Special Issue Call for Papers
The Canadian Modern Language Review is calling for papers for its 2024 special issue, which focuses on promoting flourishing in language learning from a positive psychology perspective.
Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2001) define positive psychology as a “science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions” whose fundamental objective is helping individuals and communities thrive in a dynamic and unpredictable world (p. 5). In the decade following MacIntyre and Gregersen’s (2012) seminal introduction of positive psychology into the field of second language acquisition (SLA), it has blossomed into “a field in full expansion” (Dewaele et al., 2019, p. 10). Indeed, the affective branch of SLA has shifted from a nearly exclusive focalization on understanding and remediating negative classroom experiences (e.g., language anxiety) to broadening attention to positive language learning experiences related to all three domains of positive psychology research (experiences, traits, institutions).
With this in mind, the CMLR wishes to publish papers on promoting flourishing in language learning from a positive psychology perspective in the Canadian context, or relevant to the Canadian context. We are hoping to gather papers focusing on how teachers, tasks and practices interact with the quality of learners’ positive subjective language learning experiences, how learner traits interact with the quality of those experiences, and how such experiences anmd traits interact with language learning and use. We encourage the submission of articles that examine links between both positive and negative experiences, articles that build on existing knowledge, articles that make cross-disciplinary links to other related domains (e.g., linguistics, culture, and identity studies), and longitudinal and mixed-method studies.
Submission deadline for articles: 16 September 2023