Usage-based Second Language Acquisition

We outline the second language acquisition (SLA) of words, collocations and phraseology,morphology, and syntactic constructions from a usage-based perspective. As described in Ellisand Wulff (2025a), usage-based approaches hold that we learn constructions (form-meaningmappings, conventionalized in a speech community) from our everyday language usage bymeans of general cognitive mechanisms (exemplar-based, rational, associative learning). Anindividual’s language system emerges from the conspiracy of these associations. Here wecompare L2 and L1 usage and their differential effects upon L2 and L1 lexical, morphological,phrasal, and syntactic constructions.