Toward a sociocognitive approach to second Llanguage acquisition

Abstract

This article develops the notion of a sociocognitive perspective on second language acquisition (SLA), proposed as an alternative to the cognitivism pervading the field. By sociocognitive, I mean a view of language and language acquisition as simultaneously occurring and interactively constructed both "in the head" and "in the world."First, I develop a view of language and its acquisition as social phenomena-as existing and taking place for the performance of action in the (socially-mediated) world. Second, I describe the cognitive nature of language and its acquisition, focusing especially on recent developments in connectionism. Third, I introduce sociocognitive views of language and posit a social interpretation of connectionism as bridging the gap between cognition and social action. Fourth, I discuss sociocognitive perspectives on first language acquisition. Fifth, I describe the cognitivist biases of much SLA research, then suggest how sociocognitive approaches can help overcome them. I end by considering implications of the perspective I develop in this paper.Theorists and researchers tend to view SLA as a mental process, that is, to believe that language acquisition resides mostly, if not solely, in the mind. (Davis, 1995, pp. 427-428) Most SLA researchers view the object of inquiry as in large part an internal, mental process. (Long, 1997, p. 319) SLA has been essentially a psycholinguistic enterprise, dominated by the computational metaphor of acquisition.

Spirituality and Second Language Education

“…Proponents of language socialization theory and critical Applied Linguistics (e.g., Atkinson, 2002Atkinson, , 2010Canagarajah, 1999;Pennycook, 2001; Simon-Maeda, 2011; Watson-Gegeo, 2004) firmly insist that the learners acquire a second or foreign language in interaction with others. This view stands in sheer contrast with the mainstream cognitive paradigm that has dominated Applied Linguistics, based on which the learner in viewed as acquiring the language in relative isolation.…”

On Situating the Stance of Socio-cognitive Approach to Language Acquisition

“…The notion of ‗social mind' THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 1593 (Matsuoka & Evans, 2004) is the product of social interaction. Hence, as Atkinson (2002) insists -language is always mutually, simultaneously and co-constitutively in the head and in the world‖ (p.537)-between inside schema and outside tool. Accordingly, Atkinson touches down on four implications of socio-cognitive approach to SLA: (1) the apprentice learns from the master in the classroom as well as the world outside the classroom; (2) viewing language as social connotes that second language acquisition is able to reinforce related fields such as discourse, identity and culture; (3) considering humans as holistic in existence, the employment of qualitative research in general and ethnography in particular; and (4) through learning one's identities are going to be constructed.…”

“…The term socio-cognitive is raised by Atkinson (2002) as the social-cognitive hybrid (Matsuoka & Evans, 2004). Atkinson calls it socio-cognitive, to emphasize the interplay between the patterns in the physical world and the social world to which we become attuned, and the patterns we develop and employ internally (cited in Mislevy, 2008).…”

A Sociocognitive-Transformative Approach to Teaching Writing

“…This approach further claims that language learning occurs when learner"s internal mechanism interacts with linguistic environment and social environment (Ellis, 1994, p. 243). It also stands in the principle that language is not acquired for the sake of acquiring it but to perform social actions (Atkinson, 2002). Transformative learning, on the other hand, relates to actual behavior that learners should possess to contribute to community as a whole and participate in social activities.…”