Language Acquisition And Language Socialization

Description:
Language Acquisition and Language Socialization brings together well-known scholars in two relatively distinct fields - language acquisition and language socialization - and from a variety of orientations within applied linguistics (psycholinguistics, socioloinguistics, anthropological linguistics, educational linguistics) to describe language development from a relational perspective. The notion of ecology offer a convenient metaphor for the complex variational processes that take place within individuals, and between individuals and their social and cultural environment, as they attempt to learn the language of the Other. The chapters are a response to the three main questions discussed inthe Introduction: What conceptual models best capture the ecological nature of language learning? What research approaches are most likely to illuminate the relationship between language and social structure? How is educational success defined for language acquisition and language socialization? For researchers, the main strength of the book will be its empirical and phenomenological base, and the variety of methods used.The theme of ecology affords a fresh look in to phenomena not encompassed by the language acquisition or languge socialization research alone. It puts in to question traditional ways of looking at time, space, subjectivity and identity in the acquisition of another langauge and its use in a variety of social contexts. For language teachers and educators, this book avoids the traditional dichotomies such as language acquisition vs. language use, and captures the complex and holistic nature of language learning and teaching. Claire Kramsch is Professor of German and Foreign Language Acquisition, University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: how can we tell the dancer from the dance?, Claire Kramsch. Part I Language development as spatial and temporal positioning: language acquisition and language use from a chaos/complexity perspective, Diane Larsen-Freeman; modelling the acquisition of speech in a 'multilingual' society - an ecological approach, Jonathan Leather; language development and identity - multiple timescales in the social ecology of learning, Jay L. Lemke. Part II Language development as mediated, social semiotic activity: becoming a speaker of culture, Elinor Ochs; cross-cultural learning and other catastrophes, Ron Scollon; an ecological-semiotic perspective on language and linguistics, Leo van Lier. Part III Discourse alignments and trajectories in institutional settings: 'I'd rather switch than fight' - an activity theoretic study of power, success and failure in a foreign language classroom, James P. Lantolf and Patricia B. Genung; discoursal (mis)alignments in professional gatekeeping encounters, Srikant Sarangi and Celia Roberts. Part IV Interaction rituals in language acquisition and use: ritual, face and play in a first English lesson - bootstrapping a classroom culture, Jet van Dam; negotiating the paradoxes of spontaneous talk in advanced L2 classes, Anne Bannink.

Author Biography:
Claire Kramsch is Professor of German and Foreign Language Acquisition at the University of California, Berkeley.