Transcript Foreign Language Aptitude (Ch. 7)

SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF
L2 LEARNING (Ch. 10)
Understanding SLA
Lourdes Ortega (2009)
www.routledge.com/cw/ortega
Published by Routledge © 2009 Mark Sawyer
THE UNBEARABLE INELUCTABILITY
OF THE SOCIAL CONTEXT (10.1)
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“SLA as chameleon” metaphor:
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Social constructivism (cf. psych. constructivism)
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Reality doesn’t exist, but is created by agents, groups
Socioculturalism (Activity Theory??)
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Social forces are central to understand living agents
Reality emerges anew in each contextualized activity
Poststructuralism (overlaps postmodernism)
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Reality emerges thru discourse (language, practices)
COGNITION IS SOCIAL: VYGOTSKIAN
SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY IN SLA (10.2)
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Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
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SocioCultural Theory (SCT) in SLA
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Higher mental operations have social origins
Introduced, developed by James Lantolf
Popularized by Merrill Swain’s rethinking of
SLA cornerstones (output, interaction)
Consciousness requires symbolic tools
SELF-REGULATION &
LANGUAGE MEDIATION (10.3)
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Human actions are regulated
(enabled/disabled) by 3 sources:
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Objects: tools (+), obstructions (–)
Others: (e.g. mothers) physical, linguistic
(social speech), nonverbal symbolic
Self: thru private, inner speech
L2 self-regulation shows L2 development
SOME FINDINGS ABOUT INNER, PRIVATE, &
SOCIAL SPEECH IN L2 LEARNING (10.4)
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Learner regained affective control thru
private speech after disappointing task
(de Guerrero)
More private speech at lower levels (L&F)
Tense/aspect choices reveal regulation
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In languaging, verbalization causes learning
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e.g. pun meanings (Tocalli-Beller & Swain)
verb morphology (Donato)
SOCIAL LEARNING IN THE ZONE OF
PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (10.5)
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All (higher) cognition appears
interpersonally before intrapersonally
Microgenetic method
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Observing (visible) development in real time
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
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distance between assisted & unassisted ability
NEGATIVE FEEDBACK
RECONCEPTUALIZED (10.6)
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Graduated & contingent feedback
ensures helpfulness within ZPD
Graduation: 12 levels from implicit “find
errors” to explicit examples of pattern
(Lantolf & Aljaafreh)
ZPD-sensitive tutorials were better than
ZPD-insensitive ones (Nassaji & Swain)
INTERACTION IS SOCIAL:
CONVERSATION ANALYSIS & SLA (10.7)
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Sociologist Harold Garfinkel studied
interaction-based social organization,
labeled ethnomethodology
Developed by his UCLA followers
Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, Gail Jefferson
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Applied to L2 by Numa Markee,
Johannes Wagner, Alan Firth, Paul
Seedhouse, Gabi Kasper, Junko Mori
THE CA PERSPECTIVE IN A
NUTSHELL (10.8)
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Context-free (universal) machinery for
organizing talk/social life:
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turn-taking, repair, sequential design
Radically emic perspective: participant
orientations, relevancies, intersubjectivities
must be observed (Markee & Kasper)
No a priori categories, but a posteriori OK
with witnessable evidence in transcriptions
SOME CONTRIBUTIONS OF
CA-FOR-SLA (10.9)
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JPN EFL: CV-izing (e.g. raining-u) not
seen as error but interactional resource,
showing incompleteness (Don Carroll)
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JPN JSL: (only) at times, L2ers orient as
“novices”, L1ers respond as “experts”
(Yuri
Hosoda)
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Finland FSL: Such co-orientation does
not always occur, due to roles? (Kurhila)
LEARNING IN CA-FOR-SLA (10.10)
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W/O concept of learning, hard to show it
Strategy: show longitudinal changes
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L1 JPN Danish L2er (Brouwer & Wagner)
Vietnamese ESLer (Young & Miller, 2004)
2 ESLers from MEX, CHN (Hellerman,
2006)
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CA may answer WHEN?, but not
WHAT? or HOW?; needs help
GRAMMAR IS SOCIAL:
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (10.11)
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Developed by M.A.K. Halliday
Dominant in Australia
Analyses form based on meaningmaking within social contexts
Focuses above sentence-level
LEARNING HOW TO MEAN
IN AN L2 (10.12)
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L2 academic writing development:
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Functional recasts
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lexical density , grammatical metaphor ,
grammatical intricacy  (Achugar & Colombi)
T co-constructs academic oral expression
with L2er (Mohan & Slater, 2006)
Academic identity development thru
resources of appraisal systems (A&C)
LANGUAGE LEARNING IS SOCIAL LEARNING:
LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION THEORY (10.13)
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Socialization: Language, other cultural
practices, values learned seamlessly
thru interactions (e.g. with caregivers)
Extended by Shirley Brice-Heath to US
school/home literacy practices
2nd generation focuses on multilingual &
multicultural contexts
THE PROCESS OF LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION:
ACCESS & PARTICIPATION (10.14)
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Community access & participation often
involves struggles for L2ers
CAN HS L2ers silent because unfamiliar
with popular culture references (Duff)
USA ES L2er needed chances to be
cultural expert (Rymes)
CAN GS L2ers socialized differently due
to approaches of instructors (Morita)
THE OUTCOMES: WHAT IS LEARNED
THRU L2 SOCIALIZATION? (10.15)
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Beyond L2, C2 identities, stances,
ideologies, practices, values are learned
SA students in Indonesia: new stance to
food (Dufon)
Fulbe children in Cameroon: different
purposes of memorization in Arabic and
French learning contexts (Moore)
Danger of assimilationist ideology
SENSE OF SELF IS SOCIAL:
IDENTITY THEORY (10.16)
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Started with Bonny Norton’s (BN) study
of 5 immigrant women in Canada
Identities are socially constructed &
constrained, dynamic, contradictory
Investment: BN’s version of motivation
Communities of Practice (real,
imagined) are targets for investment
Right to Speak is unequally distributed
L2 LEARNERS’ IDENTITY & POWER
STRUGGLE: EXAMPLES FROM
CIRCUMSTANTIAL L2 LEARNING (10.17)
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CHN in US HS unfairly positioned as
low achiever, dropped out (McKay & Wong)
Oldcomers in US positioned favorably in
HS, but not in CC ESL (Harklau)
Polish Katarina in CAN invested in
computer rather than ESL to pursue
well-educated self/community (BN)
CLOSE IMPACT OF IDENTITIES ON
L2 LEARNING: EXAMPLES FROM
ELECTIVE LEARNING (10.18)
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Many L2ers embrace idealized NS target,
but some selectively resist (Yumiko Ohara)
Community may resist L2er efforts to
identify (Meryl Siegal)
Investments, desires, identity negotiations
are affected by socially constructed
categories of gender, race, & class: Spain
(Livia Polanyi), France (Celeste Kinginger)
TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED
COMMUNICATION AS A SITE FOR
SOCIALLY RICH L2 LEARNING (10.19)
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Technology as medium enables
intercultural communication, multimedia
publication, distance learning, community
participation, identity formation
HS SFL Chat: Wider variety of functions
than face-to-face discourse (Darhower)
Community acceptance, engagement (Lam)
Remarkable literacy engagement (Black, Yi)
NEVER JUST ABOUT
ABOUT LANGUAGE (10.20)
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Many/most/all (?) L2ers try to transform
their worlds, seeking material, symbolic,
affective, self-affirming returns
L2 social contexts are sites of struggle
Proficiency ≠ success
How can/should L2 teachers promote
empowerment, social transformation?