New Approach to Language Learning & Acculturation: Sociocultural Theory & Narrative, Summaries of Literature

Download New Approach to Language Learning & Acculturation: Sociocultural Theory & Narrative and more Summaries Literature in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 1: Sociocultural Theory and Narrative 1 CHAPTER 1 Sociocultural Theory and Narrative This book examines second language acquisition (SLA) and culture acquisition, but not in the usual sense where the lexical, grammatical, and semantic systems are learned or acquired. Rather, it is about the attempt to adapt the self into a new context and a new world. It is about the struggle for participation in a new social environment. Participation has emerged in the SLA literature as a metaphor for learning a new language. The background for this model stems from sociohistorical and social constructionist theories; participation in society as described by the individual’s narrative can be interpreted as a metaphor for acquiring a new identity (Sfard, 1998; Pavlenko and Lantolf, 2000). SLA and acculturation can be accurately described as participation and reconstruction of the self. It is more than the individual becoming a repository of new knowledge. Participation is more effective as a way to think about language socialization because it connotes interactive communication between the learner and the new community, the way it occurs in the real world. As a complement to the older acquisition metaphor, participation as expressed in the form of the narrative is particularly appropriate. The roots of this theory can be found in the writings of Vygotsky (1978) in his theory of language learning as social interaction, as inner speech converted into outer. Interaction comes to play 1 Understanding Cultural Narratives2 in Bakhtin’s (1981) focus on identity in his discussion of the dialogic, the idea that a person can have different languages depending on the context, and that language, culture, and identity are fluid, dynamic processes. Traditional scientific understanding has been based on the establishment of laws or patterns that exist across contexts, as a deductive system of reasoning that is rule-based and thus independent of the forces of the environment in which the phenomenon exists. While this is a valid paradigm of research, it is best complemented by narrative-based research, which like its linearly logical, mathematical counterpart, also addresses issues of validity and reliability. Furthermore, narrative-based research is more appropriate in studying human behaviors and activities because of the nature of the subject. To study human beings is in many ways more complex than studying phenomena in the physical world because a human being is more complicated than a rock or a kind of gas (Polkinghorne, 1998, p. 10). At the heart of narrative research or anthropological inquiry rest the intention and the integrity of the researcher. This kind of investigation is not for everyone. Those who are uncomfortable with loose ends, with participation and interview as a kind of “deep hanging out” (Geertz, 2000), and the “holistic” view of things will not find themselves comfortable with narrative research. Those who need structure to be comfortable with research will find themselves better off using a more empirical or statistical method that has its roots in the traditional scientific method. Furthermore, it has long been a controversial fact for professionals in the scientific community that a form of research exists that relies on the personal factor in which the main form of research is socializing and the main instrument is the researcher. And yet in many ways, this form of research presents a “real picture of reality, of life as it exists in time and space” (Neisser, 1976, p. 2). And a careful researcher structures and triangulates the data so that this method has its own kind of rigor. For research into acculturation and identity, the narrative form of research is an appropriate tool. To better understand this form of research, we shall first explore the writings of two researchers previously mentioned whose work has been essential in moving the importance of context to the center of concerns in acculturation research and second language acquisition: Lev Vygotsky and Mikhail Bakhtin. In addition, the ideas of Jerome Bruner, who questioned empiricism as the only method of viewing phenomena, are all examined.