Abstract
This chapter chronicles a narrative inquiry comprised of a collection of sixteen stories about how students, teachers and administrators experience the L-café, a social space for foreign language learning located on the campus of a large national university in Japan. Adopting a narrative style, this introductory chapter begins with a description of the L-café and a brief outline of its history, after which it tells the story of the five-year ethnographic study leading up to the current inquiry. It then provides an account of how the theoretical perspective informing the interpretation of the stories expanded from a focus on community of practice to encompass constructs from human geography, mediated discourse analysis and complex dynamic systems theory. It concludes with a synopsis of the participants’contributions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 Garold Murray and Naomi Fujishima
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Murray, G., Fujishima, N. (2016). Exploring a Social Space for Language Learning. In: Murray, G., Fujishima, N. (eds) Social Spaces for Language Learning: Stories from the L-café. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-53010-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-53010-3_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-70841-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53010-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)