This paper reflects upon the acquisition of English language, understood as a complex system, in the light of an emic approach. In order to do that, it discusses aspects of narrative research, of multimodality, and of the complexity of second language acquisition. As empirical evidences of acquisition, the article presents excerpts of multimedia language learning narratives through wich the authors reveal aspects of their learning processes by means of texts, hypertexts, images and sounds. Those narratives show that the acquisition process is a complex system and that the second language emerges from the interaction among the different learning experiences lived inside and outside the classroom.
acquisition; narrative research; multimedia; complexity