Understanding second language acquisition

x Contents 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 Other antecedents: orientations and attitudes First signs of renewal: self-determination theory and intrinsic motivation Motivation from a distance: EFL learners orientations and attitudes Language learning motivation: possible in situations of conict? Dynamic motivation: time, context, behaviour Looking forward: the L2 Motivational Self System Behold the power of motivation Summary Annotated suggestions for further reading 171 175 178 181 183 185 188 189 190 9 Affect and other individual differences 9.1 Personality and L2 learning 9.2 Extraversion and speaking styles 9.3 Learner orientation to communication and accuracy 9.4 Foreign language anxiety 9.5 Willingness to communicate and L2 contact 9.6 Cognitive styles, eld independence and eld sensitivity 9.7 Learning style proles 9.8 Learning strategies 9.9 The future promise of an all-encompassing framework: self-regulation theory 9.10 Summary 9.11 Annotated suggestions for further reading 192 193 196 198 200 202 205 206 208 211 10 Social dimensions of L2 learning 10.1 The unbearable ineluctability of the social context 10.2 Cognition is social: Vygotskian sociocultural theory in SLA 10.3 Self-regulation and language mediation 10.4 Some ndings about inner, private, and social speech in L2 learning 10.5 Social learning in the Zone of Proximal Development 10.6 Negative feedback reconceptualized 10.7 Interaction is social: Conversation Analysis and SLA 10.8 The CA perspective in a nutshell 10.9 Some contributions of CA-for-SLA 10.10 Learning in CA-for-SLA? 10.11 Grammar is social: Systemic Functional Linguistics 10.12 Learning how to mean in an L2 10.13 Language learning is social learning: language socialization theory 10.14 The process of language socialization: access and participation 10.15 The outcomes: what is learned through L2 socialization? 10.16 Sense of self is social: identity theory 10.17 L2 learners identity and power struggles: examples from circumstantial L2 learning 10.18 Close impact of identities on L2 learning: examples from elective L2 learning 216 217 218 219 221 224 225 227 228 229 232 233 234 236 237 239 241 243 212 214 245 Contents 10.19 Technology-mediated communication as a site for socially rich L2 learning 10.20 Never just about language 10.21 Summary 10.22 Annotated suggestions for further reading References Author index Subject index xi 248 250 251 253 255 290 296 This page intentionally left blank Preface Writing a graduate-level introduction to SLA has been a challenge and, like all challenges, both a curse and a blessing in the effort. Perhaps part of the difculty comes from the fact that I have always looked at textbooks with suspicion. Textbooks constitute an attempt to enshrine the ofcial story of a discipline because they are, as Kuhn (1962/1996, p. 137) noted, pedagogic vehicles for the perpetuation of normal disciplinary knowledge. In so doing, they can become unwitting tools for the inclusion and exclusion of what counts as validated work, and they portray disciplines as frozen in time and space. Good textbook authors also seek to tell an interesting story to their readers, and good stories always demand rhetorical sacrices. Some of the rough edges of a discipline, the ambiguous trends, the less tellable details, must be shunned for the sake of coherence and linearity, and a big story rather than a collection of small stories (Georgakopoulou, 2006) must be produced. Good stories also tell as much about the narrator as they do about an event or a discipline. Textbooks are, therefore, onesided views of any eld, even when at rst blush they may come across as perfectly innocent compendiums of available-to-all, neutral knowledge. I was painfully aware of these dangers as I wrote this textbook, although I cannot honestly say that this awareness has helped me avoid the pitfalls. Another difculty that made this challenge exciting but agonizing, and one that I only discovered as I put myself to the task, is that there is a certain schizophrenia in writing for an imagined audience of students (the real consumers of textbooks) while still feeling the usual presence of ones research community (the audience I was accustomed to addressing as a writer of research articles). Namely, what might appeal to and benet our students versus our fellow researchers can be radically different. Thus, not only the language, but also the content, must be thoroughly calculated when writing a textbook. My strategy for dealing with this challenge was to constantly ask myself: What would my students benet from hearing about this topic? How can I make the material more engaging, the story more palatable? How can I make my passion for studying L2 learning contagious to them? I also drew upon the frequent questions, comments, reactions, complaints and amazements that my students have shared with me over a full decade of teaching SLA during each and every semester of my career thus far. I have had the good fortune of teaching these courses across four different institutional cultures, and this has afforded me a special kind of cosmopolitan view of the world of SLA that I truly owe to my students intelligence, enthusiasm and candour. Their names are too many to xiv Preface mention, their faces all spread across the geography of the United States that I have travelled. But all of them have been a strong presence as I wrote. I do not know if I have succeeded in writing this book for my students before my colleagues, but I can honestly say I have tried my best to do so. I owe a debt of gratitude to many people who have supported me in this project. It has been a privilege to work with the Understanding Language Series editors, Bernard Comrie and Greville Corbett, whose astute comments and unagging enthusiasm beneted me chapter after chapter. Norbert Schmitt suggested my name to them when they thought of adding a volume about SLA to the series, and so this opportunity would not have come my way without his initiative. At Hodder Education, the professionalism, kindness and savvy author psychology of Tamsin Smith and Bianca Knights (and Eva Martớnez, initially) have been instrumental in helping me forward as I completed the project. Two of my students, Sang-Ki Lee and Castle Sinicrope, kindly volunteered their time to help me with comments and with tedious editorial and bibliographical details when it was much needed. A number of colleagues lent their time and expertise generously when I asked them to read chapters of the book: Zoltỏn Dửrnyei, Scott Jarvis, Alison Mackey, Sandra McKay, Carmen Muủoz and Richard Schmidt. Each of them took the request seriously and provided supportive and critical feedback that I have tried to incorporate. During the spring of 2008, Linda Harklau (at the University of Georgia) and Mark Sawyer (at Temple University in Japan) used a prepublication manuscript of the book in their courses, and so did Robert Bley-Vroman and myself in two sections of SLA at the University of Hawaii. I am most grateful to Linda, Mark and Robert (and their students and mine) for the faith they showed in the book. Knowing how diverse their disciplinary interests are, their positive reactions gave me condence that the textbook would be friendly for use in very different contexts, and this was an important goal I had set for myself. I cannot thank enough Mark Sawyer, in particular, who became a most knowledgeable and engaged interlocutor during the last months of drafting and redrafting, emailing me his detailed feedback on each chapter after reading it with his students in Japan. Many conversations with Kathryn Davis, Nina Spada (during an unforgettable summer spent at the University of Toronto) and Heidi Byrnes have also found their ways into small decisions along the writing process. Michael Long, as always, is to be thanked for his faith in me and for his generous mentorship. How I wish Craig Chaudron, my friend, mentor and colleague, could have been here too, to support me as he had so many times before with his meticulous and caring feedback, his historical wisdom and his intellectual rigour. His absence was always felt as I was writing this book, locating and leang through volumes from the huge SLA library that I have inherited from him with much sadness. I thank Lucớa Aranda for many mornings of yoga and many moments of teaching me fortitude, giving me encouragement and keeping me sane. John Norris stood by me with his usual hard-to-nd thoughtfulness, uncompromising intellect and warm heart. He was and is a vital source of inspiration and strength. With such rich help from so many experts and friends, one would think all the imperfections and aws that arose as the project unfolded would have been caught Preface xv along the way, and surely amended by the end of the process. Much to the contrary, I am cognisant of a number of shortcomings, all of which are my exclusive responsibility. In the end, if nothing else, the experience of writing a textbook this textbook has humbled me, has renewed my passion for SLA in all its forms and has reminded me that in the making of a discipline, as in life, we should not take anything for granted. I have dedicated this book to my parents, who have never taken for granted my life- and language-changing decisions. They have always given me the two gifts of unconditional love and deep understanding. Lourdes Ortega South Rim of the Grand Canyon 7 July 2008