Larisa Nikitina – författare

This book explores stereotypes that learners of six Asian languages— Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Myanmar, Thai and Vietnamese—hold about the target language country, its cultures and people. Some of the findings, such as the language learners’ mental images of Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, are presented here for the first time. Recognizing that stereotypes, and attitudes embedded in them, have an impact on people’s actions and behavioural intentions, this book examines whether and how the country stereotypes held by the students influenced their motivation to learn the target language. Besides providing worthwhile insights into the content and structure of the country stereotypes and their relationship with language learning motivation, this book offers methodological and theoretical advancements. Drawing on intellectual heritage of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) the book highlights how the concepts of word meaning (znachenie slova) and word sense (smysl) could be fruitfully employed in studies on stereotypes that people learning a foreign language hold about a target language country. This book will appeal to all readers interested in stereotypes that people have about foreign countries and also to educators and researchers who study language learning motivation.

This book explores stereotypes that learners of six Asian languages— Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Myanmar, Thai and Vietnamese—hold about the target language country, its cultures and people. Some of the findings, such as the language learners’ mental images of Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, are presented here for the first time. Recognizing that stereotypes, and attitudes embedded in them, have an impact on people’s actions and behavioural intentions, this book examines whether and how the country stereotypes held by the students influenced their motivation to learn the target language. Besides providing worthwhile insights into the content and structure of the country stereotypes and their relationship with language learning motivation, this book offers methodological and theoretical advancements. Drawing on intellectual heritage of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) the book highlights how the concepts of word meaning (znachenie slova) and word sense (smysl) could be fruitfully employed in studies on stereotypes that people learning a foreign language hold about a target language country. This book will appeal to all readers interested in stereotypes that people have about foreign countries and also to educators and researchers who study language learning motivation.

This book explores emotions and affect in language learning during total lockdown during the early phase of the COVID‑19 pandemic when all teaching and learning activities had to transition online. Having classes online and learning in lockdown was an unknown, disconcerting, and emotionally saturated experience for both the teachers and their students majoring in foreign languages.To explore this, the author conducted a study at a Malaysian university using perezhivanie, a concept introduced by Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), as a theoretical foundation for pedagogically oriented research on affect and emotions. It refers to an intense emotional lived‑through experience that often leads to a qualitative change within an individual. To capture the students’ experiences of learning in total lockdown, she also employs photovoice methodology as an analytical approach. In her book, Nikitina demonstrates using the photovoice method to capture the emotional ebbs and flows inherent in perezhivania. The theoretical framework of perezhivanie and novel photovoice methodology adopted in this book can be employed in future explorations of emotional labours of students and their teachers in a wide range of educational settings.This book’s theoretical anchoring, robust methodology, and rigorous analysis of visual and linguistic data findings presented in this book will contribute to a better understanding of learning and teaching during challenging circumstances for students and academics of applied linguistics, psychology of language learning, or second language acquisition.