Session 1 | Session 2 | Plenary Speakers

Course Descriptions by Session

Session 1: June 22 to July 3

World Englishes: New Questions for Policy, Proficiency, and Pedagogy
Suresh Canagarajah, The Pennsylvania State University

Two decades after Braj Kachru made a case for localized varieties of English with the neologism “Englishes,” we now face another disciplinary shift that further pluralizes the language. Researchers are studying the ways in which English increasingly serves as a contact language between multilingual people for transnational relations. Labeling it lingua franca English (LFE), scholars have begun to describe a hybrid variety that represents the values and identities of the participants, while facilitating communication across cultures. We face new questions about how to define ownership, language standards, nativeness, and speech community in the context of the changes inspired by globalization. In this course we will discuss differences in dominant and localized varieties of English; the challenges posed in researching and describing new Englishes; emergent models of language acquisition to explain multilingual communication; concerns about pedagogy and testing in a pluralistic environment; ideological positions on the role of English in globalization; and policy considerations for diverse communities in providing a place for English in their national life. Whereas research on World Englishes has hitherto focused on spoken discourse, we will pay equal attention to written discourse in this course.

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Writing in Second Languages
Alister Cumming, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

This course will review recent studies of learning, teaching, and assessing writing in second languages. We will consider the diverse contexts of writing in second or foreign languages (among learners of differing ages; in academic, work, and community settings; and in minority or majority situations), key issues and theories in curriculum and assessment, and approaches to analyzing learners’ texts, composing processes, and personal characteristics and orientations. Consideration of these topics will follow Leki, Cumming, and Silva’s (2008) synthesis of research on second-language writing (Routledge Publishers), with discussions of selected articles reporting results of innovative research. The course should be useful for experienced instructors of second-language writing, for graduate students preparing to do a thesis in this area, and for appreciating alternative methods of inquiry about this topic. Assignments will include some informal, in-class tasks as well as one written reflective analysis (of about seven pages) of a fundamental concept or issue in studies of second-language writing.

Psycholinguistic Approaches to Second-Language Development
Kees de Bot, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

In this course the focus will be on psycholinguistic processes that play a role in second- language development over the life span. Development includes both growth and decline of skills in a second language. The perspective taken here is an emergentist one, which means that it is assumed that language learning is closely linked to language use and that there are no assumptions on innate mechanisms that play a role. The main questions are how is knowledge acquired, both generally and specifically for languages, how is information stored in the brain, and what is the role of age, attention, and working memory in language learning. A part of the course will be on neurolinguistic aspects of language development. This is a booming field with many exciting findings and prospects, but also pitfalls that tend to be dismissed too easily. During the course the students will be asked to carry out a simple psycholinguistic experiment and report on it in class.

Cognition and SLA
Nick Ellis, University of Michigan

This course will present a cognitive analysis of the acquisition of second-language constructions. It will be rooted in psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, construction grammar, and the psychology of learning as these apply to second-language acquisition. Topics include (1) Implications of frequency effects in language processing for implicit learning and representation of a second language. Fluent language users are rational, their unconscious language representation systems optimally prepared for processing. Language learners are intuitive statisticians. Construction acquisition follows the general principles of category learning with schematic constructions emerging from usage. (2) Apparent irrationalities of SLA where input fails to become intake, and how these result from “learned attention” and transfer. (3) The psychology and pedagogy of explicit language learning. Explicit focus on form can be effective in helping learners acquire those aspects of second language that otherwise fail to become intake. (4) The nature of the interface between implicit and explicit language knowledge. (5) Symbiotic interactions of language structure, usage, and learning.

These approaches are illustrated using corpus linguistic analyses of input and of longitudinal learner language, laboratory experiments, and connectionist simulations of the acquisition of English morphosyntactic, verb-argument, and tense-aspect constructions. For their course assignment, students will be encouraged to consider how these approaches might be used to investigate the acquisition of constructions of interest in their research.

Implicit and Explicit Knowledge of a Second Language: Investigating Learning and Instruction
Yasuhrio Shirai, University of Pittsburgh

Theories of first- and second-language acquisition commonly distinguish “explicit” and “implicit” L2 knowledge. The role played by explicit knowledge in the acquisition of an L2 is highly controversial. According to the noninterface position, the two types of knowledge are viewed as separate, with explicit knowledge making no contribution to the development of implicit knowledge. In contrast, skill-building models adopt an interface position, claiming that explicit knowledge converts into implicit knowledge through practice. R. Ellis (1993, 1994) has advanced a weak-interface position, which claims that explicit knowledge does not convert directly into implicit knowledge but rather facilitates the processes through which implicit knowledge is acquired.

This course will examine methods for measuring the two types of knowledge, grammaticality complexity in relation to the two types of knowledge, and the nature of L2 proficiency. It will also consider the relative effects of implicit and explicit instruction on the acquisition of the two types of knowledge. The course will draw extensively on the relevant second language research literature and will critically examine studies that have investigated implicit/explicit knowledge, learning, and instruction.

Assessment for this course will consist of a short research proposal for investigating some aspect of the implicit/explicit distinction.

Language and Alzheimer’s
Robert Schrauf, The Pennsylvania State University

This course will examine the role of language in Alzheimer’s disease, as a disease experience at the level of the individual and as a disease entity in medical and societal discourse. In the biomedical model, at the level of the individual, Alzheimer’s is marked by a progressive aphasia, starting with severe word-finding difficulties and ending in either mutism or fluent “empty speech.” In contrast to this picture of relentless cognitive deterioration, person-centered approaches to dementia care emphasize the preserved abilities and selfhood of Alzheimer’s patients (Kitwood, 1992; Sabat, 2001). Indeed, it is a common observation that many patients show periods of “rementing” during which they speak lucidly and meaningfully (Thorpe, 1996). One such person-centered approach, the Communication Model, makes the assumption that patients are usually using whatever means available to them to communicate their needs and experiences, and caregivers are trained to attend to a larger array of pragmatic and contextual signals (McClean, 2006). In the same vein, at the level of society, there has been a growing movement to construct a new discourse about the disease around the concept of “brain aging” (Whitehouse, 2008) that would again emphasize preserved abilities and selfhood while eschewing the stigmatizing effects of the diagnosis.

Language as Symbolic Power
Claire Kramsch, University of California, Berkeley

Language is generally taught as a tool for communicating and exchanging information, for referring to the world, and for expressing one’s feelings. It is also taught as connoting or indexing social and cultural mind-sets, identities, and worldviews. But its constitutive, performative power as a symbolic system is often overlooked in language education. And yet from Facebook and MySpace to the current uses and abuses of language in political and marketing discourse, the performative dimension of language is gaining in importance in our everyday lives. It is often not so much what one says that is important, but that one has said it and made oneself visible and recognized by others. This “performative shift” (Yurchak, 2006) raises questions for language educators and prompts us to rethink what the goals of language learning should be.

This course will take the symbolic power of language as its central concern. It will explore the impact of sign-making and sign-using on the constitution of the symbolic self; the symbolic aspects of culture (face, footing, style, image schemas, and metaphoric projections); the symbolic representation of reality through literature; and the symbolic dimensions of human communication online (frames, timescales, and hyperreality). It will attempt to develop the notion of symbolic competence proposed by Kramsch (2006, 2008) and Kramsch and Whiteside (in press) to capture the more intangible and powerful aspects of language use and their effects on our understanding of ourselves and others.

The Contributions of Chaos/Complexity Theory to Applied Linguistics
Diane Larsen-Freeman, University of Michigan

This course will examine chaos/complexity theory in order to better understand its contribution to applied linguistics. Because it deals with complex, dynamic, nonlinear systems—systems that are of central concern in applied linguistics—the theory offers insights into areas of interest to applied linguists. We will begin by taking up one of them: a definition of language. Chaos/complexity theory offers an explanation of how language originally arose, how it has continued to evolve, and how it changes today. A second area revolves around the nature of first- and second-language development/acquisition. Understanding language development to emerge from language use contrasts starkly with an innateness account of language acquisition. A third area we will address is the nature of discourse. Any moment of speech action is seen as connected across multiple timescales and levels of human and social organization. A fourth area in the course will relate to the implications of a chaos/complexity theory for language teaching and learning. A case will be made for teaching language as a dynamic system in order to mitigate the “inert knowledge problem.” The course will conclude with a discussion of suitable research designs in applied linguistics from the perspective of chaos/complexity theory.

Lending a Hand: Gesture and L2 Learning and Teaching
Steven G. McCafferty, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The study of gesture in relation to L2 learning and teaching is an emerging area of research that appears to hold a good deal of promise. To date, studies have found that learners employ gesture for both communicative and developmental functions and that gesture can be integral to the language classroom as well. In addition to reviewing the L2 literature, the course will provide an overview of theories on the relationship of gesture to speech and the methods used to study gesture. Furthermore, the course will include relevant literature from L1 acquisition, anthropology, cognitive development, theories of the evolution of language, sociocultural theory, and other disciplines. The purpose of the course is to provide a foundation on which to begin to appreciate both the relevance of L2 gesture studies to applied linguistics as a whole and to gain a grasp of how to conduct research in the area.

Language and Identity
Tim McNamara, University of Melbourne

Theories of personal and social identity have changed radically in the past forty years, and these theories frequently have language as a central issue. It has taken some time for these changes to be felt in applied linguistics, partly because of its relative isolation from theory in the humanities, but they are now radically transforming our understanding of the relationship of language and identity. As “identity” is becoming a fashion in applied linguistics, it is important to examine critically the approaches to identity taken in current work in our field.

To this end, the course will introduce a number of contemporary approaches to understanding the way in which language is involved in the construction and indexing of social identity. The role of language in the identities associated with discourses of nation, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality will be examined. Language is also crucial to the ongoing performance of identity in face-to-face interaction, and the question of the way in which larger social identities are mediated within the face-to-face environment will be discussed. The implications of these theories for processes and outcomes of language learning will be considered, with particular reference to the learning and spread of English.

L2 Sentence Processing: Theory and Experimental Quantitative Research Methods
Nuria Sagarra, The Pennsylvania State University

The goal of this course is to provide an overview of research on second-language (L2) sentence processing and to gain hands-on experience in the use of moving-window and eye-tracking techniques. The course will be divided into two parts. Part 1 will present models of L2 processing (e.g., competition model, connectionism) and discuss recent empirical work about cognitive functions that affect processing (e.g., attention, working memory, language aptitude). Part 2 will focus on experimental quantitative research methods in psycholinguistics used for investigating L2 processing at the word level (e.g., lexical decision task, picture/word naming) and sentence level (e.g., self-paced reading, shadowing, semantic and structure priming, eye tracking, and event-related potentials (ERPs)). In this second part of the course, students will also learn to develop a moving-window and eye-tracking experiment, from creation of stimuli and experimental design to data collection and statistical analyses. Students will be asked to write a five-page proposal for a study on L2 sentence processing, using one of the techniques covered in class.

Technology, Mediation, and Second-Language Development
Steven L. Thorne, The Pennsylvania State University

This course will explore the theoretical and pedagogical implications of Internet-based technologies in a wide array of language education contexts. Course activities will include critical discussion of established as well as emerging Internet communication, information, and composition tools. We will also consider research and exploratory uses focusing on synthetic immersive environments and massively multiplayer online games. Course readings will include technology-related research drawing from second-language acquisition, sociocultural and activity theory, cultural studies, and educational theories of development. Participants will be expected to exit the course with a broad knowledge of educational uses of technology and will have the opportunity, through a variety of course activities, to focus on specific empirical, theoretical, and/or pedagogical contexts that relate to their academic and professional specializations.

Self, Identity, Agency: The Theory and Practice of Action-Based Learning and Teaching
Leo van Lier, Monterey Institute of International Studies

The goal of the seminar is to explore, describe, and study the impact of the interrelated constructs of self, identity, and agency on language learning and teaching. The constructs will be defined from a semiotic-ecological perspective and illustrated through classroom and contextual data. Throughout, an integration between theory and practice will be pursued.

We will examine major cultural, historical, social, cognitive, and educational models of self, identity, and agency, and study their relevance for language learning contexts. Related constructs such as motivation, autonomy, and engagement will also be addressed, both in terms of their conceptual underpinnings and the adequacy of the research methods commonly used to investigate them.

Materials for the seminar will consist of key readings that illustrate theoretical, empirical, and practical aspects of the issues, illustrating different perspectives and settings, including English language learners in the United States, bilingual environments, the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) movement in Europe, and other practices and initiatives in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that have been documented empirically and conceptually.

Participants will be invited to share data and experiences from their own work and study settings. Participants who take the course for credit will be required to submit a paper that discusses the topic of the seminar in relation to their own area of work and study.

Cognitive Linguistics and Its Applications to Second-Language Learning
Marjolijn Verspoor, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

This course will introduce students to the theory of cognitive linguistics—which takes language as part of general cognition and deals with categorization, metaphor, cultural models, and grammar as a conceptual organizing system—and explores its applications to second-language learning. After discussing general principles of CL theory, we will examine several studies that show how CL insights into underlying metaphors and core meanings may help L2 learners retain words and expressions more efficiently. We will also discuss how a cognitive approach may benefit learners with notoriously problematic grammar areas, such as understanding the English modal system or article system. The module is intended both for researchers planning to investigate the potential benefits of CL to L2 learning and for teachers of second languages who would like to enhance their teaching materials with CL insights.

Session 2: July 6 to July 17

Multilingualism: Psycholinguistic, Sociolinguistic, and Educational Perspectives
Jasone Cenoz, University of the Basque Country

This course will focus on different aspects of multilingualism and will include psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and educational perspectives. The structure of the course will be as follows:

Basic concepts in multilingualism. This part will include a discussion of the possible definitions of multilingualism and multilingual education and the similarities and differences between bilingualism and multilingualism. The concepts of communicative competence and multilingual competence will also be discussed in relation to the holistic and fractional views of bilingualism and multilingualism (Grosjean, 1992, 2008; Cook, 1995, 2002).
The influence of bilingualism on the acquisition of additional languages. This part will focus on the results of research on the differences between second- and third-language acquisition. It will discuss the differences between monolinguals and bilinguals as related to metalinguistic awareness and learning strategies (Cenoz, forthcoming; Jessner, 2006).
Multilingual societies. This section will focus on multilingualism and linguistic and cultural diversity in society and will explore the relationship between diversity and sustainable development. It will also focus on languages of wider communication and their contact with minority languages. Some European examples of multilingual societies will be given as related to differences in language policy (Extra & Gorter, 2008).
Multilingual education. This part of the course will discuss the concept of typology as applied to multilingual education and will focus on the characteristics of multilingual schools in different settings. Special attention will be devoted to interaction in multilingual classrooms. The final part of the course will discuss research methods in the study of multilingualism.

Classroom Interaction and Language Learning
Joan Kelly Hall, The Pennsylvania State University

This course will provide an introduction to the study of second- and foreign-language learning in classroom interaction that is based on a perspective of language learning as discursive practice. In this view, the source of language learning in classrooms resides not in individual learners, but in what is done in activity with them, that is, in the interactionally instantiated discursive practices constituting language classroom communities. These interactional practices are what gives fundamental shape to what individuals come to know as language and language learning. Through your participation in a variety of activities, including in-class and out-of-class readings, and in-class data sessions and discussions, it is expected that you will develop (1) an enhanced understanding of the intricate link between classroom discursive practices and language learning, (2) some practical skills in the analysis of classroom interactional data, and (3) tools to reflect on your own teaching practices and your students’ learning. If you have classroom data you would like to share in the data sessions, please e-mail Professor Hall.

Second-Language Teacher Education
Karen Johnson, The Pennsylvania State University
Paula Golombek, University of Florida

Grounded in recent theory and research on second-language teacher education, this seminar will explore teacher learning and professional development throughout teachers’ careers; the process of teacher socialization that occurs in classrooms, schools, and the wider professional communities where teachers work; and the creation and viability of professional development communities through pre- and in-service activities. The seminar will be organized around the following questions: (1) What are the epistemologies that have informed the knowledge base of second-language teacher education? (2) What are the theoretical perspectives that have shaped our views of teacher learning? (3) What are the institutional, social, and cultural contexts that impact teacher learning and language teaching? (4) What are current innovations and reform movements in second-language teacher education?

Qualitative Interviews in Applied Linguistics
Gabriele Kasper, University of Hawai’i at Manoa

Interviews have become the data collection method of choice for a range of topics and purposes in qualitative applied linguistic research, in particular (but not limited to) studies on the relationship between identity and language learning in multilingual societies conducted from poststructuralist and critical perspectives. Because interviews are a genre familiar from the media and other arenas of social life, they are often treated as unproblematic data sources in the applied linguistics literature. However, in order to choose the most appropriate types of data for any particular research purpose and to analyze interview data in accountable and insightful ways, it is necessary to examine just what kind of an activity interviews are, and what analytical strategies are most productive for their examination. Drawing on the literature on qualitative research interviews in other social sciences, the course will critically examine selected published interview studies in applied linguistics and offer some initial training in developing, conducting, and analyzing qualitative interviews on topics of the course participants’ choice.

Sociocultural Theory and the Pedagogical Imperative
James P. Lantolf, The Pennsylvania State University

SLA researchers have wondered about the relationship between basic research conducted to develop a systematic and scientifically grounded understanding of SLA and pedagogical practice. Some have suggested that there need not be any direct or even indirect relationship between theory and practice, while others feel it is important to attempt to make research and theory relevant to practice. The issue to be addressed in this course is that sociocultural theory must, by necessity, be relevant to educational settings. This is the pedagogical imperative. The PI requires that education be the activity of artificially and intentionally promoting development. This is achieved through praxis or the dialectical unity of theory and practice.

Vygotsky argues that the true test of a theory does not take place in the experimental laboratory, but in practice where theories meet the world and where the world meets theories. The course will examine Vygotsky’s argument with regard to L2 education. The crux of the argument is that instruction must be based on a well-organized conceptual (i.e., scientific) understanding of language that must be presented to learners in ways that obviate the need for them to struggle to figure out the concepts and principles that enable users to make meaning through the language. The more complex the concept or principle (e.g., aspect, mood, lexical knowledge, metaphor), the more explicit instruction must be. The pedagogical challenge is to make explicit knowledge accessible to learners in ways that can be internalized and connected to practical communicative activity (e.g., using the language in other educational and everyday activities). Vygotsky also argued that the only good instruction is that which leads rather than follows development. This notion he formulated as the well-known, but often misunderstood, zone of proximal development. The course will consider how conceptual knowledge and social mediation in the ZPD promote language development.

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Computational and Statistical Methods for Corpus Analysis
Xiaofei Lu, The Pennsylvania State University

This course will provide a hands-on introduction to the core and advanced computational and statistical methods for analyzing corpus data. We will first introduce some of the state-of-the-art computational tools for text processing and linguistic annotation (including lexical, morphological, and syntactic annotation). We will follow with a demonstration of tools that can be used to effectively query raw and linguistically annotated (including part-of-speech tagged and syntactically parsed) corpora to extract occurrences of specific linguistic patterns and grammatical structures. Next, we will cover some of the most essential statistical methods used in analyzing and interpreting information extracted from text corpora. We will conclude with a discussion on how these methods have been combined in recent corpus-based studies and how they may be implemented in student-proposed research projects. This course will be highly applied, and there will be substantial opportunities for demonstrations, exercises, and discussions. Prior experience in computational and statistical analysis is not assumed. By the end of the course, students will be expected to have a good grasp of the computational and statistical techniques necessary for processing, annotating, and analyzing corpus data. Evaluation will be based on the completion of a short take-home assignment for students who register for graduate credit.

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Error Correction in L2 Classrooms
Lourdes Ortega, University of Hawai’i at Manoa

Correcting language errors in students’ speech and writing is thought to be a central part of every teacher’s job, a professional duty that many language teachers excel in and that most language students expect. However, if one turns to the research for advice, the evidence is seemingly contradictory at best, and dismaying at worst. For every study that shows positive effects for error correction, there is another study that reports no effects at all. In addition, it is unclear what the value and purpose of error correction might be in communication-oriented and content-based curricula, as well as in many contexts for L2 learning where nativeness is not a desired outcome.

In this course we will examine a selection of the empirical, theoretical, and educational literature that addresses error correction in L2 classrooms, including in speaking and writing, in traditional face-to-face formats, and in technology-mediated formats. Course discussions will explore fundamental but difficult questions such as these: Is accuracy a worthwhile pursuit in second-language teaching? Is error correction worth the time investment and the affective risk? What, how, and when should we correct our students’ language? We will also critically evaluate how L2 error correction is conceptualized from the diverse theoretical perspectives of cognitive interactionism, Vygotskian sociocultural theory, conversation analysis, and systemic-functional linguistics.

L2 Classroom-Based Assessment
Pauline Rea-Dickins, University of Bristol
Matthew E. Poehner, The Pennsylvania State University

Despite recurring calls for a closer connection between teaching and assessment, the two largely remain separate activities with distinct goals and methods. Assessment may be characterized by a measurement orientation that is realized most fully in standardized testing, but that also informs much classroom-based assessment, even when the goal is to support learning (e.g., formative assessment, assessment for learning). In this course we will explore the theoretical assumptions inherent in much contemporary assessment practice before proposing an alternative and gradually increasing view that understands assessment as an integral part of classroom activity (Rea-Dickins, 2006, 2007; Poehner, 2008). Assessment need not be a stand-alone activity that conflicts with or is even complementary to teaching but may be conceived as a perspective on classroom activity, a way of framing and interpreting teaching and learning that requires systematic interpretation of various kinds of evidence of learner abilities in order to continually support development. This view aligns with recent proposals, including “assessment as inquiry” (Delandshere, 2002), “proximal formative assessment” (Erickson, 2007), and “dynamic assessment” (Haywood & Lidz, 2007). Rather than a new set of techniques or instruments, this way of thinking about assessment requires a conceptual framework to both document and support learner development. Illustrations are drawn from familiar activities (e.g., portfolios, projects) and recent innovations (e.g., corpus-informed assessment).

The Interactional Instinct: The Evolution and Acquisition of Language
John Schumann, University of California, Los Angeles

This class will explore an evolutionary theory of language as a complex adaptive system that exists as a cultural artifact without any requirement for innate abstract grammatical representations. Language acquisition will be seen as an emotionally driven process relying upon innately specified “interactional instinct.” This genetically-based tendency provides neural structures that entrain children acquiring their native language to the faces, voices, and body movements of conspecific caregivers. It is essentially an innate attentional and motivational system that drives children to pay attention to the language interaction in their environment and to acquire that language by general learning mechanisms that subserve declarative and procedural knowledge. This mechanism guarantees the ubiquity of language acquisition for all biologically normal children. Second-language acquisition by older adolescents and adults no longer has recourse to this mechanism, and, therefore, success in second-language learning is extremely variable. Occasionally, however, learners with sufficient aptitude may develop affiliative bonds with target language speakers such that successful second-language acquisition is possible.

Critical Language Testing: Power, Consequences, Responsibility, and Responses
Elana Shohamy, Tel Aviv University

The first part of the course will focus on theories and research on the power of test, motivations and intentions for introducing language tests, and the impact they have on individuals and societies, especially with regard to knowledge, washback, ethicality, fairness, and rights. Reference to national tests such as No Child Left Behind in the United States, various international tests and frameworks such as the Common European Framework of Reference, and the widespread phenomenon of language tests for citizenship tests will be made throughout the course. The second part of the course will focus on the “power” of constructive views of assessments addressing the various strategies and responses to the “power of tests.” These will include assessment for learning, feedback and diagnosis, dynamic assessment, test accommodations, responsibility of testers, rights and protest of test takers, codes of ethics and practice, and methods for negotiations and interpretation of assessment procedures with various stakeholders (e.g., language and testing policy makers, and language acquisition researchers). These strategies will be examined for their effectiveness and contribution to the use of assessment in more constructive, fair, and valid ways.

A Conceptualization-Based Approach to Grammar: Corpus, Discourse Analysis, and Cognitive Linguistics
Susan Strauss, The Pennsylvania State University

This course is based on a conceptual grammar (Strauss, 2006; Strauss, Lee, and Ahn, 2006) approach to language analysis and pedagogy. Conceptual grammar combines three theoretical/methodological paradigms: discourse analysis, corpus, and cognitive linguistics. Using this approach, the course will provide an overview of English grammar as viewed from the perspective of conceptualization. As a means of comparison and contrast, the course will also examine grammatical constructions in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French, and Persian with respect to such traditional issues as definiteness, tense and aspect, motion verbs, and perception verbs. We will observe that when speakers select grammatical forms (in any language), they are generally making choices over other possible, competing forms within that linguistic system, and in so doing, express elements of speaker stance, cognition, interaction, and culture. The approach is applicable to first- and second/foreign-language teaching and learning environments. No previous knowledge of or experience with corpus, DA, or cognitive linguistics is required.

Introducing Sociocultural Theories through Narratives of Second-Language Learning and Teaching
Merrill Swain, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

The purpose of this course is to further students’ understanding of second-language learning through the lens of Vygotskian and neo-Vygotskian sociocultural theory (SCT). We will examine key concepts such as mediation, the zone of proximal development, inner and private speech, regulation, internalization, the genetic method, and activity theory. Understanding these concepts will be facilitated by reading narratives about second-language learning and teaching that highlight the concepts. Understanding these concepts will also be facilitated by discussing research related to the input/output debate from an SCT perspective; languaging (collaborative dialogue, private speech); the role of the L1 in L2 learning and teaching; identity; agency; motivation; and emotions.

Non-Western Perspectives on Applied Linguistics: Toward a Globalizing Applied Linguistics
Sinfree Makoni, The Pennsylvania State University

The last decade has witnessed a rapid expansion of applied linguistics in postcolonial contexts. The objective of this course is to analyze the changes that are being brought about in applied linguistics because of the rapid expansion of applied linguistics in these postcolonial contexts. Even though the expansion poses challenges, it also creates new opportunities for a retheorization of applied linguistics. Applied linguists in postcolonial contexts are under ethical and professional pressure to demonstrate the theoretical adequacy of their work, hence the need to re-orient some foundational applied linguistic frameworks, such as language, language learning, bilingualism, teaching, and assessment, to render these meaningful in such contexts. Postcolonial applied linguistics is also relevant to Euro-American contexts. The large migration to Europe and North America of people from postcolonial contexts has produced large communities with roots outside those geographical regions. In an attempt to address the applied linguistic concerns of such communities, postcolonial applied linguistics is increasingly transcontinental and cosmopolitan in approach. Postcolonial applied linguistics is, however, not a monolithic approach to applied linguistics. There are tensions and overlaps within it as well. As a result, the course will have four main objectives:

emerging perspectives of applied linguistics in Asia: histories, paths, and approaches
Latin American perspectives on applied linguistics, and the challenges of doing applied linguistics in languages other than English (Can applied linguistics be bilingual? If so, what are the epistemological consequences of such bilingualism?)
colonial and postcolonial applied linguistics in Africa
transcontinental and cosmopolitan approaches to applied linguistics

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Second-Language Conversations
Johannes Wagner, University of Southern Denmark

This course will introduce basic concepts in conversation analysis, with a variety of examples from second-language talk (primarily ESL). The introductory part will cover such issues as transcription; aspects of sequentiality; repair, correction, and uptake; word searches, delays, and problem solving; and theories of social participation and learning. At the end of the course the participants should have a basic understanding of the research questions that conversation analytic methodology is able to investigate, as well as experiences with the analysis of interactional data from second-language talk.

Recommended prereading:

R. Gardner and J. Wagner (eds.). 2004. Second Language Talk. London, New York: Continuum.

B. Lafford (ed.). 1997. Second Language Acquisition Reconceptualized? The Impact of Firth and Wagner. The Modern Language Journal, vol. 91, Focus Issue.

K. Richards and P. Seedhouse (eds.). 2005. Applying Conversation Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Plenary Speakers

June 24

Talbot J. Taylor, College of William and Mary
Linguistic Reflexivity and Lexical Acquisition

How is it possible for a sign or for any linguistic unit or event to mean, to refer to something, to be a proper name, to be true or false, to be a repetition of an earlier sign, and so on? These are clearly heavily loaded questions, because meaning, referring, being a name, being true, being a token of a linguistic type are all properties that the Western tradition has assumed to be universal to every language in every culture, in every period: indeed, to every possible language.

Naturally, foundational questions about these properties also have their corollaries in developmental inquiry, that is, in the study of the child’s acquisition of language. If, for instance, language is assumed to possess the kinds of properties that are commonly ascribed to it either because of the immanence of these properties in the signs themselves or because of what the mind naturally attributes to them, then scientific inquiry into the acquisition of language by children is automatically framed in quite specific terms.

On the other hand, the framing of developmental linguistic inquiry would be quite different if it were based instead on the hypothesis that many of the properties of language are reflexively constructed by means of a speech community’s metadiscursive practices. It is this latter hypothesis that frames the present paper’s discussion of two questions that continue to bedevil the study of lexical acquisition. How does a child map a word onto a specific meaning when there are, in principle, indefinitely many ways that the word could be understood? How do they learn to generalize that meaning beyond the single referent first encountered, to whole categories of objects, properties, and relations?

July 1

David McNeill, University of Chicago
Notes on the Origin of Language: What Evolved, and How

Taking gesture into account, we see language as a dynamic system combining imagery and encoded categorial content during real-time utterances. This talk will focus on language origins, adopting the view that gestures are components of language, not accompaniments, ornaments or ‘add-ons’, but actually integral parts of it. The methodological approach this position suggests is to ask whether (and if so, how) a theory of language origin explains the dual semiotic system of imagery and conventional code. Contrary to widespread recent enthusiasm, the ‘gesture-first’ theory fails this test—in fact, fails it twice: it predicts what did not evolve and does not predict what did. An alternative, called ‘Mead's Loop’, will be described which explains how language was multimodal from the beginning. Mead's Loop provides a brain link between thought, language, and hand that creates the orchestration of vocal and manual movements by significances other than those of the actions themselves, a crucial step toward human language. George Herbert Mead wrote that, “[g]estures become significant symbols when they implicitly arouse in an individual making them the same response which they explicitly arouse in other individuals” (1974, p. 47). At a motor level, the Loop provides a way for significant imagery—that carried by gesture—to orchestrate motor control in Broca’s Area. What evolved, it says, was a new ability to self-respond to one’s own gestures; this is the Mead’s Loop ‘twist’, and it opened mirror neurons to the range of significances carried by gestures. All this took place in the speech areas of the brain and gestures thus became available as speech-orchestrating units. At a social level, Mead's Loop, with its twist, gives one’s own gestures the character of a social interaction (and current-day gestures are more likely with a social ‘other’ present than, say, talking privately into a tape recorder). Natural selection of Mead's Loop could have arisen whenever sensing oneself as a social object is advantageous—as when imparting information to infants, where it gives the adult the sense of being an instructor as opposed to being just a doer with an onlooker (the chimpanzee way). This locates a step (for there must have been many) in the origin of language in a childrearing scenario, and in early human’s unique family life in general. The locus of this natural selection would have been in those adults, mothers, who were better able to impart cultural information, because they had some awareness of their own gestures and hence inclined towards Mead's Loop.

July 8

Anita Pomerantz, University at Albany
An Analysis of Two Practices in Which Patients Offer ‘Unlikely’ Explanations for Symptoms

Patients not only describe their symptoms during medical visits, they frequently present possible explanations for those symptoms. Although patients often display uncertainty about the explanations that they raise, they typically portray them as reasonable and at least somewhat likely possibilities. There are times, however, when patients raise possible explanations and yet cast them as unlikely or improbable. Two such practices are analyzed. The first practice involves patients’ raising and arguing against serious health conditions as explanations for their symptoms; the second practice involves patients’ raising and arguing against commonplace or benign conditions as explanations for their symptoms. The analysis includes a discussion of how the multiple constraints and concerns that operate in the medical consultation shape the discursive practices and how each practice functions.

July 15

Carl Ratner, Humboldt Institute
Philosophical and Political Aspects of Social Science

This speaker will demonstrate the following: (1) Sociocultural phenomena are infused with philosophical principles and political features. (2) To accurately and comprehensively understand social science phenomena, it is vital to understand their philosophical and political aspects. (3) The theories and methodologies that study these phenomena are infused with (guided by) philosophical and political assumptions. (4) These assumptions determine the extent to which these theories and methodologies are accurate and comprehensive.

The speaker will provide examples of the ways in which philosophical and political issues are basic to social phenomena and to social science theories and methodologies. The examples include the nature of culture, agency, and language, and theories regarding them.

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