Introduction

Mark Daubney, Jean-Marc Dewaele and Christina Gkonou

Preliminary Thoughts on Language Anxiety and the Focus of this Anthology

This anthology focuses on the topic of language anxiety (LA), a complex emotion that, for approximately four decades, has consistently attracted the attention of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers, teacher educators and teachers across the globe. In turn, this interest has led to substantial, diverse and exciting contributions to the literature in the field. In their recent publication on learner characteristics, Gregersen and MacIntyre (2014: 3) describe LA as reflecting 'the worry and negative emotional reaction when learning and using a second language and is especially relevant in a classroom where self-expression takes place'. Within the classroom, it has been found to subtly and pervasively shape the thoughts, feelings and actions of those engaged in the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language (L2). As a rule, LA research has focused on learners, yet teachers have also been shown to be susceptible to the nervous reactions anxiety arouses (Daubney, 2010; Horwitz, 1986). In L2 classrooms across many different settings, research has established that LA is a relatively common but largely unwelcome emotion, due to its potential to impact negatively in a myriad of ways on the language learning experience.

Indeed, contemplating the potential fallout from LA makes for fascinating yet unnerving reading. Among other things, it can impede the learning of the target language and hinder academic success; lead learners to abandon their studies; engender negative attitudes towards the target language and its respective culture(s); diminish the willingness to communicate; create counterproductive tensions among a class of language learners; sow the seeds of self-doubt in the minds of learners regarding their identity, feelings of competence and degree of self-esteem; and have a corrosive influence on the very lifeblood of L2 learning itself – the enthusiasm and motivation necessary to engage and embrace another language other than one's own.

Such a list helps to explain why LA continues to resonate with researchers and practitioners alike and why the ongoing fascination with this affective variable is both relevant and understandable. It also underpins our desire, as editors of this volume, to bring this collection of chapters to fruition in order to achieve a more up-to-date understanding of this emotion.

It has been nearly 40 years since Scovel's (1978) review urged greater scientific and methodological rigour upon SLA researchers investigating affective variables. In the ensuing years, much research has been undertaken, and LA is now indisputably part of the SLA landscape. Presently, the influence it is deemed to exert within the complex network of factors impacting on the degree of success of language learning is such that it is rare indeed to encounter publications in SLA focusing on individual differences or affective factors that do not refer to it. In fact, when SLA scholars ponder these characteristics, anxiety is often the first to be discussed (see Gregersen & MacIntyre, 2014). Arnold and Brown (1999: 8) believe it to be the most influential affective factor 'obstructing the learning process', while in terms of interest generated, Scovel (2001: 127) ranks it as 'second only to motivation'.

The present volume focuses on some of the most recent developments in LA theory and research as well as the implications these have for classroom practice. Further, it does so in the light of an increasingly influential paradigm shift currently shaping the field of SLA, a dynamic turn, which currently positions research as 'situated and process-oriented, which means that learners attributes are neither stable nor context-independent, but interact with the context and over time' (Dewaele, 2012: 43). An important driver of this perspective is dynamic systems theory (DST; de Bot et al., 2007; Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008), also known as complex dynamic systems theory (CDST; MacIntyre et al., 2015), which we will consider further in the following sections.

Why an Anthology about Language Anxiety?

As editors, we are all of the firm conviction that the current climate shaping SLA research is a most propitious one for re-evaluating LA. When positioning the present volume in this landscape, one of the key considerations that has influenced our thinking is that, given the remarkable interest in LA over the last 40 years, accompanied and driven by what MacIntyre (1999: 24) referred to, at the advent of the 21st century, as 'a virtual explosion' in research, interestingly, only two bespoke volumes on LA have been published over the same period.

The first was Horwitz and Young's (1991) landmark collection, which itself included reprints of key papers on the topic. The second was Young's (1999), which, like the first, brought together theoretical, empirical and practical contributions, and whose subtitle – A Practical Guide to Creating a Low-Anxiety Classroom Atmosphere – gives a clear indication of the overarching goal that preoccupied – and continues to preoccupy – researchers and practitioners when addressing LA. A 17-year hiatus, then, between Young's and the present volume, would suggest a reassessment, including new insights, is somewhat overdue.

Further, the aforementioned paradigm shift and growing influence of DST, together with the flourishing field of language learning psychology (Gkonou et al., 2016; Mercer et al., 2012; Williams et al., 2015) means the absence of such a volume at this important juncture in SLA research would leave LA somewhat underrepresented when considering learner characteristics. This is of particular concern when LA, according to Dörnyei and Ryan (2015: 176), can be regarded 'as a kind of bellwether of various theoretical and methodological changes occurring in the field of L2 individual differences'.

So while this anthology comprises contributions on theory, research and practice, and is therefore organised in a similar vein to that of the two aforementioned volumes, we are also keenly aware of the flux and complexity presently characterising the field and the need to consider anxiety within this emerging and increasingly influential paradigm shift, including the attendant calls for researchers to explore different and more dynamic conceptualisations of the affective dimension (see Gregersen et al., this volume; MacIntyre, this volume; Pavlenko, 2013; Simsek & Dörnyei, this volume). Thus, Dörnyei and Ryan (2015: 180) suggest that future research into LA 'will need to foreground a more dynamic conception of anxiety, highlighting aspects of change as well as types of adaptations that can lead the behavioural outcomes of anxiety both in the positive and negative direction'. We see the present volume as dovetailing with these recommendations, thereby constituting a current and thought-provoking pool of knowledge and ideas from which both researchers and practitioners can draw for their own present and future projects.

All three editors share a common interest in LA research and the need to bring about a greater and more nuanced understanding of this emotion. We are also equally aware of the applied nature of our field and how this understanding should be factored into further investigation, teacher training and pedagogy, contributing, ultimately, to both effective language learning and teaching characterised by engagement and enjoyment.

Issues of Change and Challenge: Language Anxiety in a Landscape of Increasing Complexity

The aforementioned calls for anxiety to be conceptualised and researched from more dynamic perspectives reflect the underlying changes in the SLA field and the challenges arising from these. Generally speaking, LA has been conceptualised as a single, powerful and negative influence residing within the learner, and therefore a force to be reduced or, better still, eliminated from individuals and the classroom, although some researchers have questioned the wisdom of this view (see Scovel, 2001). Shaped and influenced by cognitive psychology, approaches to LA research have shifted from seeing this emotion as a transference to the L2 domain of other types of anxiety, such as test anxiety or communication apprehension, to the now prevailing notion that it is in fact unique to L2 learning itself, and therefore a situation-specific anxiety (Horwitz et al., 1986; MacIntyre, 1999). Having taken on board Scovel's recommendations by fine-tuning definitions and developing more sophisticated instruments, LA research has, until very recently, settled into somewhat insistent patterns of investigation, the thrust of which has been to first measure levels of anxiety with self-reports – the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS; Horwitz et al., 1986) being the best known – then to identify causes of the anxiety, followed by the application of strategies to reduce it. Over two decades ago, calls (see Skehan, 1989) were already being made to move away from this somewhat limited methodological, and largely quantitative, research framework. Indeed, the aforementioned shift towards complexity and a move away from seeing learner characteristics as stable aspects of the learner has only served to highlight the need for new and creative approaches to LA research. The challenge, then, is to find new ways of researching anxiety in the changing L2 landscape.

In fact, some of the previous and overriding concerns in research, including the somewhat sterile and circular arguments attempting to ascertain whether LA is a cause or effect of L2 performance, have gradually given way to a greater interest in the broader experience of anxiety as lived by learners (see Horwitz, 2001; King & Smith; MacIntyre; Oxford; Tóth, this volume) as well as its impact on classroom interaction and learning. This represents a recalibrating of perspective, with the focus now squarely on how the learning process as a whole is affected, as opposed to a narrower focus on measurable outcomes. In fact, recent LA research (e.g. Gregersen et al., this volume; MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2012; MacIntyre & Serroul, 2015) has resorted to more innovative methodologies in order to investigate anxiety over varying timescales, thereby reflecting a concern with exploring the fluctuating and dynamic natures of individual differences rather than conceiving and investigating them as stable traits. However, Dewaele and Al-Saraj's (2015) recent work alerts us to the danger of dismissing the influence of psychological traits on anxiety and, by extension, on other learner characteristics.

Nevertheless, given the growing influence of the view of learner psychology as an interdependent network of aspects shaped by context and time, it is no surprise that anxiety, with its intimate connections to motivation, risk-taking and other affective variables, presents L2 researchers with fascinating challenges.

To start with, LA may be conceptualised as a trait or a situation-specific anxiety, that is, an emotion which is either stable across both time and contexts, or specific to one domain only. Can a learner experience both trait and state anxiety? Can the learner experience both at the same time? Further, are the underlying causes of anxiety to be found in the learner, the teacher or the communicative environment or the subtle interplay of all of these? Yet another conundrum is whether anxiety may be conceived as facilitating, a helpful anxiety leading to greater attention, effort and performance, or debilitating, that is, a downward spiral of negative thoughts and feelings, leading to diminished attention and poorer performance. Presently, researchers (see Horwitz; Rúbio, this volume) largely view LA as a debilitating, unhelpful emotion. Yet recent research (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014) has looked at enjoyment and anxiety and how these two emotions interact within learners, highlighting how positive and negative emotions may mutually shape one another. Novel in its approach, such research should see greater caution exercised regarding the somewhat simplistic binary conceptualisations that may unnecessarily constrain our view of learner characteristics and hence our vision for research frameworks.

It is our opinion that the present anthology rises to the challenge of conceptualising, investigating and addressing anxiety from fresh perspectives, through different lenses and in relation to areas that have been little studied, and opens up exciting paths to further explore this multifaceted emotion.

The Organisation of this Anthology

The anthology itself is divided into three sections. Part 1 focuses on theoretical insights, with Chapters 2 and 3 exploring how LA has been theorised and researched up to the present time, thereby providing solid theoretical and conceptual foundations which underpin, inform and interconnect with the subsequent chapters. Further, these first two chapters – written by the prominent LA scholars, Peter MacIntyre and Elaine Horwitz – also discuss key issues, misconceptions and controversies that, over the years, have left and continue to leave their mark on the field. Part 2 (Chapters 4–9) is concerned with the empirical study of LA. The body of research represented in Part 2 not only details a concern with anxiety in L2 contexts that include European, North American and Asian settings, but also reveals the rich conceptual frameworks and methodological instruments which researchers are working with and applying to LA research. Part 3 (Chapters 10 and 11) centres on thinking about LA in educational settings and how practitioners might consider addressing it in their own contexts. Finally, we conclude the volume (Chapter 12) by drawing together the key themes arising from the previous contributions, and look towards possible paths that might be forged and explored by future LA research.

The Target Audience

We think the scope of the anthology is likely to capture the interest of a range of interested readers. Firstly, researchers in the field of SLA – both established and less experienced – will find that the chapters provide exciting and fresh perspectives on LA as well as rich possibilities for future research. Those on undergraduate, master and doctoral programmes, and likely to be among the less-experienced researchers, will also benefit. Teacher trainers, teachers and language students will encounter much to reflect on, including guidance on how to identify and address anxiety – including its alleviation – in classroom practice (see Oxford; Rúbio, this volume). Finally, we hope those engaged in the wider field of applied linguistics, as well as general psychology, will find bridges, interconnections and points of interest that will allow them to reflect productively on their own particular areas of specialisation and expertise.

An Overview of Language Anxiety Research and Trends in its Development

Peter D. MacIntyre

Introduction

It is safe to say that language anxiety has been the most widely studied emotion in second language acquisition (SLA), perhaps because it is both an intense and a frequent experience. For the purposes of this review, the research literature on language anxiety will be broken into three broad approaches, reflecting both historical trends and assumptions about the topic. The first might be called the Confounded Approach because the ideas about anxiety and their effect on language learning were adopted from a mixture of various sources without detailed consideration of the meaning of the anxiety concept for language learners. The second trend might be called the Specialised Approach, wherein anxiety experiences that were specifically associated with language were identified, defined and studied. A third, relatively recent line of research reflects a contextualised Dynamic Approach in which anxiety is studied in connection with a complex web of language experiences. Although these are fuzzy categories, they help to organise the issues as research into language anxiety has developed.

Confounded Phase

The landmark work during this period was Scovel's review of the language anxiety literature. In his introductory remarks, Scovel described the state of the art in 1978:

The research into the relationship of anxiety to foreign language learning has provided mixed and confusing results, immediately suggesting that anxiety itself is neither a simple nor well-understood psychological construct and that it is perhaps premature to attempt to relate it to the global and comprehensive task of language acquisition. (Scovel, 1978: 132)

The issue facing researchers at the time was one of defining and measuring both anxiety and the dimensions of language acquisition to which it might be related. Scovel (1978) noted that anxiety might be measured physiologically through indicators of arousal, behaviourally by the actions people perform when anxious or through self-report using structured questionnaires to ask about anxiety experiences. All of these types of measures were available and used for various purposes at the time in psychology, the discipline from which Scovel and other language researchers were taking their lead. However, what was not clear at the time was that the measures of anxiety that were adapted from psychology for use in language studies had little to do with language itself. The issue is captured well by Horwitz (this volume), who suggested ' …it seems unlikely that insect anxiety has anything to do with one's response to or ultimate success in language learning even though entomophobia is subsumed under the general label of anxiety'.