Language Culture and Curriculum
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: Eoghan Mac Aogain (St Patrick's College)
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Volume: 15 Number: 1 Page: 1–15
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The Effect of Individual and Contextual Factors in Adult Second-language Acquisition in the Basque Country
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Josu Perales and Jasone Cenoz
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The acquisition of Basque as a second language by adult speakers in the Basque Country presents some specific characteristics related to the minority status of Basque and its limited use in everyday communication.
This paper reports a research study on the effect of individual and contextual variables on the acquisition of Basque by adult learners in the Basque Country. Participants were 411 learners, aged between
17 and 72, who were attending Basque classes in nine different specialised schools for teaching Basque to adults. They were asked to complete several questionnaires so as to obtain background information
and measures of metalinguistic awareness, anxiety, learning strategies, attitudes and motivation. Participants also completed tests of Basque language proficiency. Once the data were collected and recorded,
statistical analyses were carried out so as to identify the relative influence of several individual and contextual factors on second-language proficiency. The results indicate that metalinguistic awareness
is the strongest predictor of Basque proficiency and they also show that the influence of other variables. The results are discussed taking into account both the characteristics of second language acquisition
by adult speakers and the specific sociolinguistic context in which the acquisition of Basque takes place.
© Multilingual Matters 2002
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