Theorizing Affect in Foreign Language Learning: An Analysis of One Learner’s Responses to a Communicative Portuguese Course PAULA GARRETT a and RICHARD F. YOUNG b In this study we explore a student’s affective responses to classroom foreign language learn- ing. In 2 meetings each week throughout an 8-week Portuguese course for beginners, the first author described her language learning experiences to the second author. Sessions were transcribed and then coded and analyzed. A theoretical model grounded in the learner’s expe- riences was developed to understand the learner’s affective responses to the language learning process, the events from which her affect sprang, and her affective trajectory over the 8 weeks. This study is a response to the need for methodological and epistemological diversity in second language acquisition research and contributes to studies that focus on the affective responses of the learner to the language learning experience. Implications for the role played by emo- tion in learners’ classroom foreign language learning and the development of sociocultural competence in a second language are discussed. ALTHOUGH LEARNERS IN ONE FOREIGN language classroom are exposed to the same lessons, each individual may process lessons differ- ently, resulting in very different language learning experiences. For example, in a study of learners’ beliefs about the language learning process, some described their experience as “traveling to new places,” whereas others described their experi- ence as “undergoing a painful medical proce- dure” (Kramsch, 2003, p. 116). These vastly dif- ferent interpretations of the language learning experience illustrate its uniqueness for each in- dividual. Learner accounts, which tend to focus on the affective (emotional) responses of the learner to the language learning process, not only supply information about how different learners a University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of French and Italian, 612 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Dr., Madi- son, WI 53706-1403, Email: pjgarrett@wisc.edu b University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of English, 7163 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N Park Street, Madison, WI 53706-1403, Email: rfyoung@wisc.edu The Modern Language Journal, 93, ii, (2009) 0026-7902/09/209–226 $1.50/0 C 2009 The Modern Language Journal appraise their experiences but also provide in- sight into where learners focus their attention dur- ing foreign language lessons. With certain notable exceptions (Arnold, 1999; Ehrman, 1996; Horwitz, 2001; Horwitz & Young, 1991; Stevick, 1996), affect and emotion are terms that have been in the shadows of discussions of classroom foreign language learning, where the primary focus has been on the development of knowledge and use of the new language. We be- lieve that one reason for this is the neglect of emotion by psychologists during most of the 20th century. At the end of that century, Damasio (1999) wrote: Emotion was not trusted in the laboratory. Emotion was too subjective, it was said. Emotion was too elusive and vague. Emotion was at the opposite end from reason, easily the finest human ability, and reason was presumed to be entirely independent from emotion. (p. 39) Largely inspired by the work of Damasio and his colleagues, 21st-century psychologists have begun to research the relations among emotion, cog- nition, memory, and consciousness, and applied