Theorizing and Analyzing Agency in Second Language Learning: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Second Language Acquisition, 84) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783092882 ISBN 13: 9781783092888

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

This book showcases how language learner agency can be understood and researched from varying perspectives by providing, for the first time, a collection of diverse approaches in one volume. The volume is organised into three main sections:the first sections offers an introduction to varying theoretical approaches to agency; the second section presents analyses of agency in a variety of empirical studies; and the third section focuses on the pedagogical implications of data-based studies of agency. The volume includes the work of researchers working in languages including English (ESL and EFL), Greek, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Truku (an indigenous language in Taiwan) and with both child and adult language learners. This collection will serve as a key reference for researchers of language learning and teaching, sociolinguistics and language and identity.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ping Deters is a Professor in the English Language Institute of Seneca College in Toronto, Canada.

Xuesong (Andy) Gao is an Associate Professor in the Division of English Language Education, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.

Elizabeth R. Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA.

Gergana Vitanova is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Central Florida, USA.

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Theorizing and Analyzing Agency in Second Language Learning

Interdisciplinary Approaches

By Ping Deters, Xuesong (Andy) Gao, Elizabeth R. Miller, Gergana Vitanova

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2015 Ping Deters, Xuesong (Andy) Gao, Elizabeth R. Miller, Gergana Vitanova and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78309-288-8

Contents

Contributors, 
Acknowledgments, 
1 Introduction to Theorizing and Analyzing Agency in Second Language Learning: Interdisciplinary Approaches Gergana Vitanova, Elizabeth R. Miller, Xuesong (Andy) Gao and Ping Deters, 
Part 1: Theoretical Approaches to Agency, 
2 Structure, Agency, Individualization and the Critical Realist Challenge David Block, 
3 Dialogical View on Language Learners' Agency: Connecting Intrapersonal with Interpersonal Hannele Dufva and Mari Aro, 
4 Examining Agency in (Second) Language Socialization Research, 
Patricia A. Duff and Liam Doherty, 
5 Theorizing Young Language Learner Agency through the Lens of Multilingual Repertoires: A Sociocultural Perspective Chatwara Suwannamai Duran, 
6 Sociological Approaches to Second Language Learning and Agency Carola Mick, 
Part 2: Analytical Approaches to Investigating Agency, 
7 Performing and Accounting Language and Identity: Agencyas Actors-in-(inter)action-with-tools Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, 
8 'He's the Star!': Positioning as a Tool of Analysis to Investigate Agency and Access to Learning Opportunities in a Classroom Environment Hayriye Kayi-Aydar, 
9 'Crossing' into the L2 and Back: Agency and Native-like Ultimate Attainment by a Post-critical-period Learner Adnan Ajsic, 
10 Analyzing Learner Agency in Second Language Learning: A Place-based Approach Peter W. Stanfield, 
Part 3: Pedagogical Practices for Agency, 
11 Agency, Anxiety and Activity: Understanding the Classroom Behavior of EFL Learners Christina Gkonou, 
12 Verbalizing in the Second Language Classroom: Exploring the Role of Agency in the Internalization of Grammatical Categories Próspero N. García, 
13 Critical Discourse Analysis in a Medical English Course: Examining Learner Agency through Student Written Reflections Theron Muller, 
14 Toward a Relationship-oriented Framework: Revisiting Agency By Listening to the Voices of Children Man-Chiu Amay Lin, 
15 Afterword Anna De Fina, 
Author Index, 
Subject Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Theorizing and Analyzing Agency in Second Language Learning: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Gergana Vitanova, Elizabeth R. Miller, Xuesong (Andy) Gao and Ping Deters

Agency Situated Historically

This book showcases how language learner agency can be understood and researched from varying perspectives by providing, for the first time, a collection of diverse theoretical, analytic and pedagogical approaches in one volume. The concept of human agency has generated considerable interest across various disciplines – philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology – for some time, and this scholarly conversation regarding how to understand humans' capacity to act shows no signs of abating soon. While the notions of agency and the self have always seemed inherently intertwined, agency has been far more difficult to define, although it has been viewed, understandably, as one of the many facets of the self. Thus, the idea of agency or our understanding of the nature of humans' capacity for agency has been, to a large extent, determined by historically influential models that explain the nature of the self.

At least four different models of selfhood have emerged and influenced scholars' perspectives regarding what constitutes both subjectivity and agency. The traditional understanding of self (for a summary, see Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010) is largely represented in myths and rituals, and these have helped humans understand the most significant events of their lives, such as birth and death. Body and spirit were viewed as two separate entities in this traditional model, and the spiritual reality was viewed as the higher one. The modernist conception of self was strongly influenced by Enlightenment era perspectives, and it was marked by what Hermans and Hermans-Konopka (2010: 87) call 'an unprecedented autonomy' with its different forms of individualism. The self was seen not only as possessing an essential and unchanging core but also as independent and rational. Choice and action, which have come to be closely associated with agency, form an important component of this rational, individualistic self. For centuries, or at least ever since Aristotle, agency has also been associated with consciousness. Contemporary philosopher Korsgaard (2009), for example, illustrates the importance of self-awareness for agency in her statement:

The identity of a person, of an agent, is not the same as the identity of the human animal on whom the person normally supervenes. I believe that human beings differ from the other animals in an important way. We are self-conscious of the grounds on which we act, and therefore are in control of them ... When you deliberately decide what sorts of effects you will bring about in the world, you are also deliberately deciding what sort of cause you will be. And that means you are deciding who you are. (Korsgaard, 2009: 19)

Deliberate, conscious choices and actions that are, at the same time, intrinsically moral underlie most Western perspectives on agency. Korgsaard's excerpt also reflects that, for a long time, and in different disciplines, the relationship between agency and identity has been perceived as deeply entangled. Human actions and experience have occupied a central role as well.

When outlining the development of self as subject in psychology, Blasi and Glodis (1995: 416) point out that '[i]n every intentional action that we perform, in every experience that we undergo, we experience ourselves, in the process of acting and experiencing, as related to our actions and experiences' (emphasis in original). Psychologists see the relationship between subjects, actions and experience as organic. Not all acts exemplify human agency, however. Agency requires not merely the ability to produce a change in the world, but also that acts should be knowingly, consciously undertaken by subjects. Thus, reflexivity has emerged as another significant component of agency (Kogler, 2012).

In contrast, in a movement that opposed modernism and came to be known as postmodernism, the self is viewed as decentralized and unstable. Perhaps most importantly in terms of agency, the self appears stripped of its personal autonomy. For instance, feminist poststructuralism (Weedon, 1997), which prefers the term subjectivity to identity and accentuates the discursive, languaged nature of selves, has been employed in applied linguistics exactly because of its focus on how discourses offer various positions for subjects. While there are different postmodern approaches, what characterizes them most broadly is an understanding of the self as constituted through language (Foucault, 1972; Lacan, 1977). Unlike the traditional or modern approaches to selves, postmodernists have emphasized the power structures that underlie human relationships. Yet these approaches are not entirely without their critics. A major point of criticism has been that they espouse a relativistic perspective. Another point of criticism that is more directly related to agency is that, while postmodern...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783092882
• ISBN 13: 9781783092888
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 296
• Herausgeber: Deters Ping, Gao Xuesong (Andy), Miller Elizabeth R.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland