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Three Fundamental Concepts in Second Language Acquisition and Their Relevance inMultilingual ContextsAuthor(s): Claire Kramsch and Anne WhitesideReviewed work(s):

Source: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 91, Focus Issue: Second Language AcquisitionReconceptualized? The Impact of Firth and Wagner (1997) (2007), pp. 907-922Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers AssociationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4626140 .

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Three FundamentalConceptsin Second LanguageAcquisitionand Their Relevance nMultilingualContextsCLAIREKRAMSCHDepartmentfGerman5323 DwinelleUniversityfCalifornia,erkeleyBerkeley,A94720Email:[email protected]

ANNEWHITESIDEEnglish s a Second anguage375 Alabama t.City ollegef an FranciscoSanFrancisco, A94110Email:awhitesi@ccsfdu

This article considershow 3 fundamental onceptsof second language acquisition SLA),the native peaker,nterlanguage,nd the anguage earnerhave fared ince Firth nd Wag-ner (1997). We review he ascendancyof theseconceptsand theirrelationship o the tra-ditional dichotomiesof language learningversus anguage use and individualmind versussocial-context-as-environment.e discussgeopoliticalchangesof the 1990s and the relatedtheoretical hifts rom tructuralistheories odiscourse-based nd constructionistocial the-ories,whichpaved thewayforFirth nd Wagner.We examinesubsequenteffortso reframeSLAas socialprocess ndknowledge s socialaction, rguing hat uchnotions s collaborativedialogue,affordance,nd investment ave reconceptualized he conceptsof output, nput,and motivation ithout, owever,scapingtheir tructuralistoots.Lookingat data frommul-tilingual xchangesbetween mmigrantsecorded n shops in California,we suggest hat 3fundamentalonceptsbe treated s discursive,ocially,ndhistoricallyelative ategories, iththesubjectposition fthe researcher actoredn.SINCE ITS INCEPTION, SECOND LANGUAGEacquisition SLA) researchhas tried o take ntoaccount the fact thatacquisitiondoes not hap-pen only nthe earner'smind,but nthe nterac-tion of the mindand thesocial context Brown,Malmkjaer, Williams, 996). Although he re-search domain of language and mind is firmlyestablishedwithininguisticsnd psychology,hesocial dimension fSLAhas comeprominentlyothefore nlyn the ast20years r so (for xcellentreviews f the social turn nSLA,see Block,2003;Breen, 2001; Siegel,2003). Thissocialdimensionof SLA is sometimes eenas being ntensionwithitspsychological ounterpart,s evidencedby heheftyebate elicitedbyFirth ndWagner 1997).This tension has been nowhere more apparent

thanin debatessurrounding he sacred triadofconceptsthatform he foundation fpsycholin-guistic SLA: native versus nonnative speaker(NS vs.NNS), learner, nd interlanguage. yfo-cusingtheir criticismsn these threeconcepts,Firth ndWagnerdidmuch to illuminate he so-cialaspects f field hathad beenpredominantlypsycholinguisticnnature.Whathas been thefateofthese oncepts ince1997, nd do theytill avetheoretical alidityor LAresearch oday?This articlefirst ivesthe historical ontext nwhich to understandthe tension between lan-guage learningand language use in SLA priorto 1997. It then discussesthe impactthat Firthand Wagner's 1997) articlehas had on thewaywe viewSLA's fundamental oncepts.Takingtheconcreteexampleof mmigrantsearning o sur-vive inguisticallynthemultilingualnvironmentof a globaleconomy,texploresthe mplicationsof Firth ndWagner 1997) for hewaywe ookatSLA data today. ast, t evaluatesthe theoretical

TheModern anguage ournal,1,FocusIssue, 2007)0026-7902/07/907-922 $1.50/0?2007 TheModernLanguage ournal

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908 TheModern anguage ournal 1 (2007)validity f the threeconceptsforfuture LA re-search.HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The originalpurposeofsecondlanguage (L2)learningresearchwas to help improve anguageinstruction nd to better control the variablesthatwent nto nstructed LA. Learnerswerecon-ceived of as NNS strivingo acquire an L2 un-der the guidance of a teacher,who was usuallythoughtof as an NS of the language. In the1980s,the role of social contextwas addressedin variouswaysby psycholinguistsxploringthelearning hatwent n incurricula nd classrooms(Breen, 1985; Breen & Candlin, 1980; Canale& Swain,1980), through nputand interaction(Long, 1981) and through he developmentofpragmaticnd discourse ompetence Allwright,1980; Edmondson, 1985; Kramsch, 981, 1985).All these researchefforts o define and charac-terize the social contextof SLA wereultimatelymeant to identify teachablebodyofknowledgethatwould help the learner's nterlanguage p-proximate,vermoreclosely, Sways f peaking.The NS was seen as the warrant f authentic seof anguage n real-lifeituations. uthenticityasat first ound nNS use of standardgrammar,d-iomatic exicon,and pragmatic ppropriateness,even thoughmanypsycholinguistsoon becameconcernedwith he social and culturalvariationto be foundin both NNS and NS speech (e.g.,Ellis, 1985; Rampton,1987; Selinker& Douglas,1985;Wong-Fillmore,979).The view of social context s an environment(cf.Doughty& Long, 2003,p. 153) for earningthatwasultimatelyo takeplace in the mind waspredicated n threebasicconcepts:

1. NS target: he NS was to be differentromChomsky's1965) idealspeaker-hearer, ho ives"in a completelyhomogeneousspeech commu-nity, ho knows ts anguage perfectlynd is un-affected ysuch grammaticallyrrelevantondi-tions as memory imitations, istractions,hiftsofattention nd interest,nd errors randomorcharacteristic)n applyinghis knowledge f thelanguage in actual performance" p. 3). SLA'sconcept of the NS was not based on some de-contextualizedUniversalGrammar, ut, rather,on howreal speaker-hearers sed the languagein everydayife.But the NS was still genericre-ality. he spoken grammar f the NS suspiciouslyresembledinguists'tandardized rammarf thewrittenanguage and the etiquetteconventionsof middle-class erbal behavior. n a sense, theanalysthad replaced the teacherin evaluatingprogress owards he NS target.

2. Learner: The notion of theL2 learner wascoined at a timewhen SLA wanted to distanceitself rom esearch n teachingmethods nd fo-cus instead on the one doingthelearning e.g.,Tarone & Yule, 1989). Thus, the termlearner,rather hanstudent, as chosen to denote some-one engaged na psycholinguisticrocess f nter-nalizing bodyof inguistic nowledge,whetherinan academic ettingr nnatural nvironments.That knowledge, r rather,tsrepresentationnthemind,wasseen as thenecessary rerequisitefor the developmentof communicative ompe-tence,that s, anguageuse.Hence theargumentmade byKasper (1997) in herresponseto Firthand Wagner 1997) that heA in SLA standsforthe ndividual cquisitionof inguistic,ognitive,and pragmaticknowledge hatcan be separatedfromanguageuse.Because learnerswere seen as exclusivelyn-gaged in the processof acquiringa knowledgethatbydefinition heydid not have, t was onlya smallstepto define earnersbywhattheywerenot.Hence theconceptofNNS,whichmeasuredall earners gainst n NS norm fcommunicativecompetence.Thisnorm,determined y inguistsand languageteachers,madeNNSsintodeficientcommunicators. he difficulty,otenvisioned tthe time, s that, lthoughthe statusof learnerwasa temporaryondition presumably ne daythe earningwould be completed nd one wouldno longerbe a learner),NNS statuswasperma-nent. Someone who had not acquired the lan-guagefrom irth ouldnotbydefinition ecomean NS,butonly near-nativepeaker t the most.Thus,thedyadNS-NNS essentialized othpartiesin an idealized status hatoccultedmuchvaria-tion, onflict,nd change.3. Interlanguage:Interlanguagewas a psy-cholinguisticonceptmeanttovalidate earners'errors yconsidering hem not as reprehensiblelapses but as positive videnceof learning, hatis, of the restructuring,eneralizing, nalyzing,inferencing,nd testing fhypotheses oingonin the mind. The originaldefinition ySelinker(1972)-"a hypothesized eparate linguistic ys-tembased on the observableoutputwhich re-sultsfrom learner'sattempted roductionof atargetanguagenorm" p. 117)-was a nonjudg-mentaldefinition hat tressed hecoherenceorinner ogicof learner's anguage.The definitiongivenbyBialystoknd Sharwood-Smith1985)-"the systematicanguage performance in pro-duction nd recognition futterances) y econdlanguage learnerswho have not achieved suffi-cient evels ofanalysis f inguistic nowledge rcontrol fprocessing o be identified ompletelywith native peakers" p. 116)-focused on the



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ClaireKramschnd AnneWhiteside 909transitional atureof nterlanguage,hegap be-tweenNNS and NS performance. oth internalcoherenceand transitionalityere whatanalystssaw as theprimaryeatures f nterlanguageseeBlock,2003). Theyalso enabled languageteach-ers to understandhow best to intervene n or-der to facilitatehe transition romnterlanguageperformanceofully eveloped anguageperfor-mance. Note that terms nd expressionsike ob-servableutput, roductionf targetanguage orm,and language erformanceid not entailanycon-sideration f the socialcontext, venthough necould arguethat utput, roduction, nd perfor-mance werenot onlypartof language learningbut also of anguageuse.

By he1990s,heftyiscussions ere aking laceregarding hescope and formof SLA theory.milestone pecial ssue ofthe TESOL QuarterlynSLA theory Spolsky, 990) was followedbyon-goingdebates as to whetherwe shouldstrive ora unified heorywithpredictive ower (Beretta,1991;Gregg, ong,Jordan, Beretta, 997;Long1990, 1993), adopt a new ontologyaltogether(Lantolf,1996, 2007), or "accept the existenceofmultiple heories nd, aboveall,multiple er-spectiveson research" Block, 1996, p. 78). Inaddition,SLA research was starting o addressconcerns bout languageand culture Kramsch,1993), language and identity Norton Peirce,1995;Rampton, 995),andlanguage ocialization(Poole, 1992).In the ate 1990s,thesocial dimension fSLAmoved centerstagewhen Firth nd Wagnerat-tackedhead-on the distinctionetween anguagelearningand language use at the 1996 Interna-tional Association fApplied LinguisticsAILA)Congress n Finland. Twoyearsbefore (March,1994), a panel organized byLeo van Lier at theannual conferenceof theAmericanAssociationofApplied Linguisticsn Baltimorebroughtto-getherscholars n psycholinguisticsnd educa-tional inguistics' o discuss xplicitlyherelationbetween anguage learning nd languageuse inSLA. Although hedistinction etween earningand using a language had been made before,2it was the first imethat t was the object of apublic debate. The common forumbroadeneda discussion that had been confined to the di-chotomy: ognition ersusnput nd interaction,to a morecomplex dichotomy: nowledge s rep-resentation ersusknowledge s action,or indi-vidual mind versus social context.At stake waswhether he NNS was to be seen as a languagelearneror as a languageuser, nd whether the-oryof the mind or a theory fpracticewas better

for nderstandingherelationshipetween earn-ingand use,representationnd action.Firth and Wagner,coming as theydid fromwithin European traditionn applied linguis-tics,were more orientedtoward he social thanmanyof theirAmericancolleaguesof the time.By reanalyzing he data of theirEuropean col-leagues,Faerch ndKasper 1983,as cited nFirth& Wagner, 997), in a broaderethnographic er-spective,weretryingorecapture social dimen-sion thattheyfelt even a functionallyrientedbranchofSLA like nterlanguage ragmaticswasmissing.Firth nd Wagner's1997 articlerepre-sented a radical attack on traditional LA be-cause it challengedSLA's "fundamental otionsof earner, onnative, ative peaker,nd nterlan-guage" (p. 286)." Theydenounced the reductionof real-lifencounters nd natural ocial interac-tions o mere ourcesof nput, ather han eeingthem as processesofsocialization, hat s, learn-ing processes n theirownright. o understandwhy hey rought nto thediscussionfields uchas language socialization, onversation nalysis,task-based esearch, nd researchon NNS iden-tity, e have to remember hatbytheend ofthe1990sgeopolitical hanges n the earning fEn-glish, herapidglobalization f economicoppor-tunity,nddisciplinaryhiftsnthe ocial scienceswere offering ew vocabulariesto explain SLAprocesses.GEOPOLITICAL AND DISCIPLINARY SHIFTS

By hemid-1990s,hegeopolitical ituation adchangeddrasticallynd so had the focusof nter-est in SLA research.Firth nd Wagner's 1997)pushfor "holistic, io-social LA" (p. 296), thatis, theircall fordecenteringSLA and embed-ding it more firmlyn a social, ecological con-textof languageand language-related ractices,echoed the ocialturn hat pplied inguistics astaking t the timeunder a series ofgeopoliticaland disciplinaryhiftssee Block; 2003; Kramsch,2000).On the geopoliticalscene, the 1990s saw theexponentialgrowthfEnglish s an internationallanguageunderconditions f ncreasingmultilin-gualism,displacement,nd migrationsee, e.g.,Coleman, 2006; Graddol, 2000). Mere masteryof a grammaticalystem as no longerseen as aguaranteeofemploymentr continuedemploy-ment on the ob market Canagarajah, 1993).More important han having the rightmentalrepresentations as the ability o participatenconversations,o earn thecommunicativetrate-gies and tacticsnecessary o be perceivedand



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910 TheModern anguage ournal 1 (2007)accepted as a competentmember of a commu-nity fpractice Heath & Kramsch, 004).Together with these geopolitical changes,the 1990s witnessedmportant evelopmentsnsociolinguistics,way rom tructuralistiews ndtowarddiscourse-based nd even construction-ist views of the social world. In the late 1970sand the 1980s,the spectacularriseofdiscourseanalysis nd itsapplicationto SLA (e.g., Hatch,1978;Kramsch, 981; Larsen-Freeman,980) hadraisedhopes that hesocial constructionf real-ity hrough iscoursewould come into tsown nSLA (for review,eeJaworski Coupland,1999;Trappes-Lomax, 004). It was hoped that SLAresearcherswould reconnectwith heHymesianethnographic radition f inquiry hat had pro-vided the fieldwith henotion ofcommunicativecompetence, nd that 2 acquirerswouldbe seennot as learnersof a linguisticystem utas new-comers to a givendiscoursecommunity.ut thepowerofChomskyanheoryn inguisticsnd thepreeminence f thecognitive verthesocialpre-vented discourseanalysis romhavingthe deepimpact t could havehad on SLA research.In addition,SLA researchin the 1990s wit-nessed a shiftn interest wayfromtheoreticallinguistics nd Westernpsychology s the pri-maryrelevantdisciplinestoward more sociallygroundedtheories, uch as those offered ySo-vietpsychology,ociology,nd anthropologyndtheir ttendantinguistic ranches, nd also eco-logically ased theories fknowledge.As a result,we saw thegrowingnfluence n SLA research fvariousfieldsdedicatedto thestudy fthe socialaspectsof anguage:

1. Sociocultural heory,hat s,theadaptationofVygotsky's1978) theoryfthemind nd Leon-tiev's 1978) activityheoryo the tudyftherela-tionship f anguage,thought,nd activityn theinternalizationfL2 knowledgefrom he socialto thepsychological lane (Lantolf, 000).2. Languageemergence heory,hats, heviewthat anguage earnings a complexand dynamicprocess n whichvariouscomponents mergeatvarious evels Ellis& Larsen-Freeman,006).3. Conversationnalysis,hat s,thesociologi-cal analysis fconversationsn everydayife anditsapplication o SLA (Gardner& Wagner, 004;Markee,2000;Seedhouse, 2005;Wong,2000).4. Language socialization,nboth ts ociocul-tural and sociocognitive trands.The sociocul-tural trand, epresented y Bayley nd Schecter(2003), Duff (in press), Duff and Hornberger(in press),Watson-Gegeo 2004), and Zuenglerand Cole (2005), defines anguage socializationas theway linguisticnd culturalknowledge re

constructed hrough ach other, nd language-acquiring hildren r adults re active nd selec-tive gents n bothprocesses" Watson-Gegeo&Nielsen,2003,p. 157). The sociocognitivetrand,representedbyAtkinson 2002) and Atkinson,Churchill,Nishino,and Okada (2007), stressesthefactthatthe social and thecognitiven SLAaremutuallyonstitutive.5. Language ecology, hat s,the critical tudyofthe interrelationshipetweentheL2 and thenatural nvironmentf tsusers Kramsch, 002;Leather& vanDam, 2002;vanLier,2004).

It is withinthis social turn n SLA research(Block,2003) thatwehave toread Firth ndWag-ner's 1997) assertionhat he"socialand contex-tual orientations o language [are] unquestion-ably n theascendancy"p. 295). Since then, hegrowth f nterestn the social dimension f SLAhasgainedmomentumnd is reflectednthewaySLA's threefundamentalonceptshavebeen in-terpretedn the ast10years.RECONSIDERING SLA'S THREEFUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

In their ritique ftheexclusivelyinguisticrpsycholinguisticrameof SLA, Firth and Wag-ner (1997) advocatedbroadening tsthreefun-damentalconceptsto includethesocial and thecultural.NS Versus NS

Firth nd Wagner's 1997) critiqueof theNSechoed someof themisgivingsoiced n theearly1990s byCook (1992), Davies (1991), Medgyes(1994), Rampton 1990), and others.The objectoftheir riticism astwo ong-held ssumptions:that heNS was stable,monolingual ntitypeak-inga homogeneousstandard anguage,and thatthe NS of a firstanguage (Li) should be themodel forall L2 learners.We consider each oftheseassumptionsn turn.The NS notion was meant to shift he atten-tionofteachers nd researchers rom he formalproperties f the inguisticystems described ngrammarsnd dictionariesothe iving ropertiesof anguageas it sactually poken neverydayifein a monolingual,homogeneousspeechcommu-nity. ut, n fact, ccordingto Firth nd Wagner(1997), theNS notionwastheproduct f prevail-ingmonolingualorientation f SLA thatdid nottake nto ccountthe enormous ariationsmongNSs with egardto their dherence to any(stan-dard) languageor anguageuse.Much ofSLA wasbased on the "tendentious ssumption hat NSsrepresent homogeneousentity, esponding n



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ClaireKramschnd AnneWhiteside 911each and every ccasion in a patterned nd pre-dictable fashion" p. 292). Unlike rulesofusagethat ouldbe standardized, ulesofuse definitelycould not;therewasno "general, niversal et ofrules,"no "comparablebaselineof NS-NS inter-actions" p. 292) as therewasforgrammar.n thelast 10years,homogeneousspeech communitiesmadeup ofmonolingual,monocultural ationalshave become less and less ofa reality.he speechcommunitiesnvisaged y LAhave turned ut tobe imagined ommunities opulatedby maginedspeakers-hearersKanno & Norton,2003), andresearchers ike Pavlenko (2006) have accusedlinguistictheory of "militantmonolingualism"(p. xiii).Furthermore,n the last 10 years, he issueoftheNS hasbeencaughtup in thepolitics frecog-nition.Manyof the world'sNSs do not speakthe standard anguage,whichis in manycasesan ex-colonial anguage,nor do they peakonlyone language.Many mmigrantso ndustrializedcountriesre NSs ofminorityanguageswhocode-switch r code-mixnaturally etweentheminor-ity nd the dominantanguage e.g., Spanglish rChinglish).Theyare NSs ofminorityanguages,buttheirNS status s notrecognized ecausetheirlanguages renot the tandard,iterateanguagestaughtnschools, nd theirNNS statusvis-i-vishedominant anguage is associatedwith ow socialstatus nd levels of education.Applied linguistshavefought o valorize he nonstandard arietyfboth their i and their 2 and the social status fsuchspeakers e.g.,Valdes,1995, 1998;Valdes&Geoffrion-Vinci,998). The debatessurroundingthe notionof NS havegivenrenewed ttention ovariationn SLA and haveproblematized heno-tions f tandardanguageandpedagogicalnorm(Gass,Bardovi-Harlig, agnan,& Walz,2002).There are also increasing oubts s to whetherany monolingual speakercan be upheld as thenorm forL2 learnerswho are,bydefinition,s-piring bilinguals (Cook, 1999; Kramsch, 1997;Seidlhofer,2001). Furthermore,n increasingnumber of language learners are not monolin-gual native peakersof one L1, but are alreadyproficient o varying egrees in one or severallanguagesbesides theirmother ongue.Firth ndWagner (1997) put into question the veryno-tion of target ompetence n a socially rientedSLA. It is impossible,theyargued, to evaluatean NNS's performance ndependently rom hatof his or her interlocutor ecause they re notonly dependent on the environment ut alsoon each other, ccordingto a "division f laborbetweenparticipants,he skillful nd artful p-plicationof a mechanism o effectollaborationin talk" p. 294). Collaboration nd negotiation

are notonlyabout referentialmeaning. n Firthand Wagner'sanalysis, lthough t seemed as iftheparticipants ere xchangingwords,what heywere xchangingwere dentitiesndperceptions:"NNS/NS identities...appear to be exchanged,while alternative dentities-instantiatedn thetalk-are maderelevant"p. 294). Thus,NNS andNS identities houldnot be taken as stable,pre-existing ategoriesbut as emergent, ontingent,interlocutor-relevantrames fparticipationn ahighly cological game.LanguageLearnerVersusanguageUser

Firth nd Wagner 1997) arguedthat theno-tion of learnerhad been reduced to a decon-textualizedmind nternalizingulesofgrammarand applying hose rules to produce grammati-cally orrect entences.By considering iscoursemerely s a sourceof nput, LA researchers adignoredthe "effects fsettingnd setting-relatedtasks n the tructurefdiscourse" p. 294). Firthand Wagnerproposedto broaden the notion oflanguage learner to mean someone engaged inthecontingent,urn-by-turnegotiation fmean-ingof conversational ractice nd who earnsthelanguagebyusing tto solveproblems nd achievetasks etbythe socialsettingtself.Indeed, with the trend towardthe deinstitu-tionalization f knowledge nd the call for em-poweringminoritiesnd other non-mainstreamspeakers,the term learner tartedto sound inmany nstances ondescending nd reductionist.The stigmatizationf nonstandard ccents andgrammarsnd their quationwith ack of educa-tion or lack of culture e.g., Lippi-Green, 997)seemed unacceptable. Other notions were ad-vanced. Pavlenko 2006), following ook (1992),proposedthe notionof a multicompetent,ilin-gual individualwho uses whatever ommunica-tivecompetence s required bythe task, he ac-tivity,r the situationn variablesocial contextsinreal ife.Pavlenko nd Lantolf 2000) used themetaphor fparticipation, ith he earnerbeinga participantncollaborativexchanges.Variationhas now moved center tage:Code-switchingndthemarkingf dentityhrough onstandard,n-conventionalways fspeaking re now seen as aprivilegef hebilingual peaker Zentella,1997).Much of the broadened agenda proposed byFirth nd Wagner 1997) forSLA in natural et-tings s now to be found nresearch n bilingual-ism (Pavlenko, 2006). This field of research sinterested n the cognitivemakeupof the bilin-gual individual,n linguistic nd discursive ela-tivity,n multilingualism,anguage socialization,code-switching,motions and identity,choing



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912 TheModern anguage ournal 1 (2007)Firth ndWagner's all to focus n "multilingual-ity, anguage socialization, inguistic ariability,'foreignness'nd nativeness"'p. 296). However,as Block (2003) and othersnoted,research onbilingualism oes not nvestigate ilingualdevel-opment, hat s,how omeone becomesi-or trilin-gual,onlywhat t means to bebilingual.And thatis always herubfrom n SLAperspective.Interlanguageersusmergentearning

Given the misgivingsmany applied linguistsnow haveregarding he notionsof NS and NNS,target anguage, nd learner, ow has the notionof nterlanguage,efined s it sby he relation fa learner o a target r NS language,fared n thelast10years? irth ndWagner 1997) arguedthatinterlanguagewasa metaphorheavilynfluencedin SLA byinstructionalettings nd bytransac-tional encounters etweenNSs and NNSs,wherethe powerdifferentialeplicatesthe powerdif-ferentialn classrooms.They argued that t didnot reflect he emergent, ontingent, omplexwaypeople learn anguages nnatural ettings.nparticular,ne central notion of interlanguage,fossilization, as been contested.Fossilization,definedbySelinker 1972) as a mechanismbywhichspeakers"tend to keep in their nterlan-guage [certain]linguistictems,rules and sub-systems" rom theirL1 (p. 177), was originallyseen as a permanentfailure. Recent evidenceshows that stabilizationmightbe a bettercon-cept (Long, 2003) because the claim of perma-nence has not been conclusively emonstrated.Moreover, hatwasseen as a failuremightnfactbe evidence of an imaginative lurilingual om-petence (Houdebine, 2002; Kerbrat-Orecchioni,1998)with ode-switching,nparticular,otbeinga strategyfavoidanceordeficiency,ut a displayof dentitye.g.,Zentella,1997).One could say that in the last 10 yearsre-searchers have been implicitly,f not explicitly,broadeningthe following ivecentralprocessesof interlanguage o encompassothercognitive,emotional, ocial,and cultural rocesses:4

1. Language transfer,sually een as transferfromL1 to L2 linguisticforms,has been ex-tended to a bidirectionalransfer,ncluding roman L2 or third anguage back to an L1 (Fuller,1999;Pavlenko&Jarvis, 002), with his ransferin both directions,ncludingnot ust linguisticforms ut also conversationaltyles,ulesofprag-matic se, ndconceptualmappingsseeGardner& Wagner,2004; House, Kasper,& Ross, 2003;Pavlenko, 002).

2. Transfer f training, riginally eferringothe pedagogic methodused in classrooms,hasbeen broadened to encompassall effects f set-ting nd setting-relatedasks n the structure fdiscourse,which includes both positiveeffectssuch as in task-based LA (Bygate,Skehan, &Swain, 001) and negative ffectsuch as in someforeigner alk or classroomdiscourse (Firth&Wagner, 997;Lantolf& Genung,2002).3. Strategiesf econd anguage earning, rig-inally een as ways n which "learners pproachthe material to be learned" (Selinker, 1972,p. 179), have now included sociallyinflectedstrategies ike selective earning,for example,learningthegrammar, ut refusingo learn thediscourse Canagarajah, 1993; Lin, 1999); learn-ing only that which facilitates omprehension(Seidlhofer, 001); or "performing"ather hanactually doing" earning, orstrategic urposes(Lantolf& Genung,2002).4. Strategies f second language communica-tionwhen peakingwithNSs havebeen expandedto include communicationwithotherNNSs andlanguagechoice as a symbolicmarker fpoweroridentitye.g.,Kramsch, 003; Pavlenko, 002).5. Overgeneralization as been implicitly p-pliednotjust o"TL linguisticmaterial"Selinker,1972,p. 179) but also to theovergeneralizingrstereotypingf social and cultural haracteristicsof anguage nuse (see 1 in this ist).BroadeningLA ?

These changes n thenotion ofinterlanguagecorrespondto new SLA theories that includeother formsof learningthan ust the internal-ization of rulesand the restructuringf knowl-edge representations.ociocultural heorySCT)positsthat earning, s a mediated activity,e-velopsfrom hesocial situation f interlocutionalong a zone ofproximaldevelopment Lantolf,2000). Sociocognitive heory econceptualizesheNS targets emergent pportunitiesor ociocog-nitive ealignmentAtkinsontal.,2007). Chaos-complexity heoryproposes that earning s anemergent, onfigurational rocess of linguistic,social,and cognitive daptation nd restructura-tion on various scales (Larsen-Freeman, 997).SLAresearchers o notagreeas to whether hesenew theoretical advances invalidateor enrichthefundamental LA concepts.For example, nbothEllis (1997) and Doughty nd Long (2003),the concept of motivations treatedunder therubric ndividual ifferencesnSLAand isgenerallyunderstoodas being social-psychologicaln na-ture. But in Ellis (1999), investments discussed



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ClaireKramsch nd Anne Whiteside 913in thechapter SocialAspects f nterlanguage,"suggesting hereby hat the conceptof interlan-guage itself an be stretched o accommodatesocial phenomena like discourse, dentity,tyle,and culture. n Doughty nd Long (2003), invest-ment s dealtwith ySiegel (2003) as an aspectofthesocial context nd iskeptquiteseparate romthediscussion f nterlanguage.n fact, iegelar-gued,"thedeficit iew fL2 competence mplicitin the notions f nterlanguage,ossilization,ndnon-nativepeakerholdsonly nparticularocialcontexts. LA researchers eed to examineboththefunctions f theL2 in social interactionndits ymbolicssociations efore pplyinguchno-tions" p.193).These newways f ncluding he social dimen-sion n SLA differnhowthey onsider ocial cat-egorieseither s stablegivens structuralistiew)or as discursive onstructionspoststructuralistview).Researchersworkingwithin CT have ar-gued against LA's conventional ore constructs,butthey eem to havemaintained hecategoriesNS target orm nd interlanguagend the struc-turalistpproachto the socialworldcharacteris-ticof traditional LA. Forexample,Swain 2000)reconceptualizedutput s collaborative ialoguebut dded "we ee [the tudents]stretching'heirinterlanguage" p. 101) through collaborativedialoguethat mediatesjoint roblem olvingndknowledge uilding" p. 102).Van Lier (2000) re-placed theconceptof nputwith ffordance,utaffordances,ike nput, redefined s "propertiesofthe environment elevant o active, erceivingorganisms"p. 252); they re notdefined s dis-cursiveconstructs,ven thoughtheir relevanceis negotiatedbyactiveorganisms.Although hedraws on poststructuralisteminist heory,Nor-ton (2000), referringo the learner nd his orhermultiple,onflictual,ndchanging dentities,stilltooka prettytructuralistiewofcategoriesof identitynd theirmultiplicityPrice, 1996).Drawing n Bourdieu's 1991) theoryf ymbolicaction, hereconceptualizedmotivations invest-ment,but her notion of nvestmenteems to hailofa more structuralistational ctortheory hanBourdieu had inmind. t isdifficult ithin truc-turalist heoriesof SLA to capturethe complexrelationship fsymbolic ower, ubjectpositions,and language earning hat hegeopolitical evel-opments frecentyearshavebrought o ight seenext ection).Itmaybe that tructuralistpproachesto SLAcan onlybringus thatfar ntounderstandinghecomplex, discursivelyonstructedworld of SLA.Theories with morepoststructuralistcologicalorientationike haos-complexityheoryLarsen-

Freeman,1997), language emergence (Ellis &Larsen-Freeman,006), and ecological theoriesoflanguage (Kramsch, 002) offer ot so mucha newontology Lantolf& Johnson,2007) as abroadermetaphorwithinwhich to explorehowthecognitive,he emotional, hesocial,and thecultural re producedand reproduced n thedis-course ofeverydayife.A CASE IN POINT

To illustrate he challenges brought bout inSLAbythisbroadening f the three onceptsun-derdiscussion,we now turn odatathathave nottraditionallyeen usedbymainstreamLA.Theywere collectedbyWhiteside 2006) as partof herprojecton Mexican YucatecMaya mmigrantsotheUnitedStates ryingo earn nough anguagetomakea livingnthemultilingualervice ectorof California. heir situations typical f workersin a global economy hatknowsno nationalbor-ders,no standardnational anguages, nd thrivesat the informal conomic and socialmargins fnational nstitutions.he data illustrate ramati-cally hecomplexityhat LAresearch acesnowa-days.

By some estimates, here are now 50,000 to80,000Yucatec mmigrantsnCalifornia,5nclud-ingsome25,000 n thegreater an FranciscoBayarea. Manycome fromprimarilyMaya-speakingtowns and rural areas, where changes associ-atedwith hepassageofthe NorthAtlantic reeTradeAgreementNAFTA) have renderedagri-cultural ifeunsustainable. eadingnorth o Cal-ifornia orobs in service ndustries hatrely nlow-wagend, ncreasingly,ndocumentedmmi-grant abor,they ypically orkwith ther NNSsofEnglish,using Englishas a linguafranca ndMayaorSpanishwith heir ompatriots,ndpick-ingupbits fother anguages t theirmultilingualworksites.6Based on a survey uestionnairedistributedbetweenJanuary nd March2004 to 170 adultsborn ntheYucatanpeninsulawithMaya-speakingparentage,Whiteside 2006) attempted o findout the language practicesof the group.' Sheidentified our focal Yucatecans withwhom sheworked losely or ver2years, ollowinghem ntheirdaily ives,helpingthem to organizecom-munityvents,nd exchangingessonswith heminEnglish ndSpanish iteracyor essons nMaya(for xample,withDon Francisco; ee following).She graduallyearned the relative alues ofMaya,Spanish,and English n particular ocial spaces.Shefound hatMayawasused at home andamongwork eams, ut often voided npublic, s it s n



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914 TheModern anguage ournal 1 (2007)theYucatanwherenegative acialized tereotypeslinkMayawithpovertynd ignorance GilemezPineda, 2006). Spanish,on the otherhand, al-lows undocumentedimmigrantso blend withLatino egalresidents ndcitizens, einforcingol-idarity ith thermarginalized panish-speakingworkers. ecauseYucatecSpanish s marked ndmay provokediscriminatoryreatmenty speak-ers ofothervarieties fSpanish, ome Yucatecanschoose toadoptnewaccents.Englishprovides nescapefromuchdistinctions,articularlyhen tis a linguafranca sed among mmigrants.talsohasportable alue as the anguageof tourism. utto those mmigrantsorwhom llegal tatusmakeslong-termesidenceuncertain,earningEnglishis a low priority.hus, when speakersof Mayachoose to useSpanish, nglish, rany thermmi-grant anguages,they re oftenmaking trategicrather han deologicalchoices.In thefollowinghree xcerpts, on Francisco(DF), a 49-year ldYucatecan nd,for hosewhoknewhim from heYucatan, successful armer,takes heresearcherwithhimthrough isneigh-borhood as he goes shoppingforfood for hispopular nformal estaurant. F frequentlyhopson this street, pending a lot of moneyeachweek on largequantities fmeat,vegetables,ndmasa for tortillas;he is therefore preferredcustomerwith ocal merchants.His status s ap-parent in the community, ignaled by the wayhe movesthrough pace,wearinghis blacksom-brero,chaperoningthe researcher round. Onthatday,he was lookingto get a good priceonmeat. As he entersTommy'sVietnamesegrocerystore, heprotagonistsre (a) Tommy, heViet-namese storeowner hospeaksVietnamese, an-tonese,Mandarin,English,some Spanish,anda fewwords n Maya; (b) theVietnameseclerk,whospeaksVietnamese, nglish, nd a little pan-ish; (c) theYucatecanbutcher,whospeaksMaya,Spanish,and a littleVietnamese; d) Don Fran-cisco,whospeaksMayaand Spanish;and (4) theAnglo-AmericanesearcherAW)whospeaksEn-glishand Spanish,and a littleMaya. (For tran-scriptionymbols,ee theAppendix.)The threeexcerpts re partofthe same shortvisit o the tore.Wegive content nalysis feachexcerpt ollowed ya discussion f how validthenotionsofNS, learner, nd interlanguagemightbe in interpretinghedata.In Excerpt1, DF and AW have ust enteredTommy's ietnamese rocerytore. F introduceshis visitor, W,to theVietnamesestoreowner,Tommy; heVietnamese lerk; nd theYucatecanbutcher, fellow ownsman.He knowsAW'sre-search nterestn theMaya anguageand culture

and is keen to showherhow theMaya anguage salive nd well nthecommunity.t sclear thatDFhas an impressive resence.Rather hantryingospeakVietnamese rEnglish, emanages omakeothers peakMayaorSpanish.He usessimplifiedSpanish syntaxn line 1withAW, nd in line 11with the clerk. The Vietnameseclerkrespondsin line 4 in uncertainSpanish and shows evenmore uncertaintyn Maya (line 6). She clearlyfeelsmore comfortablepeakingEnglish, ven fherEnglish s far rom erfect. F introduces hebutcher oAW n Spanish,thelanguagehe rou-tinely peakswithher.In Excerpt 2, DF and the butcher are dis-cussing things n Maya, their common nativelanguage,and AW and the clerkare conversingin English.AW and the clerk engage in a lit-tlehistoryesson (in English),reminiscentfanEnglishconversation lass, on the parallelsbe-tweenMayaand Spanishon the one hand, andChinese and Vietnameseon the other.AW fallsat firstnto the nformationiving ole typical fteacherese lines22-28), facilitatingomprehen-sionthrough oreigneralk e.g., ine26,28). Theclerk'sbackchannel"o::h"sare eitherpolitenessmarkers,r else they xpress urprise nd theac-quisitionof newknowledge. n line 29, she be-comes more assertive"yah"), s if ryingoestab-lishequal footingwithAW, r at leastto impressher,but AW's three confirmationhecks "that'sright,"n lines 30 and 33, seem to reinstate erauthoritys an Englishmaestra.In Excerpt3, DF and the butcherhave beenbargainingnMayaoverthepriceof meat.All ofa suddenDF switchesoSpanish.DF,having om-pletedhisnegotiationswith he butchernMaya,decides to buya piece of meat and announcestoTommy,he Vietnamese toreowner,n Span-ish,thathe will come and get tlater n theday.He thentakes eavefrom veryonenthe store nMaya.AWtakes eave fromTommy nd theclerkin English.Thus, the two NS maestros,F andAW, lose the visit n their wnnative anguages.Bycontrast,he twoVietnamese hopkeepersre-spondto each of the customersn their anguage:Tommy esponds o AW nEnglish, nd theclerkresponds oDF inMaya.DISCUSSION

These excerpts ould be interpretedn differ-entwaysdependingon how one interpretshenotions ofNS, learner, nd interlanguage.Oneconventionalwayof lookingat these data is asactual anguage essonsgoingon at themargins fa commercial ransaction.n lines5-9,DF teaches



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ClaireKramschndAnneWhiteside 915EXCERPT 11. DF: ((toAW, eferringoclerk))ahi esta miga 0.2) es mi miga(Spanish:hissfriend,smy riend)2. Clerk: (to another ustomer)) hank ou3. DF: ((to clerk))ah (0.2) holaamiga(Spanish: elloriend)4. Clerk: (to DF)) hello 0.2) co(.)mo(.) esti?(Spanish: ow reyou?)5. DF:wanima'alob ?(Maya:how reyou,good?)6. Clerk: :::m 0.2) howyou ay7. Tommy:ma'alob(Maya:good)8. Clerk:ma'alob9. DF:ma'alob10. Clerk: (talkswith ther ustomernVietnamese))

11. DF: Eh (0.2) yo(Spanish: his steacher e)12. Clerk: oh yeah?27. Clerk: :::h28. AW: befo::re?nlyMaya.29. Clerk:yah .) look ikebefore llChinese .) no speakVietnamese ietnam30. AW: that's ighthat's ight31. DF: ((talkingnMaya obutcher))32. Clerk:ook ike hat33. AW: that's ight



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916 TheModern anguage ournal 1 (2007)EXCERPT334. DF: ((to butcher))dameesto(Spanish: iveme hat)((butcher ives im hepieceofmeatrequested, F pays))35. Butcher: racias(Spanish: hanks)36. DF:ma'alob (turningoAW ndreferringoTommy))37. su::esposa abla unpoquitomaya(Spanish: iswifepeaks little aya)38. AW: h si?(Spanish: eah?)39. DF: ah (.) ah (.) ((pointing obutcher))perono esposaeso(Spanish: utno(t)wifehis ne)40. DF: ((talkswith hebutchernMaya))41. DF: ((to Tommy)) h adios 0.2) yal rato as cuatro e la tarde engo42. comprararne(Spanish: h,goodbye,nd aterourn the fternooncomeobuymeat)43. DF: ((to clerk))buenoamiga(Spanish:OKfriend)44. Clerk: i(Spanish: es)45. DF: si (0.2) diosbotik ommy(Maya:thanksommy)46. Tommy:h ((laughter))47. DF: diosbotik(Maya:thanks)48. AW: (to clerk))nicetomeetyou49. AW: (to Tommy))nicetomeetyouTommy50. Tommy:hank ou51. DF:ma'alob saama(Maya:good eeyou ater)52. Clerk:ma'alobata saama

to an NNS learner the clerk),whoseutterancesthe teacherevaluatesand applauds in lines 30and 33.But can we really peak here of learners ndteachers,NNSs and NSs? Tommyand his co-worker avenotaskedto learnMaya,nor wouldthey onsiderthemselveso be learnersofMayain thesecircumstances.W,whoexchangesMayalessonsforSpanish lessonswithDF duringtheweek,could legitimatelye called a learnerofMaya,but n thisparticularituation,herefrainsfromparticipatingn the lesson and speaksEn-glish rSpanish nstead.What bout NS teachers?AW sexplicitlyntroduced yDF as a maestranline 11.This facts confirmedyAW n ine 13 andduly dmiredbytheclerk n line 16.The kind ofEnglishforeigner alkAWdisplaysn Excerpt2gives distincteacherly lavor o herutterances.DF,on theotherhand,does not ntroduce imselfas a teacherofMaya, venthoughhe is an NS ofthe anguageand likes oteach t to others.n thepresenceoftheclerk,he uses Spanishforeigner

talk lines1,11), a verbalbehavior sually harac-teristic f NS-NNS interactions,venthoughhehimself s not a native peakerof Spanish. (Helearned t nschool atage 14.)Anotherwayoflookingat thesedata is to seethemas the social achievement f a serviceen-counter n a multilingual etting,whichentailstaking n certain oles, mongwhich re"doing"learning ndteachingGarfinkel,967;Heritage,1984; Ochs, 1993). For example, in Excerpt2,AWseems to be teachingthe Vietnameseclerkabout the history f Maya and Spanish in thesimplified nglishused byNS teacherstalkingto NNS Englishspeakers.But it is equallyclearthat the clerk does not perceive herself as alearner.The structural arallelbetweenAW'sut-terances bouttheMaya n Yucatan lines24 and26) and the clerk'sutterancesbout the Chinesein Vietnam(lines 29 and 32) index equalityofconversational ower. t establishes he clerkasconversational qual rather han as learner,de-spiteher ess-than-standardnglishnterlanguage



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ClaireKramsch nd AnneWhiteside 917performancee.g., lines 14,29). It also matcheshercultural ridewith heprideoftheresearcherabout Maya culture.However, hroughher re-peatedbackchannelingsuh huh,o:::h) the clerkseemstoaccept,or at eastnot tocontest,heroleof earnergiven o herby he teacher-a role thatcould also be seen as expressing ourtesy r def-erence to someone who has been introduced sa maestra,r to a customer. urthermore,yem-phasizingher maestraole,AWdisambiguates errelationship oDF,whichmight therwise e so-ciallymarkednterms fclass, ace, nd ethnicity.We find similar oleperformancenExcerpts1 and 3 when DF takes on the role ofMayaNSteacher. ndeed, theMaya esson seems to serveas a wayfor DF to positionhimself s a maleMaya-speakingmaestro,isplaying n equal sta-tuswithAW, hefemaleEnglish-speaking aestra.He seems to be displayinghis native anguageforovialitynd publicrelations urposes,ratherthan teaching Maya. In turn,Tommyand theclerk are willing o please a valued customerbyengaging in what Rampton (1995) has calledlanguagecrossing,nd to establish non-White(ormainstream) ictiveo-ethnicitymong mmi-grantsSmith, 006).The actors nthis ncounter re notonly lign-ing themselves ognitively,inguistically,ocially,and culturallywithone another and with theirenvironmentAtkinsontal.,2007), butthey realso acting ut various resent erceptions foneanother nd memories fpast anguageuses.DFand thebutcherhaggleover hepriceof themeatintheir rivateanguage,Maya, stheywouldhavedone in theirhometownback in Yucatan;theybothswitcho theofficial,ublic anguage,Span-ish, languagemoreaccessible otheclerk,whenthey fficiallylose the deal (lines 34-35). Simi-larly,he clerk alks n herprivateanguage,Viet-namese,whenshe wantsto showsolidarity ithherfellow ountrymenline 10), butshe switchesto thepublic language,English,with ustomersfrom ther thnicitiesikeAW lines2, 10).Byperformingnglish,Maya, panish,orViet-namese,rather han nly earning ndusing heselanguages,theprotagonistsignalto each otherwhichsymbolicworld they dentify ith at thetime of an utterance.Because the store is lo-cated in a predominantlypanish-speakingrea,DF's efforts o getTommy o respondto him inMayacan be seen as a form fpublicresistanceto Spanishcolonial discourses hatholdMaya nlowesteem.The clerk'suse ofVietnamese an beseen as indexingeitherher national dentitysVietnamese, r thespecialintimate ole that hewants o assume nd cultivate ith erVietnamese

customers, r the individual oice she feelsenti-tledto retain ven in thepresenceof othercus-tomerswho do not understandVietnamese ndwho are tryingo impose Spanishand Maya atthatmoment.This voice requirestactful egoti-ation in multilingual ettingsnd an acute senseof the distribution f status nd symbolic ower(Kramsch, 003).It seems nappropriate o call theprotagonistsin this encounter NNSs or even learners-measuredagainstwhatnorm?Theyare, if any-thing, earningto get along with each other,indeed, to survive n a global workplacewheremultiple ymbolic ystemsre simultaneouslytworkwith ambiguous signs to be decipheredminutebyminute.Nor does theconceptof nter-languageseem toapply o them.How shouldDF'snonstandardSpanish utterances n lines 1 and11 be understood?-as evidence of his Spanishinterlanguage, s foreigner alk,or both?Andwhat would be their nitial tate betweenMaya,Spanish, English, nd Vietnamese?Whatwouldbe thetargetmodel? t s farmore mportanthatthe participants now a smatteringf Spanish,Maya,Vietnamese,and English-not standardEnglish-and that heyearnwhen t s appropri-ate to usewhat anguage,withwhom, nwhat ir-cumstances,o makewhatkind f mpression,ndtodisplaywhatkindof dentity,ole,or voice. t shere ofparamountmportance o be perceived rregarded s a legitimateocial actor, nwhateverlanguageormixture f anguagesyouspeak,notto become an objectivelymeasurablenear-nativespeakeronany nterlanguage roficiencycale.THEORETICAL VALIDITYOF SECONDLANGUAGEACQUISITION'S MAINCONCEPTS TODAYThese data seemtopresent problemfor on-cepts ikeNS andNNS, earner ndinterlanguage.Aretheseconcepts till alid nourpresentworldofmultilingualmigrants, hereeveryones moreor less native nd nonnative,more or less noviceand expert,more or less a capable peer?whereit seems less important o learn a full inguisticsystem hanto participate s a legitimate ocialactor n multiple ontexts f social life,verballyand nonverbally? here earning nd usinghavebecome co-extensive?oingbeyond hemeaningof the three fundamental LA concepts n lightof theresearchwehave reviewednd thedata wehave discussedwouldmean that native peakersare not only ndividualswho speak a given an-guage frombirth, ut people whohave learnedother anguages,dialects, r sociolects long the



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918 TheModern anguage ournal 1 (2007)way, nd who maynot speak anystandardvari-ety t all. A language earnerwouldbe someonewho not onlyaccrues new linguistic nowledge,but who also feels,thinks, ehaves n newways,and whoputshisor her various anguages n re-lation to one another and in relation to his orher manyroles and subjectpositions.An inter-languagewould be a language that unfoldsnotonly n the mindbut also inthebodyof a learner,that s, n his or herperceptions,memories, ndprojections inkedto the language and itspastand presentuse. It wouldnotdevelop n a moreor lesspredictable rogression romNNS toNS,but would emerge n a dynamic, ecursive ash-ion throughreconfigurationf the totalsocial,cognitive,nd emotional andscape.

Butdoes all this roadening f hefundamentalconceptsof SLA facilitate esearchers' ttemptsto carve out a scientificallyesearchabledomainforwhich heyhave had to use categoriesike NSand NNS, learner, nd interlanguagen a verylimited, pecificway?Does it reflect he realityof practitioners' ttempts o teach languagesinclassroomswheretheNS targets alive andwell,learners re learners, nd theoriginalnotion ofinterlanguagemakes lot of sense?It seems that the ascendancyof the social di-mensionin SLA has not invalidated he funda-mental concepts of the field but has broughtto the fore theirstructuralistature. Data likethose we have discussed suggestthat the sym-bolic,historical,nd social aspectsof SLA haveto be interpreted rom a poststructuralist,co-logical perspective n language learning, ne inwhichcategoriesof people, actions,and eventsare not fixedbut are discursivelyonstructed,e-produced, nd contested;where ubjectpositions(notidentities) renegotiated elative opercep-tions ofsymbolic owerand a practical ense ofthepossibleand the feasible. n classrooms r inanynormative nvironment herea deficit iewof SLA is institutionallyonstructed, he threeconceptshave theoretical alidity nly nasmuchas they reproduce the dominant discourse ofeducational nstitutions.n otherenvironments,likegrocerytores, laygrounds,ndworkplaces,these conceptsdo not reflect he discourseofshiftingpportunities,luid ubjectpositions,ndtactical ontingencies ypical f ourglobaltimes.An individual ikeTommy rTommy's lerk,whouses a language not his or her own, s not nec-essarily n NNS or a learner when serving us-tomers n a grocery tore. The clerk's nonstan-dard English mightnot be an interlanguage tall, let alone a fossilized ne. She might e "per-forming" panishorMayatopleasethe customer.In turn, heVietnameseNS category pplied to

Tommymight othave much relevance rweightforDon Francisco,whoperceives ll Vietnameseas Chinos.8 he traditional LA conceptscannotdeal with heconstruction fperceptions,he dis-playsofsymbolic ffiliation,nd the exercise ofpowerevidenced nTommy's rocerytore.Of course, classrooms too can be seen as asite forassuming ubjectpositionsand exercis-ing symbolicpower.The genericentitiesorigi-nallyconceivedbySLA research-NNS and NS,learner, nd interlanguage-can also be seen asroles mposedbyresearchers n theparticipantsfor the sake of scientificnquiry. o what extentcan SLA research dopt a poststructuralist,co-logical stance consonant with n era of shiftingperceptions nd slippery ealities? t would meannot so much broadeningor reconceptualizingSLA's fundamental onceptsas relativizingheseconceptsto fit heperspectives f theactors n-volved, ncluding heresearcher's erspective.Opening the Pandora's box of the social di-mension oflanguageacquisitionhas confrontedSLA researchwith hepoststructuralisteed notonlyto state xplicitly hat ocialcontext t s in-vestigating,nd fromwhatsubject positionstheparticipants,ncluding heresearcher,re speak-ing, but also to decide whetheror not to usesuch categories s NS and NNS, learner, nd in-terlanguage.Like anyapplied field of research,SLA's scientificoncepts re vulnerable o beingco-optedbypractitionersnd administrators hodistort r politicize heiroriginalmeaning;theyare also vulnerable o a commodificationfmean-ing,whichhampersthe scientificnquiry f theresearchershemselves. akingthesocial dimen-sion seriouslymeans interrogatinghe claim touniversalityf the fundamental LA concepts,and adoptinga moreflexible onceptionofthefield based on an ecological understanding fdiscursive, ocial, and historical elativity.9lti-mately, he researcherperceivesand interpretsthesocial and educational context fSLA basedon hisor herownpositioningn thefield. t s thispositioninghatneedsto be explicitlynd system-aticallyccountedfor nd placed in itshistorical,political, nd symbolicontext.

NOTESSThepanelwastitledPerspectivesn Awareness."Panel resentersere avid irdsong,ichardchmidt,RodEllis, lsaAuerbach,nd CatherineWallace.Re-spondentsere hris andlin nd Leo vanLier.2 nparticularyKrashen1987)with isdistinctionbetweenearningnd cquisition,ut lsoRivers's1983)skill-gettingersuskill-using,ndbymanythers.



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ClaireKramsch nd AnneWhiteside 919Other ffortsoreimaginend reframerocesses s-sociatedwithuse-and-performancead been proposedbefore hat ime see, e.g.,Lantolf, 994), but withintotally ifferentntological heory.4These fiveaspectsofinterlanguagewere viewedbySelinker 1972) as potentiallyeading to fossilization,butRampton 1987) remarked hatsociolinguists ouldview them as social processesofadaptationand align-ment.5F. Monlina OrtizMonasteriopersonal ommunica-tion, eptember14,2006).6A 2003 reportfrom he U.S. EnglishFoundation,"Many Languages One America," ounted 112 differ-ent languages spokenin San Francisco,Oakland,andFreemont, hreeBayArea cities, ased on Census2000data.

7Because ofthenonlegalstatus fmany f these m-migrants,herespondents ad to be identifiednd con-tactedwithgreatpersonaltact nd political wareness.Allnamesare,needless tosay, seudonyms.8Tommy, heVietnamese toreowner,s in fact th-nic Chinese. He attributedhis trilingualismViet-namese, Cantonese,Mandarin)rather mbiguouslyo"go school."It is unclear whathisL1 is,butEnglish scertainlyis fourthanguage.9 t should be clear from theprecedingdiscussionthatbyrelativityedo not meanhereonly he inguisticrelativityhatcognitivecientistsikeLakoff1987) andSlobin (1996) have researched and to which Thorne(2000) and Lantolf 2007) refer ntheirwork. he post-structuralisttancesuggestedbyecologically rientedapproachesto SLA harksback to the critical heoreti-cal writingsfFoucault,Weedon,Butler,Giddens, ndothers.

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