ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the theoretical underpinnings of empirical investigations into emotions in the domain of second language (L2) learning. Section 1 begins with a discussion of the role of emotions, both positive and negative, such as love, hope, pride, shame, guilt and anger (with the exception of curiosity, enjoyment, boredom and anxiety discussed in Section 2 and Section 3) in teaching and learning an L2 in traditional and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) contexts. Section 2 is devoted to an overview of theoretical issues regarding the positive emotions of curiosity and enjoyment, which are the two positive emotions investigated in the study reported in Chapter 4. This section begins with the presentation of the definitions of the emotions in question, their types and/or dimensions as well as their sources. The third section is dedicated to the negative emotions of boredom and anxiety, that is, the main negative emotions under investigation in the research project whose findings are presented in Chapter 4. In this section, the concepts of boredom and language anxiety in the light of theories expounding on their definitions, typologies and sources are discussed.
