Multilingual Matters New Trends in Crosslinguistic Influence and Multilingualism Research (Second Language Acquisition): 60

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. New Trends in Crosslinguistic Influence and Multilingualism ResearchBy Gessica De Angelis, Jean-Marc DewaeleMultilingual MattersCopyright © 2011 Gessica De Angelis, Jean-Marc Dewaele and the authors of individual chaptersAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-84769-442-3ContentsIntroduction GESSICA DE ANGELIS and JEAN-MARC DEWAELE, 1 Awareness and Affordances: Multilinguals versus Bilinguals and their Perceptions of Cognates Agnieszka Otwinowska-Kasztelanic, 2 Perceived Redundancy or Crosslinguistic Influence? What L3 Learners' Material Can Tell us About the Causes of Errors Håkan Ringbom, 3 Crosslinguistic Interaction and Metalinguistic Awareness in Third Language Acquisition Mariana Bono, 4 Transfer from L3 German to L2 English in the Domain of Tense/Aspect Anna S.C. Cheung, Stephen Matthews and Wai Lan Tsang, 5 Perception of Preposition Errors in Semantically Correct versus Erroneous Contexts by Multilingual Advanced English as a Foreign Language Learners: Measuring Metalinguistic Awareness Martha Gibson and Britta Hufeisen, 6 'Luisa and Pedrito's Dog will the Breakfast Eat': Interlanguage Transfer and the Role of the Second Language Factor Laura Sanchez, 7 Crosslinguistic Influence in Multilingual Language Acquisition: Phonology in Third or Additional Language Acquisition Eva-Maria Wunder, CHAPTER 1Awareness and Affordances: Multilinguals versus Bilinguals and their Perceptions of CognatesAGNIESZKA OTWINOWSKA-KASZTELANICIntroductionThe theory of affordances has recently been discussed with reference to domains as diverse as ecological psychology industrial design, human–computer interaction and, finally, language acquisition, where it sheds new light on the meaning and importance of awareness phenomena. The present chapter briefly discusses the theory of affordances and its relation to language acquisition, attempting to show the link between affordances available to language learners and their awareness of crosslinguistic lexical similarities. The chapter points to the fact that although the presence of cognate vocabulary in L1, L2 and Ln may constitute a set of affordances, these affordances are not easily available to all language learners, and that multilinguals and bilinguals differ in their awareness of the role of crosslinguistic similarities. The research presented investigates the differences in the range of lexical affordances available to Polish multilingual and bilingual learners of English. Finally, the chapter presents some implications for teacher training and syllabus design based on the research findings.The Theory of Affordances and Second Language AcquisitionThe theory of affordances was first proposed by perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson (1977, 1979). It dealt with the mutual relationships between the organism and its environment in the area of perception. For conventional theories, perception is a one-way process where an organism processes the image formed by the stimuli in the environment. According to Gibson, however, perception of the environment is also the perception of the self: the environment and the organism are mutually complementary. The organism perceives its environment as a set of possibilities that the environment provides or affords. According to Gibson (1977: 67), an affordance is 'a specific combination of the properties of [the environment's] substance and its surfaces taken with reference to the animal'. In other words, affordances are the perceived opportunities for action provided for the observer by an environment. Hence, they can be understood as the possibilities that an object or environment offers (or appears to offer) to the organism for action or functioning, or chances for the organism to fulfil its goals. Norman (1988, 1999), who popularized the theory within the field of interaction design, developed the term of 'perceived affordance'. This distinction makes the concept dependent not only on the physical capab