本文是一篇英语语言学论文，本研究基于复杂动态系统理论，对中国英语学习者演讲比赛场景中的外语焦虑、愉悦情绪进行微观动态研究，并探索两情感变量之于二语口语产出表现的预测作用。
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
As an activity to promote learners’ cognitive and mental development, foreign language (FL) learning can provoke various emotional experiences, which further interact with cognition factors jointly influencing the effectiveness of second language acquisition (SLA). However, research on emotions has long been largely overlooked in the field of SLA and roughly started with Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis (1985), which emphasized the crucial role of affective factors in FL learning.
Since the 1980s, the negative face of foreign language emotions such as foreign language anxiety (FLA) has received great scholarly attention. Numerous studies have investigated the sources and effects of FLA on foreign language learning. In recent years, positive psychology has been flourishing in the field of SLA, allowing researchers to shift from a narrow focus on negative emotion to a more comprehensive understanding of FL learners’ emotional experiences. Thus, the research spectrum has been largely expanded beyond anxiety to include various emotional factors such as enjoyment, love, pride, boredom, and so on. Among diverse negative and positive emotions, FLA and FLE (foreign language enjoyment) are the most prevalent ones and metaphorically named the “right and left feet” of FL learners (Deawele & MacIntyre, 2016).
1.2 Research Objectives
Utilizing the idiodynamic approach, the present study is designed to first investigate the characteristics and sources of Chinese English learners’ anxiety and enjoyment emotional experiences during second language (L2) oral production tasks. Besides, since speaking ability is the weakest link among the four domain-specific skills for Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and has plagued both EFL teachers and learners for a long time (Yu, 2019), it is necessary for SLA researchers to investigate various factors that may affect participants’ L2 speech performance guiding FL teachers to adopt more effective teaching strategies to improve their students’ L2 oral proficiency. Although previous studies have revealed a negative effect of FLA and a positive effect of FLE on foreign language proficiency and performance, it is unclear whether the same pattern, especially the effect of FLE, could also be found in L2 speech performance. Therefore, the second objective of the study is to reveal how emotional variables (e.g., FLA and FLE) would affect FL learners’ L2 speech performance. Specifically, the present research will be conducted in an English speech contest scenario and address the following three questions: (1) What is the dynamic correlation pattern between FLA and FLE during L2 oral production? (2) What are the sources of dynamic changes in FLA and FLE during L2 oral production? (3) How do FLA and FLE affect Chinese EFL learners’ L2 speech performance? The first two research questions correspond to the first objective and the last research question corresponds to the second one.
Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Foreign Language Emotion
The introduction of positive psychology and its underpinning theories (eg., MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2012; Mertcer & MacIntyre, 2014) has enabled SLA researchers to take a holistic view of FL learners’ positive and negative emotional experiences. Despite the great diversity of foreign language emotions (MacIntyre & Vincze, 2017), the present study only focuses on the most prevalent ones, FLA and FLE, which are metaphorically referred to as the left and right feet of FL learners (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2016). In this section, the definitions of FLA and FLE are discussed.
2.1.1 Negative Emotion-Foreign Language Anxiety
Of the multiple emotions, the negative emotion, anxiety, has received the most scholarly attention in the field of SLA over the past forty years (Ellis, 2008; Li & Han, 2021). Anxiety
