Abstract
Like any other scientific enterprise, the study of language acquisition (LA) evolves: the issues which dominate its agenda, the consensus on what constitute its `data’, the hypotheses that motivate its research programmes—all wax and wane in the cycles we know and expect in human affairs. At the end of the 20th century thinking in language acquisition research was showing signs, we believe, of a new kind of convergence. This volume aims to explore how a number of contemporary approaches and insights in LA research might be coherently interrelated through a perspective that can be called ecological. While much research on LA continues to consider the individual acquirer largely in closed-system terms, there is growing attention to the acquirer’s extensive interaction with their environment spatial, social, cultural and so on. Recent studies in such diverse fields as discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, robotics, and cognitive semantics underline the heuristic value of the perspective promised in our title: ecology of language acquisition. In this introductory chapter we first offer an ecological critique of some dominant paradigms of LA research. We then go on to suggest how an ecological perspective motivates new approaches to acquisition issues, and how it informs each of the contributed chapters which follow. Our hope is that readers of all theoretical persuasions will find in this volume ideas, arguments and insights which, even if not woven into a fully-fledged theoretical fabric, at least point a way to fruitful theoretical reassessment.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Agar, M. (1985). Institutional discourse. Text, 5 (3), 147–168.
Ard, J. & Homburg, T. (1983). Verification of language transfer. In S. Gass and L. Selinker (Eds.), Language transfer in language learning (pp.157–167). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Arundale, R. (1999). An alternative model and ideology of communication for an alternative to politeness theory’. Pragmatics 9 (1), 119–154.
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
Bannink, A. (in press). Negotiating the paradoxes of spontaneous talk in advanced L2 classes. In C. Kramsch, (Ed.) (in press). Language socialization, language acquisition: Ecological perspectives. Continuum Press.
Barker, R. (1968). Ecological psychology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Barwise, J. & Perry, J. (1983). Situations and attitudes. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Bickerton, D. (1981). Roots of language. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers.
Bloomfield, L. (1970). A set of postulates for the science of language. In C. Hockett (Ed.), A Leonard Bloomfield anthology (pp. 128–138). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1972)
Bourdieu, P. (1985). The genesis of the concepts of habitus and field. Sociocentrum, 2 (2), 11–24.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513–531.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Broselow, E. & Finer, D. (1991). Parameter setting in second language phonology and syntax. Second Language Research, 7 (1), 35–60.
Brown, D. (1993). After method: Toward a principled strategic approach to language teaching. in Matis, J. (Ed.), Strategic interaction and language acquisition: Theory, practice and research (pp. 509–520). Georgetown University Roundtable on Language and Linguistics.
Brown, P. (1999). Notes contributed to Round Table I (Language acquisition in cross-cultural perspective: challenges for research) at the Amsterdam Research Workshop on Ecology of language acquisition, University of Amsterdam, January 1999.
Brunswick, E. (1943). Organismic achievement and environmental probability. Psychological Review, 50 (3), 255–272.
Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (1985). Methodological preliminaries. In J. Katz (Ed.), The philosophy of linguistics (pp.80–125). Oxford University Press.
Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin and use. New York: Praeger.
Chomsky, N. (1989). Some notes on economy of derivation and representation. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 10, 43–74.
Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.
Cole, M., Engeström, Y., & Vasquez, O. (1997). Mind, culture, and activity: Seminal papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. Cambridge University Press.
Cole, M., Hood, L., & McDermott, R. (1997). Concepts of ecological validity: Their differing implications for comparative cognitive research. In M. Cole,Y. Engeström & O. Vasquez (Eds.), Mind, culture, and activity. Seminal papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (pp. 49–57). Cambridge University Press.
Cole, M., Hood L., & McDermott, R. (1978). Ecological niche picking: Ecological invalidity as an axiom of experimental cognitive psychology. Unpublished paper, The Rockefeller University.
Coffins, J. (1996). Socialization to text. In M. Silverstein & G. Urban (Eds.), Natural histories of discourse (pp. 203–229). University of Chicago Press.
Cook, V. (1985). Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 6, 1–18.
Cook, V. (1993). Linguistics and second language acquisition. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.
Cook, G. (1997). Language play, language learning. English Language Teaching Journal, 51(3), 24–231.
Cook, G. (2000). Language play, language learning. Oxford University Press.
Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the Internet. Cambridge University Press.
Deacon, T. (1997), The symbolic species. New York: W.W. Norton Co.
Ducrot, O. (1984a). La description sémantique en linguistique. In Le Dire et le dit (pp. 47–66). Paris: Ėditions de Minuit.
Ducrot, O. (1984b). Structuralisme, énonciation et sémantique. In Le dire et le dit (pp. 67–94). Paris: Ėditions de Minuit.
Dulay, H. & Burt, M. (1973). Should we teach children syntax? Language Learning, 23 (2), 245–258.
Dulay, H. and Burt, M. (1977). Remarks on creativity in language acquisition. In M. Burt, H. Dulay, & M. Finocchiaro (Eds.), Viewpoints on English as a second language. New York: Regents.
Eckman, F. (1977). Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis. Language Learning, 27, 315–330.
Edwards, J. (1994). Multilingualism. London: Routledge.
Ellis, N. (1998). Emergentism, connectionism and language learning. Language Learning, 48, 631–664.
Epstein, S., Flynn, S., & Martohardjono, G. (1996). Second language acquisition: Theoretical and experimental issues in contemporary research. Behavioral and Brain Sciences,19 (4), 677–758.
Erickson, F. & Schultz, J. (1981). When is a context? Some issues and methods in the analysis of social competence. In J. Green & C. Wallatt (Eds.), Ethnography and language in educational settings (pp. 147–160). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Felix, S. (1985). More evidence on competing cognitive systems. Second Language Research, 1 (1), 47–72.
Ferguson, C. (1977). Baby Talk as a simplified register. In C. Snow & C. Ferguson (Eds.), Talking to children: Language input and acquisition (pp. 219–235). Cambridge University Press.
Firth, A. & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal, 81 (3), 285–300.
Rege, J., Bohn, O., & Jang, S. (1997). The production and perception of English vowels by native speakers of German, Korean, Mandarin and Spanish. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 437–470.
Flynn, S. (1993). Interactions between L2 acquisition and linguistic theory. In F. Eckman (Ed.), Confluence: Linguistics, L2 acquisition and speech pathology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Fodor, J., (1983). The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Frake, C. (1997). Plying frames can be dangerous. In M. Cole, Y. Engeström & O. Vasquez (Eds.) Mind, culture, and activity. Seminal papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (pp. 32–46). Cambridge University Press.
Gardner, R. (1985). Social psychology and second language learning. London: Edward Arnold.
Goffman, E. (1979). Footing. Semiotica, 25, 1–29.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row.
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Green, J. & Wallat C. (1981). Ethnography and language in educational settings. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Gumperz, J. (1981). Conversational inference and classroom learning. In J. Green & C. Wallatt (Eds.) Ethnography and language in educational settings (pp. 3–23). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Hanks, W. (1996). Language and communicative practices. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Harnad, S. (1993). Grounding symbols in the analog world with neural nets. Think, 2 (1), 12–78.
Harris, R. (1990). On redefining linguistics. In H. Davis, & J. Talbot J. Taylor (Eds.) Redefining linguistics (pp. 18–52). London: Routledge.
Haugen, E. (1972). The ecology of language. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Heath, S. (1983). Ways with words. Cambridge University Press.
Hernandez, A., & Bates, E. (1999). Bilingualism and the brain. In R. A. Wilson and F. C. Keil (Eds.), MIT encyclopedia of cognitive science (pp. 80–81). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hewstone, M. & Giles, H. (1986). Social groups and social stereotypes. In W. B. Gudykunst (Ed.), Intergroup communication (pp. 10–20). London: Edward Arnold.
Hutton, C. (1998). Linguistics and the Third Reich: Mother-tongue fascism, race and the science of language. London: Routledge.
Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Irvine, J. (1996). Shadow conversations: The indeterminacy of participant roles. In M. Silverstein & G. Urban (Eds.), Natural histories of discourse (pp. 131–160). University of Chicago Press.
Itkonen, E. (1991). Universal history of linguistics: India, China, Arabia, Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Jordens, P. and Hulk, A. (2000). Retrieved August 22, 2000 from the web site of the Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics.
Kachru, B. (1996). The paradigms of marginality. World Englishes, 15, 241–255.
Kellerman, E. (1983). Now you see it, now you don’t. In S. Gass and L. Selinker (Eds.), Language transfer in language learning (pp. 53–74). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford University Press.
Kramsch, C. (Ed.), (in press). Language socialization, language acquisition: Ecological perspectives. Continuum Press.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Lambert, W. (1974). Culture and language as factors in learning and education. In F. Aboud and R. Meade (Eds.), Cultural factors in learning and education (pp.79–106). Bellingham: Fifth Western Washington Symposium on Learning.
Lamendella, J. (1977). General principles of neurofunctional organization and their manifestation in primary and nonprimary language acquisition. Language Learning, 27, 155–196.
Lantolf, J. (2000). Sociocultural theory and second language learning. Oxford University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997a), Chaos/complexity science and second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 18 (2), 141–65.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997b). Address at the closing lenary session of AILA 1996. AILA Review, 12, 87–92.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (in press). Discussion notes. In C. Kramsch (Ed.) (in press). Language socialization, language acquisition: Ecological perspectives. Continuum Press
Larsen-Freeman, D. & Long, M. (1991). An introduction to second language acquisition research. Harlow UK: Longman.
Lave, J. (1997). What’s special about experiments as contexts for thinking. In M. Cole, Y. Engeström & O. Vasquez (Eds.), Mind, culture, and activity. Seminal papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (pp. 57–70). Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.
Lenneberg, E. (1967). The biological foundations of language. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.
Levinson, S. (1988). Putting linguistics on a proper footing: explorations in Goffman’s concepts of participation. In P. Drew & A. Wootton (Eds.), Erving Goffman: An interdisciplinary appreciation (pp. 161–227). Oxford: Polity Press.
Lightbown, P. & Spada, N. (1999). How languages are learned. Oxford University Press.
Long, M. and Sato, C. (1984). Methodological issues in interlanguage studies: an interactionist perspective. In A. Davies, C. Criper & A. Howatt (Eds.), Interlanguage (pp. 103–119). Edinburgh University Press.
Mackey, W. (1980). The ecology of language shift. In P. Nelde (Ed.), Languages in contact and in conflict (pp. 35–41). Zeitschrift fűr Dialektologie und Linguistiek 32. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Makkai, A. (1993). Ecolinguistics: Toward a new paradigm for the science of language? London: Pinter Publishers.
McDermott, R. & Tylbor, H. (1983). On the necessity of collusion in conversation. Text, 3, 277–297.
McLaughlin, B. (1985). Second language acquisition in childhood. Vol.2: school-age children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
McLaughlin, B. (1990). The relationship between first and second languages: Language proficiency and language aptitude. In B. Harley, P. Allen, J. Cummins & M. Swain (Eds.), The development of second language proficiency. Cambridge University Press.
Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mehan, H. (1998). The study of social interaction in educational settings: Accomplishments and unresolved issues. Human Development, 41 (4), 245–269.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (N. Smith, Trans.). New York: Humanities Press. (Original work published 1945)
Milroy, J. (1999). The consequences of standardisation in descriptive linguistics. In T. Bex & R. Watts (Eds.) Standard English: the widening debate (pp. 16–39). London: Routledge.
MITECS (2002). MII online Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science entry for ‘Cultural Psychology’. Retrieved May 30, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.cognet.mit.edu/MIIECS/Front/topic_index.html.
Morgan, C. (1925). Emergent evolution. London: Williams and Norgate.
Mühlhäusler, P. (1996). Linguistic ecology: Language change and linguistic imperialism in the Pacific region. London: Routledge.
Nayar, P. (1994). Whose English is it? TESL-EJ, 1 (1), Fl.
Nelde, P. (1984). L’écolinguistique-aspects méthodologiques de la linguistique de contact. AILA Review, 1, 35–47.
Ochs, E. & Schieffelin, B. (Eds.) (1979). Developmental pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.
Ochs, E. & Schieffelin, B. (1983). Acquiring conversational competence. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
O’Grady, W. (1987). Principles of grammar and learning. University of Chicago Press.
Pallotti, G. (1996). Towards an ecology of second language acquisition: SLA as a socialization process. In B. Wertens, T. Bongaerts & E. Kellerman (Eds.), Proceedings of EUROSLA 6. Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen, 55, 121–135.
Patkowski, M. (1990). Age and accent in a second language: A reply to James Emil Flege. Applied Linguistics, 11, 73–89.
Philips, S. (1972). Participation structures and communicative competence: Warm Springs children in community and classroom. In C. Cazden, V. John & D. Hymes (Eds.), The function of language in the classroom (pp. 370–394). New York: Teachers College Press.
Phillipson, R. & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1996). English only worldwide or language ecology? TESOL Quarterly, 30, 429–452.
Pierce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 9–31.
Poole, D. (1992). Language socialization in the second language classroom. Language Learning, 42 (4), 593–616.
Prüst, H. (1992). On Discourse Structuring, VP Anaphora and Gapping. PhD. Thesis, University of Amsterdam.
Quine, W. V. O. (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. The Philosophical Review 60, 20–43.
Rampton, B. (1995). Crossing: Language and ethnicity among adolescents. London: Longman.
Rutherford, W. (1982). Markedness in second language acquisition. Language Learning, 32, 85–108.
Saussure, F. de (1966). Course in general linguistics (W. Baskin, Trans.). New York: McGraw-Hill. (Original work published 1916)
Saville-Troike, M. (1982). The ethnography of communication. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Schieffelin, B. (1979). Getting it together: An ethnographic approach to the study of the development of communicative competence. In E. Ochs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental Pragmatics (pp. 73–108). New York: Academic Press.
Schumann, J. (1986). Research on the acculturation model of second language acquisition. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 7, 379–392.
Schutz, A. (1967). Collected papers (Trans. M. Natanson). The Hague: Mouton.
Scollon, R. (1982). The rhythmic integration of ordinary talk. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing discourse: Text and talk (pp. 335–350). Washington D.C.:Georgetown University Press.
Scollon, R. (1998). Mediated discourse as social interaction. London: Longman.
Scollon, R. (in press). Cross-cultural learning and other catastrophes. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), (in press). Language socialization, language acquisition: Ecological perspectives. Continuum Press.
Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. (1981). Narrative, literacy and face in interethnic communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. (1995). Intercultural communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
Scovel, T. (1969). Foreign accents, language acquisition, and cerebral dominance. Language Learning, 19, 245–254.
Scovel, T. (1988). A time to speak: A psycholinguistic inquiry into the critical period for human speech. New York: Newbury House.
Singleton, D. (1995). A critical look at the critical period hypothesis in second language acquisition research. In D. Singleton & Z. Lengyel (Eds.), The age factor in second language acquisition (pp. 1–29). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Slobin, D.I. (1967). A Field Manual for cross-cultural study of the acquisition of communicative competence. Berkeley, CA: Language-Behavior Research Laboratory.
Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1988). Relevance: Communication and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Spolsky, B. (1989). Conditions for second language learning. Oxford University Press.
Stern, H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford University Press.
Taylor, T. (1997). Theorizing language. Amsterdam: Pergamon Press.
Toolan, M. (1996). Total speech: an integrational linguistic approach to language. Durham, N.C.: DukeUniversity Press.
Ungerer, F. and Schmid, H. J. (1996). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. Harlow, UK: Addison Wesley Longman.
Van Dam van Isselt, J. (1993). “Her name is—uh dat weet ik niet”: Authenticity in the L2 classroom. PhD Thesis. University of Amsterdam.
Van Dam, J. (in press). Ritual, face and play in a first English lesson: bootstrapping a classroom culture. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), (in press). Language socialization, language acquisition: Ecological perspectives. Continuum Press.
Van Lier, Leo (1988). The classroom and the language learner. London: Longman.
Van Lier, Leo (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy and authenticity. London: Longman.
Van Lier, Leo (2000). From input to affordance: social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 245–259). Oxford University Press.
Varenne, H. & McDermott, R. (1999). Successful failure: The school America builds. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wagner, J. & Firth, J. (1997). Communication strategies at work. In G. Kasper & E. Kellerman (Eds.), Communication strategies: psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives (pp. 323–344). London: Longman
Weinreich, U., Labov, W. and Herzog, M. (1968). Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In W. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel (Eds.), Directions for Historical Linguistics (pp. 95–189). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Wexler, K. (1991). On the arguments from the poverty of the stimulus. In A. Kasher (Ed.), The Chomskyan Turn. Oxford: Blackwell.
White, L. (1989). Universal grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Leather, J., Dam, J.V. (2002). Towards an Ecology of Language Acquisition. In: Leather, J., van Dam, J. (eds) Ecology of Language Acquisition. Educational Linguistics, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0341-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0341-3_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6170-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0341-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive