This longitudinal case study follows a dynamic systems approach to investigate an under-studied research area in second language acquisition, the development of complexity and accuracy for an advanced untutored learner of English. Using the analytical tools of dynamic systems theory (Verspoor et al. 2011) within the framework of complexity,…

In this article, we examine the characteristics of vernacular literacies on Web 2.0, focusing on the writing activities performed on the photo-sharing site Flickr.com. This site provides people with many possibilities for writing, ranging from individual tags to extensive profiles. The study investigates these forms of writing to address questions…

This article contrasts a common conceptualization of the interview in applied linguistics, referred to as an "interview as research instrument" perspective, with an alternative, referred to as a "research interview as social practice" orientation. It illustrates implications of the two perspectives on interviews by contrasting a thematic analysis…

This article asks what applied linguistics can learn from related disciplines with regard to the collection, analysis and representation of qualitative interviews. It assesses the contributions of qualitative sociology, anthropology, discursive psychology and outlines four "discourse dilemmas" which might provide the basis for a more critical and…

This article adopts a social constructionist approach in maintaining that indeterminacy of meaning is an unavoidable aspect of interview research. It uses positioning analysis to examine how subject positions and contingently constructed meanings are produced in interview interactions. The analysis focuses on excerpts from a series of three…

This study draws on a narrative constructionist framework to examine the active representation of self and experience in second language (L2) ethnographic interviews and autobiographic narratives of immigrant experience. Analysis centers on two versions of a complaint narrative of institutional mistreatment told 2 years apart by a man who…

Despite the recent growth of interest in the interactional construction of research interviews and advances made in our understanding of the nature of such encounters, relatively little attention has been paid to the implications of this for interviewer training, with the result that advice on interviewing techniques tends to be very general.…

In this article the author argues that interactional difficulties and questioning practices identified in the methodological literature on qualitative interviewing as "problems" provide topics of analysis. Methodological examinations of interview data drawing on conversation analysis also explicate how interview "problems" may be conceptualized in…

This article examines how Spanish-speaking Latina (im)migrants position themselves relative to US language policies. Drawing from interviews with 15 Latin American women in the USA, we illustrate how understandings of language policy are constructed through individuals' reports of everyday experiences and framed within the constraints of…

Previous studies on L2 Japanese sojourners often reported that learners overuse the plain style or haphazardly mix the plain and polite styles upon return. These styles, which are often associated with formal or informal contexts, also index complex social and situational meanings, and native speakers are reported to shift their styles to create…

This article explores the citing behaviors of 16 undergraduates in a North American university. After completing a research paper for their disciplinary courses, each participating student was interviewed to identify in his/her writing words and ideas borrowed from source texts and to explain why and how the relevant texts were appropriated with…

The relationship between language and identity has been explored in a number of ways in applied linguistics, and this article focuses on a particular aspect of it: self-representation in the oral history interview. People from a wide range of backgrounds, currently resident in one large city in England, were asked to reflect on their lives as part…

For the last ten years, language learning motivation research has focussed on how learners see knowledge of a language as part of their identity. This article presents the findings of a qualitative interview study that investigated whether personal growth is also a strong element in the motivation of Australian university students to learn German.…

The significance of errors in explicating Second Language Acquisition (SLA) processes led to the growth of error analysis in the 1970s which has since maintained its prominence in English as a second/foreign language (L2) research. However, one problem with this research is errors are often taken for granted, without problematising them and their…

In recent years there have been a growing number of studies on written corrective feedback (WCF), particularly in terms of the efficacy of different types of WCF. However, few of these studies have investigated what shapes teachers' WCF practices and how they align with students' preferences. This study, conducted with staff and students…