ABSTRACT
While study abroad research in recent years is witnessing burgeoning growth, second language (L2) learners’ linguistic development during and as a result of a study abroad experience has long been a focus of investigation. Since Carroll (1967), there has been an extensive body of research that illuminates such linguistic development, both longitudinally and in comparison with learners in other learning contexts, primarily traditional classroom environments but also in other immersion contexts (Collentine & Freed, 2004). This work allows extensive insight into different facets of the learner’s L2 linguistic repertoire, such as the grammatical (Juan-Garau, 2014), the lexical (Milton & Meara, 1995), the sociolinguistic (Howard, 2012a), and the phonological (Mora, 2008) as well as various sociopragmatic (Barron, 2000) and interactional (Taguchi, 2015) features, along with fluency (Freed, Segalowitz, & Dewey, 2004) and communication strategies (Lafford, 1995).
