeling (perceiving another’s feelings butnot sharing the emotional value and meaning),(c) emotional infection (involuntarily spreadingone’s emotional state to others), (d) emotionalidentification (with the feelings of another), (e)


emotional embracement (primary and intimateemotional and relational bonding), and (f) spu-rious emotionality (egocentric or erroneous pro-jection of one’s own feelings onto another). Eachmode of emotional intersubjectivity is time- andcontext-specific; no mode is isolated from an-other. In fact, people may experience all of thesemodes as a sequence with no specific order withinthe same interaction.

The notion of intersubjectivity has been dis-cussed predominantly in terms of its cognitiveaspect and considered particularly importantin relation to knowledge construction throughsymbolic interactions in dyads or collectives(Matusov, 1996; Rommetveit, 1985). Accordingto the sociocultural theory of mind (Vygotsky,1978, 1986; Wertsch, 1985), social interaction isthe foundation of an individual’s learning anddevelopment because it potentially enables inter-subjectivity. Through intersubjectivity, new ways ofseeing and understanding are possible, based ona union of all participants’ perspectives (Donato,1988).

This notion that learning takes place throughindividuals’ intersubjective encounters is closelylinked to the concept of the zone of proximaldevelopment (ZPD; Vygotsky, 1978). The ZPD isexplained as the distance between the learner’spotential level of development when assistancefrom more capable others is available and hisor her actual level of development without suchassistance. Within the ZPD, the learner’s dia-logical interaction (mediated by the use of cul-tural tools and signs, including language) withthe more capable person during joint activi-ties serves as scaffolding (Donato, 1994; Gibbons,2002; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). It facilitatesthe less capable person’s knowledge internaliza-tion while enabling the more capable person toreach a higher level and different quality of un-derstanding.2 Thus, being semiotically mediated,intersubjectivity, which ultimately enables mutualunderstanding or shared definition of the situ-ation, is key to the emergence of the ZPD andknowledge co-construction.

It is important to note that knowledgeco-construction through intersubjectivity—whichtakes place within the ZPD—is not just purelyan intellectual and cognitive transaction but verylikely emotional, as well. In fact, Vygotsky (1986)problematized the separation of cognition and af-fect as a major weakness of traditional psychol-ogy.3 The dialectic relationship between cognitionand affect has been empirically documented bymany current streams of psychological research(e.g., Damasio, 1994; Forgas, 2001). In relationto the ZPD, Mahn and John-Steiner (2002) il-

lustrated the emergence of ZPD between thestudents and the teacher in English-as-a-second-language (ESL) writing classes as an affectively col-ored process, which ultimately generated a senseof confidence among the students. From this per-spective, learning can be conceived of not onlyas the acquisition of knowledge or skill masterybut also as a process of both cognitively and af-fectively participating in such an intersubjectivelyestablished social encounter, one that affords co-construction of knowledge and, ultimately, its in-ternalization by an individual (see also Sfard,1998).

Emotions and Language

Berscheid (1987) argued that verbal commu-nication with immediate others is probably theprincipal source of one’s emotional experiences.If one takes this view, the relationship betweenemotions and language comes to the fore whenconsidering emotions in one’s real-life encoun-ters with others.4 In the following discussion onemotions and language, I focus particularly on thenotion of linguistic emotivity (Maynard, 2002) be-cause the concept offers important insights intothe ontogenesis of emotion and knowledge con-struction implicated in social fields intersubjec-tively achieved through verbal mediation.

Anchored in the Aristotelian notion of rhetoric(i.e., logos, pathos, and ethos) and a long tradi-tion in European linguistics, such as the PragueLinguistic Circle, Maynard (2002) argued thatthe function of language is not limited to refer-encing and conveying facts and propositions (alogos-centered view), but it also expresses and ex-poses human emotions (a pathos-centered view).In the latter view, emotions are constructed andmanifested in the space of social interactionssemiotically—not only through emotion words,metaphors, and metonymies but also through lin-guistic signs and strategies that are normally con-sidered propositional and even nonemotional. Alllinguistic systems are potentially emotional acrossvaried levels such as the lexicon, syntax, text, anddiscourse (see also Ochs & Schieffelin, 1989).These linguistic signs and strategies are called emo-tives, and they index the speaker’s identity as a“feeling self” socioculturally and interactionallysituated in the locus of communication. Here,the concept of topica (or place) becomes signif-icant because it refers to the very place whereemotive meanings are foregrounded, negotiated,and intersubjectively determined by participants.The potential meaning of language allows theseactions on the basis of cues and informationafforded by the context. In the conception of

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linguistic emotivity, language is viewed not justas representation but as the very experienceof emotion that emerges in the socially andculturally established, intersubjective worlds be-tween people. Thus, from a linguistic viewpoint,it plausibly endorses the notion of emotionalintersubjectivity.

Drawing on the described concepts, I argue thatemotions do not solely come from an individual’sinner psyche but are socially constructed throughpeople’s intersubjective encounters as well, as theyengage in a certain activity to pursue a certaingoal. Here, although language semiotically medi-ates such an activity, guiding one’s thinking andknowledge construction, it can also be consideredthe very experience of creating emotions in cer-tain circumstances. Therefore, studying the emo-tional speech of participants in a real-life, inter-subjective encounter in the context of L2 learningmay offer a new insight into the role and meaningof affect in SLA.

THE INTERPLAY OF EMOTION ANDCOGNITION IN COLLABORATIVELEARNING

I conducted two case studies (Imai, 2007) track-ing two different groups of Japanese universityEFL students who engaged in a series of out-of-class meetings to prepare for an oral grouppresentation in English. The studies took placeover a semester (3 months) in a setting of collabo-rative learning (e.g., Crandall, 1999; Johnson &Johnson, 1994; McGroarty, 1989; Nunan, 1992;Olsen & Kagan, 1992).5 Collaborative learn-ing involves social interaction where learnerswork together to achieve task goals. Emotionsassociated with such distributed cognition areexpected to emerge in the goal achievementprocess. In these studies, I used multiple datacollection procedures: Videotaping the students’conversations during their out-of-class groupwork, emotion logs (the participants describedany sort of emotional experiences during thegroup work), emotional temperature question-naires (the participants recorded types and inten-sity of their emotionality at the beginning andend of each meeting session), and stimulatedrecall interviews (I played the videotapes andchecked with the participants to see if my iden-tification and interpretation of the participants’emotionally charged moments were plausible).Triangulating these data, I examined how thesestudents discursively constructed and shared theiremotionality and how such emotionality related to

their collective thinking process and task organi-zation.

The data presented here are taken from thefifth meeting of one case study group consist-ing of three female students—Tomoyo, Naomi,and Nana (all pseudonyms)—who had high En-glish proficiency and extensive international ex-periences. The students self-formed their groupand held seven meetings in total (comprising307.3 min, M = 43.9 min) on an almost weeklybasis to discuss their reading assignments and pre-pare for their group presentation.6 In their previ-ous meetings, the members expressed how boringtheir EFL class was while intensifying their angerand frustration with their native English-speakingteacher as they verbally co-constructed their neg-ative perception of him. With this emotionalbackground, at their fifth meeting the membersdiscussed how to incorporate the teacher’s feed-back into their presentation. Originally, the groupplanned to perform a skit based on Nana’s Englishlearning experience in an American high school,emphasizing the importance of explicit grammarand vocabulary instruction. However, in his feed-back, the teacher requested that the group revisetheir proposal by drawing on ideas from an arti-cle that he thought would be useful to refine theirargument. However, the members perceived theassigned article rather irrelevant to the point theywanted to make, expressing confusion as well ascomplaining (see Excerpt 1; transcription conven-tions can be found in the Appendix).

Despite the group’s perceived difficulty in in-corporating the assigned article into their pre-sentation, Tomoyo is concerned with groundingtheir argument in literature in (1). In (2) and (7),Naomi maintains that they can somehow embel-lish the accounts of Nana’s learning experience,if not pure fabrication, without rigorously follow-ing the teacher’s feedback. Naomi justifies herposition that the teacher has given little atten-tion to the group’s proposal. Naomi emotionallystrengthens her rationale with a disrespectful useof a vocative ano hito ‘that man’ in (2) to referto the teacher, who should normally be addressedsensei, and a derisive remark, sore gurai kizuke yo‘He should have noticed something so obvious’in (7). Nana implicitly shows her doubt of theteacher’s knowledge in (6) while conforming toNaomi’s complaint in (8).

Under predominantly Tomoyo’s and Naomi’sdirection, the group eventually reevaluates themeaning of Nana’s English learning experiencefrom their own theoretical viewpoint. In (11) inExcerpt 2, Naomi articulates her train of thoughtthat Nana’s socialization in the United States


EXCERPT 1

(1) Tomoyo: Dou shiyou. Nanka dokka ni korejyanai yatsu ni, nanka, nanyattakkena. Sono, eigo no reberu notakai ko wa bokyaburari: wonarattari suru no ga taisetsu datoka kaite atta no atta youna ki gasuru.

(1) Tomoyo: I wonder what we should do.Somewhere, not in this article, Imean, what was it? In myrecollection there was mentionthat it is important for a childwith a high level of Englishproficiency to learn vocabulary.

(2) Naomi: Demo sa, kore sa, sensei sa, zenbu sa:,chanto mitenai jyan. Dakarari:dingu to zenbu terashi awasetemiru tte koto, ano hito tabunarienai to omou no yo. Kore dokokara totta kara tte, ri:dingu wozenbu yominaoshite koko kara, kokokara datta mitaina tte tabun nai toomou.

(2) Naomi: But the teacher didn’t read all ofthis, [our proposal] very well,right? So I think perhaps thatman is unlikely to check [thecontent of the skit] against thereading material. I think heprobably will not read thematerial all the way throughagain and locate the source ofour idea.

(3) Tomoyo: Demo haaku wa shiteru to omou yo,kono naiyou wa.

(3) Tomoyo: But I suppose he knows the contentof this [article].

(4) Naomi: Ma:, haaku wa shiteru to omoukara//. . .

(4) Naomi: Well, I think he does, so . . .

(5) Tomoyo: //Kore senmon nan yaro? (5) Tomoyo: This is his specialization, isn’t it?(6) Nana: Ichiou ((laugh)) (6) Nana: Kind of? ((laugh))(7) Naomi: Kokkara chotto toridashite yatte, ato

wa ma: . . . Datte uchira ga sa jibuntachi de tsukutta tte iu nokizukanakatta wake jyan. Are jibuntachi de tsukutta no. Jya kore wadokkara totte kita no mitaina kotoitte ta jyan. Futsuu jibun tachi detsukutta kedo sore gurai kizuke yomitaina kanji datta kara.

(7) Naomi: We could take some idea from this,and well, the rest is . . .. But hedidn’t notice that we had madeup, as you know, that story [ofthe skit] we made up. He askedsomething like where we hadtaken that from, right? I felt likehe should have noticedsomething so obvious.

(8) Nana: Bucchake ne. (8) Nana: Frankly speaking, yes.

provided her with numerous opportunities to de-velop her English communicative competenceinformally, as opposed to learning the languageonly in a formal setting that is typical for ordi-nary Japanese English learners. Although they ac-knowledge that oral communication is the keyto learning a language, as suggested in an arrayof SLA research, the members, however, do notblindly advocate this commonly accepted idea.They also credit formal grammar and vocabularyinstruction for Nana’s total English proficiency in(16), (17), and (31). From (37) to (41) they hy-pothesize that the lack of formal instruction couldhave led to fossilization of Nana’s errors. At thispoint, the members are able to successfully in-corporate the knowledge about fossilization thatthey have located in their assigned reading, de-spite their somewhat emotional reaction to theassigned material at the beginning of the meeting.

In the process of constructing collective knowl-edge and perspective as the members’ verbal inter-action unfolds, Naomi’s personal, vague thought

about the outline of the group’s argument is sub-stantiated by Tomoyo, who occasionally attemptsto relate the members’ emerging thoughts to thecontent of the assigned material in (27) and (41).Additionally, the exchange of positive backchan-neling (the use of un, sou, hun, and da ne) amongthe members suggests mutual approval on theircomments—in (10), (12), (17), (18), (20), (21),(23), (24), (25), (28), (30), (32), (33), (34), (38),and (40)—solidifying the group’s joint thinking.Such mutual approval is also indicated nonver-bally by Nana’s and Naomi’s gestures (holding athumb up and making a V sign) in (19), (35), and(36).

The formation of collective thinking is also im-plicated in the way the members jointly search forthe thread of an idea as they attempt to verbal-ize it. In (37), Tomoyo tries to explain the valueof the grammar and vocabulary lessons Nana hadreceived by assuming the consequence withoutsuch an opportunity, but her idea is not fullyconsolidated yet. Naomi gets Tomoyo’s point and

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EXCERPT 2

(9) Naomi: Hanbun gurai wa ma: tsukutte motabun daijoubu da to omou-n dayone. Dakedo, datte sa, Nana wa sa,amerika ni zutto sundeta wakejyan.//

(9) Naomi: I think perhaps there shouldn’t beany problem that about half ofthe skit would be fiction. But,Nana lived in the States for quitea long time, right?

(10) Nana: //Un. (10) Nana: Yeah(11) Naomi: De, futsuu no hito no sekando range:ji

ra:ningu to wa chigau wake jyan.Dakara sugoi omou no wakomyunike:shon ga daiji datte kotowa hoka no toko ni mo takusankaiteta jyan. Komyunike:shon watabun kono sekando range:jiakuwizishon no naka de tabunichiban daiji mitaina koto ninatte-n jyan. Demo komyunike:shonwa Nana wa hoka de tassei surubamen ga takusan atta wake desho.Soko wo bakkuguraundo tte iukabe:su to shite oite//

(11) Naomi: And that’s different from secondlanguage learning of ordinarypeople. So what I really feel isthat many argue communicationis important elsewhere andpeople think communication isperhaps most important in SLA.But Nana had a lot of otheropportunities to have [English]communication [outside theclassroom]. Taking advantage ofthose opportunities as abackground, or more truthfully,based on that . . .

(12) Tomoyo: //[Un. (12) Tomoyo: Yeah.(13) Nana: [Soide . . . (13) Nana: And. . .

(14) Naomi: Tomodachi to komyunike:shon surutoka, tsune ni komyunike:shon toshite no eigo no shu:toku tte iu nowa ikura demo chansu ga

[atta wake dakara

(14) Naomi: Like speaking with friends, when itcomes to acquiring English forcommunicative purposes, shehad a lot of chances.

(15) Tomoyo: [Chansu ga ne. (15) Tomoyo: Chances, right.(16) Naomi: Sore wo fumaeta ue de, bokya

[burari: ga sugoku daiji datte.(16) Naomi: Based on that, [we could argue

that] learning vocabulary is veryimportant.

(17) Tomoyo: [Sono naka de, sou, sou, sou, gurama:toka mo soudayo ne. Un.

(17) Tomoyo: In that process, that’s right, that’sright. It’s the same with thingslike grammar, yeah.

(18) Naomi: Un, to omou-n dakedo. (18) Naomi: Yeah, I think so.(19) Nana: ((Holding a thumb up)) Sore wo

intorodakushon toka de ieba,intorodakushon to konkuru:jonde//

(19) Nana: ((Holding a thumb up)) We couldmention that in our introduction. . . introduction and conclusion.

(20) Tomoyo: //Un. (20) Tomoyo: Yeah.(21) Naomi: Un, to omotta-n dakedo, uchi wa (21) Naomi: Yeah, that’s what I thought(22) Nana: [Tsukaeru, ichiou. (22) Nana: That would work, sort of.(23) Tomoyo: Un, [koremo tsukaeru to wa omou.// (23) Tomoyo: Yeah, I think that would work, too.(24) Naomi: Sou. Dakara, kore ni sou iu fuu ni

kaite atta wake, tatoeba kouiuressun mo daiji dakedo,komyunike:shon ga yappari daiji damitaina koto ga kakarete mashitakedo, Nana ni totte, Nana nikomyunike:shon toshite noingurisshu ra:ningu tte iu no wa,hoka no bamen de takusan attanode, de, kanojo no ingurisshu noreberu wa sugoku hai datta wakedakara, sono komyunike:shon tokawo fumaeta ue de, eigo no reberu gahai datta kanojo ni hitsuyou dattakurasu wa kore datta tte.//

(24) Naomi: Right. So this article said that, it isimportant to do a lesson like this,I mean, the author arguedsomething, like, communicationis most important after all. But asfar as Nana is concerned, she hadmany chances to learn English[as a medium of]communication outside school,and her level of English waspretty high. While realizing theimportance of communication,we could argue that this was theclass Nana needed, whose level ofEnglish was already high.


(25) Tomoyo: //Un, sou, sou. (25) Tomoyo: Yeah, that’s right.(26) Nana: [Ketteiteki dayo ne. (26) Nana: That’s crucial, isn’t it?(27) Tomoyo: [Koko ni mo nanika kaite atta kedo,

nandakkena, ano, komyunike:shonno kurasu demo, sono, gurama:toka, ano, bokya no ressun wo isshoni kumiawasete yatta hou ga, sono,komyunike:shon ryoku tte iu no moagaru tte iu fuu ni kaite atta-nyo.//

(27) Tomoyo: This also mentions something. Iwonder what it was. Well, even ina communication-oriented class,I mean, it said that thecombination of grammar andvocabulary lessons develops alearner’s communicativecompetence.

(28) Naomi: //Hun, hun, hun, hun. (28) Naomi: Okay.(29) Tomoyo: Dakara komyunike:shon dake de iitte

wake jyanai kara.//(29) Tomoyo: So communication doesn’t take

care of everything, and . . .

(30) Nana: //Un, un, [sore mo hairu ne. (30) Nana: Yeah, yeah, that should count.(31) Tomoyo: [Gurama: toka

bokyaburari: tte iu no wa sugoku,komyunike:shon no ue demo sugokudaijina koto tte iu men wo kyouchousuru beki dayo ne.

(31) Tomoyo: I guess we should emphasize thepoint that things like grammarand vocabulary are very crucial incommunication.

(32) Nana: Da ne.// (32) Nana: That’s right.(33) Naomi: //Sou, sou. Dakara heikou shite Nana

wa dekita tte koto jyan.//(33) Naomi: That’s right. So Nana had

opportunities for both studyinggrammar and vocabulary andspeaking English with friends,right?

(34) Nana: //Da ne. (34) Nana: That’s right.(35) Naomi: Komyunike:shon wo tomodachi to

shitsutsu, gurama: tokabokyaburari: wo XXX heikou shitebenkyou dekita kara, eigoryoku gaappu shita tte koto jyan. ((Lookingat Nana and making a V sign)).

(35) Naomi: Her English skills were developedbecause she had an opportunityto formally study grammar andvocabulary, while practicing theskills in communication with herfriends. ((Looking at Nana andmaking a V sign)).

(36) Nana: ((Holding a thumb up)) Suge:!// (36) Nana: ((Holding a thumb up)) Cool!(37) Tomoyo: //Sono bokyaburari: toka, no kurasu

ga nakattara, ma: iu tara//(37) Tomoyo: If she hadn’t had that class to learn

things like vocabulary, I shouldsay.

(38) Naomi: //Sou, sou, nante iu no. (38) Naomi: That’s right, that’s right. How do Iput it?

(39) Tomoyo: Nante iu no, dakara machigai wozutto onaji machigai shitete,kurikaeshite//

(39) Tomoyo: How should I put it? She mighthave made the same mistakerepeatedly all the time . . .

(40) Naomi: //Sou, sou. [Ro: reberu na machigaiwo shitete kaiwa ga dekinakatta.

(40) Naomi: That’s right. She wouldn’t havebeen able to manage aconversation because of basicerrors.

(41) Tomoyo: [Sore ga nan datta kke,fossilization, fossilization of errorska, ni tsunagaru to iu fuu ninatte-n no kana.//

(41) Tomoyo: And I guess that might lead to,what was it called? Fossilization,fossilization of errors.

(42) Naomi: //Kakanakya, sore. (42) Naomi: I have to write that down.

joins in the attempt to articulate the emergentthought in (38). Tomoyo formulates a plausibleconclusion in (39), to which Naomi conforminglyresponds by paraphrasing in (40). Finally, Tomoyoconnects the jointly shaped idea to the concept offossilization introduced in the group’s assignedreading in (41).

In short, throughout Excerpt 2, one member’spersonal, vague idea, verbally presented almost inthe form of monologue at the outset, is occasion-ally guided and complemented by other membersin the course of collaborative dialogue and, by theend, has taken shape as a collectively formulatedthought.

Yasuhiro Imai 287

EXCERPT 3

(43) Tomoyo: Sore de itte miyou. Aa:, darui konokurasu. A::: tte kanji.//

(43) Tomoyo: Let’s go ahead with that idea. Gee,this class is so draggy. I have afeeling like “Oh, my.”

(44) Naomi: //Hontou ni shippai shita. Hontou nishippai shita.

(44) Naomi: I really made a mistake [inchoosing the class]. I really madea mistake.

(45) Nana: [Ne. (45) Nana: Indeed.(46) Tomoyo: [Ne. (46) Tomoyo: Indeed.

Finally, having accomplished what they had in-tended for the meeting, signaled by Tomoyo’s ut-terance sorede itte miyou ‘Let’s go ahead with thatidea’ in (43) in Excerpt 3, the members releasetheir pent-up frustration about the class. Naomi’srepetition of the same utterance hontou ni ship-pai shita ‘I really made a mistake’ in (44) revealsher intense regret that she took the class. Theinteractional particle ne in (45) and (46), whichconveys the sense of empathy and intimacy (May-nard, 2005), signals that the members are on thesame emotional plane, as well—namely, establish-ing emotional intersubjectivity.

Noticeably, despite its negativity, the members’emotionality toward the joint task and the classpushed the group to organize task proceduresand design their presentation to critically chal-lenge the content of the assigned reading. Thispoint is implied in the members’ accounts duringtheir exit interviews. When asked whether certainemotions, such as boredom, affected the group’sorientation toward the group work as well as de-signing the presentation, Tomoyo responded:

Well, I guess perhaps that was the case with us. Some-thing like . . . how do I put it? I don’t think that we werevery conscious of other groups and tried to make ourpresentation lively. But no matter what, we were tiredof sitting in that class. Like, if you don’t enjoy the class,you can learn little, right? But rather than resigningourselves to the low motivation for learning, like, Imean, you get bored and give it up by saying ‘Ahhh,I can’t do it.’ Instead, perhaps, we also sought a pos-sibility to improve the situation on our own, I think.So that speaks to our attitude that we wanted to makeour meetings something enjoyable, while staying fo-cused on what we ought to do. And based on that,I guess we were somehow convinced that we shouldimprove our task and situation so that we can enjoythem. Not just wasting time simply because we aregetting bored, yeah. (Tomoyo, exit interview, July 30,2005, my translation)

Nana suggested that by taking a completely differ-ent position, her group would be able to impress

others in the class. When asked whether any emo-tions, particularly boredom, affected the group’sposition in the presentation, she replied:

Well, not that seriously, I mean, I think probably wedidn’t give it that much thought. But it could be thecase to some extent. Like, maybe we felt that thisway we could make our presentation interesting, youknow. (Nana, exit interview, July 19, 2005, my transla-tion)

Naomi denied any possibility of emotion affect-ing her thinking or the content of the group’sproduct. Yet, she also implied that she wantedto differentiate her group from other studentgroups. She questioned the general tendencyto advocate the communicative approach, whichpermeated the class and was endorsed by theteacher. At one point in the group discussion car-ried out in English, Naomi was observed to be theone who suggested that their presentation shouldbe entertaining, saying, “We should have somepoints that, you know, to get people to laugh. I’llbet no laugh [sic]. It will be like [inaudible]. We’resupposed to laugh here” (group discussion, thirdmeeting). Naomi later explained this point as fol-lows:

I wanted to do something different [from other stu-dent groups]. That was because everybody’s presen-tation was so similar to each other that it was boring. . . If we have to do it anyway, I thought that, while ac-knowledging the importance of communication, wewould take some counter-position to argue it’s notjust communication. By doing so, I thought we couldmake our presentation something positive. (Naomi,exit interview, July 15, 2005, my translation)

Thus, considering the members’ accounts, thegroup’s joint activity and goal setting were notsolely cognitive transactions to accomplish the as-signed task but considerably emotional as well,whereby the members acted toward bringing thechange in their affective climate in the immediatelearning environment.


The data show that various emotions, such asconfusion, boredom, frustration, regret, and em-pathy, were verbally manifested, shaped, and con-structed as the members pursued their task goalin the immediate learning setting. In doing so,their cognition was distributed, most evidentlythrough social distribution and externalization.Each of the manifested emotions was not sim-ply a reaction to the members’ perceived ob-jects and events, but the members communi-cated to each other and formed emotional in-tersubjectivities. The level of those emotionalintersubjectivities is considered to be feelings incommon (Denzin, 1984); that is, the members feltthe same way about the same object or topic,sharing the same emotional value and meaning.Such emotional value and meaning were not in-dicated by the use of specific emotion words ora meta-emotional reference to a certain feelingstate, such as saying “I’m getting mad.” Rather,they were embedded in linguistic cues, such as avocative and a sentence-final particle, and in refer-ences to concrete objects and events in the group’slearning context. In short, the value and meaningof the members’ emotionality were not predeter-mined but locally situated and intersubjectivelynegotiated by the individuals participating in thecollaborative learning activity.

Meanwhile, the members’ conversationsprompted their collective thinking, which al-lowed the group to reach a new understanding ofan unfamiliar SLA concept (fossilization) as wellas one member’s L2 learning history. Here, themembers’ emotionality did not simply emerge asa psychological byproduct of the joint activity andfilter the group’s goal accomplishment. Rather, itmediated the group’s collective thinking in a waythat transformed the content of the goal, fromsimply revoicing the idea of the assigned readingmaterial and the teacher’s implicit expectation tocritically challenging the contents of the text. Inother words, intersubjectively foregrounded andnegotiated in the group, the members’ emotionsultimately led them to exercise their agency asreaders and regulators of the information in thewider instructional context in setting a new goalin their activity. This point implies that, at least inthe case of the observed group, the relationshipbetween the emergent emotions and the goal ofthe joint activity was not straightforward; theywere not mapped one-to-one, as postulated inthe Oatley (2000) model mentioned earlier (i.e.,types of goals and the degree of their achieve-ment determine emotions). Instead, they weremore complex, in the sense that the emotions

also adjusted the group’s goal as the collaborativegroup work proceeded.

CONCLUSION

The findings of my study are primarily inter-pretive although they are grounded on the tri-angulation of the multiple data obtained. Yet,they broaden the discussion of emotions in SLAfrom viewing them as intrapsychological work-ings simply filtering an individual’s cognitionand behavior to recognizing the aspect of emo-tions as socially and discursively constructed actsof communication that mediate learning anddevelopment.

The participants demonstrated that even emo-tions supposedly detrimental to an individual’slearning, such as boredom and frustration, couldbecome a psychological resource for develop-ment, depending on how individuals participat-ing in a given learning activity make sense ofand appropriate (or ignore) these emotions in-teractionally (i.e., whether and of what qualitythe learners achieve emotional intersubjectivity).Here, what gives real significance to a languagelearner’s own learning is not just a particular mean-ing that the researcher assigns to a specific type ofemotion a priori, such as language anxiety andwillingness to communicate, but the sense thateach language learner interactively constructs,negotiates, and appropriates regarding an emo-tional experience within a goal-directed activity.If so, investigations of the role and meaning ofemotions in SLA should go beyond examiningwhether a specific emotion, positive or negative,facilitates or hinders language learning, especiallywhen learning is considered a fundamentally in-terpersonal transaction.

In my study, the participants’ knowledge co-construction took place as they were confrontedwith the need to reconfigure their affective levelof participation in the immediate joint learn-ing task. In doing so, they attempted to employtheir own emotionality to their advantage ratherthan succumbing to it. This point suggests thatemotions can be considered not just as simplereactions to the cognitive demands of acquiring alanguage but as mediators between such demandsand subsequent learning behavior that allows orinhibits a learner to participate in a given lan-guage learning activity. Thus, the interplay of emo-tion, cognition, and action is far more complexand nonlinear than mainstream SLA research hasassumed. As such, the dynamics of emotions maynot be amenable to investigations solely relying on

Yasuhiro Imai 289

decontextualized laboratory experiments de-signed to identify causal relations among relevantvariables that elicit specific emotions. We needa more holistic approach—one that brings backinto consideration the whole range of emotionsassociated with learning to examine the nonlin-ear dynamics of learners’ emotionality, thinking,and action and their interplay in naturalistic set-tings of L2 learning and use.

Finally, limitations need to be acknowledged.First, the data for the case study were col-lected from the particular participating individ-uals; therefore, the focal students’ emotions andverbal behavior cannot be generalized to those ofother student populations or collaborative learn-ing situations. Second, the analysis is predomi-nantly monomodal ; that is, I deliberately limited myfocus on the participants’ linguistic utterances ininteraction to explore the discursive constructionof emotionality in the collective thinking process.However, this traditional text-oriented discourseanalysis has recently been criticized in the light ofmultimodal discourse analysis (e.g., Kress & VanLeeuwen, 2001; Norris, 2004). This new line ofconception calls for expanding analytical focusnot just on speech and written text but also onmultiple modes of communication and semioticmeans, such as gestures, gaze, head movement,posture, layout of a setting where interaction takesplace, and so on. Thus, by incorporating this newperspective, there is a need for a more fine-tunedanalysis of emotions manifested, constructed, andshared between people in the context of languagelearning.

This article is an initial attempt to explore emo-tions between people in the context of SLA. De-spite its interpretive nature and limitations, I hopethe study presented here will become a catalyst toinvite further discussions on the affective universeunderlying the complexity of SLA.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Merrill Swain for her mentorshipthroughout the evolution of my study and her valuablecomments on a previous draft of this article. I would alsolike to thank the editor and three anonymous reviewersof The Modern Language Journal , whose insightful feed-back helped shape this article. My gratitude also goesto Richard Donato and Penny Kinnear, who generouslyoffered their top-notch comments on the earlier draft,and Mitsuyo Sakamoto, whose constant encouragementallowed this article to be completed.

NOTES

1There are a few studies that are qualitatively ori-ented. See Price (1991) and Guy and Radnovsky (2001)for examples.

2Donato (1994) pointed out that scaffolding is notlimited to a typical expert–novice or teacher–studentinteraction but can also take place between learners witha similar level of ability.

3Vygotsky (1987) clearly recognized the integral roleaffect plays in one’s cognitive development. He claimed,

Thought has its origins in the motivating sphereof consciousness, a sphere that includes our in-clinations and needs, our interests and impulses,and our affect and emotions. The affective andvolitional tendency stands behind thought. Onlyhere do we find the answer to the final “why” inthe analysis of thinking. (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 282)

Vygotsky’s thinking on emotions and the interplay be-tween affect and intellect can also be found in his “Lec-ture 4: Emotions and Their Development in Childhood”(Vygotsky, 1987) and “The Teaching About Emotions”(Vygotsky, 1999).

4I am fully aware that emotions can be expressed andcommunicated through nonverbal and paralinguisticchannels as well, such as facial expressions, gaze, ges-tures, body posture, voice characteristics, and speechrate (e.g., Ekman, 1980, 1992, 2003; Williams & Stevens,1972, 1981). However, in this article I particularly fo-cus on the verbal mode because the goal of my initialexploration is to document how learners linguisticallymanifest, co-construct, and share their emotions in theircollective thinking process, which has not received suf-ficient attention in SLA literature.

5Some of these authors use another expression—cooperative learning . I treat the terms collaborative andcooperative as interchangeable, although some practi-tioners view that these labels index distinct theoreticalor philosophical backgrounds and, therefore, differentpedagogical orientations and goals (see Oxford, 1997,for further discussion).

6The students scheduled their meetings solely ontheir own. At the beginning of each meeting, I set avideo camera on a tripod in the corner of a conferenceroom in a university building where the students heldthe meetings. Once the meeting started, I left the roomso as not to affect the students’ discussion and sponta-neous interaction.

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APPENDIXTranscription Conventions

[ ] words, phrases or descriptions inserted by the transcriber for clarification purposes(( )) nonverbal behavior[ overlap// latched utterancesXXX inaudible utterances? rising intonation: vowel lengtheningword emphasis by loudness or high-pitched sound

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Emotions in SLA: New Insights From Collaborative Learning for an EFL Classroom