Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T22:36:49.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ecological perspectives on foreign language education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

Claire Kramsch
Claire Kramsch*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, USAckramsch@berkeley.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ecological approaches to language learning and teaching have captured the interest of language educators as both native and non-native speakers find themselves operating in increasingly multilingual and multicultural environments. This paper builds on Kramsch & Whiteside (in press) to conceptualize what an ecological perspective on foreign language education, based on complexity theory, would look like. It first explains some of the major tenets of complexity theory, and analyzes transcriptions of exchanges taking place among multilingual individuals in multicultural settings using the ecological approach offered by complexity theory. Based on what these analyses reveal about the ability of these individuals to shape the very context in which language is learned and used, it discusses the notion of ‘symbolic competence’ recently proposed by Kramsch (2006) and explores how symbolic competence might be developed through foreign language education in institutional contexts.

Type
Plenary Speeches
Information
Language Teaching , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 389 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In Holquist, M. (ed.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays (translated by Emerson, C. & Holquist, M.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 259–422.Google Scholar
Bannink, A. (2002). Negotiating the paradoxes of spontaneous talk in advanced L2 classes. In Kramsch (ed.), 266–288.Google Scholar
Berkeley Language Center (2004). Language Ecology: A course. <http://blc/berkeley.edu/>..>Google Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian meditations [translated by Nice, Richard]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Byrne, D. (1997). Complexity theory and social research. Social Research Update. Quarterly by the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. <http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/SRU18.html> accessed 24/01/2008.+accessed+24/01/2008.>Google Scholar
Capra, F. (2005). Complexity and life. Theory, Culture and Society 22.5, 33–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cilliers, P. (1998). Complexity and postmodernism: Understanding complex systems. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dubois, J. W. (2006). Basic symbols for discourse transcript. <http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/projects/transcription/representing>..>Google Scholar
Edmondson, W. & House, J. (1981). Let's talk and talk about it. München: Urban & Schwarzenberg.Google Scholar
Ellis, N. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2006). Language emergence: Implications for applied linguistics – Introduction to the special issue. Applied Linguistics 27.4, 558–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gogolin, I. (1994). Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. K. (1990). Chaos bound. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. K. (1991). Chaos and order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holquist, M. (1981). The politics of representation. In Greenblatt, S. J. (ed.), Allegory and representation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 163–183.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2001). Language, culture, and voice in the teaching of English as a foreign language. NovELTy: A Journal of English Language Teaching and Cultural Studies in Hungary 8.1, 4–20.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (ed.) (2002). Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2003). From practice to theory and back again. In Byram, M. & Grunday, P. (eds.), Context and culture in language teaching and learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 4–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2006). From communicative competence to symbolic competence. The Modern Language Journal 90.2, 249–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramsch, C., Lévy, D. & Zarate, G. (2008). Introduction. In Zarate, et al. (eds.) 15–26.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. & Steffensen, S. V. (2007). Ecological perspectives on second language acquisition and socialization. In Hornberger, N. & Duff, P. (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education (vol. 8): Language and socialization. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 17–28.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. & Whiteside, A. (2007). Three fundamental concepts in SLA and their relevance in multilingual contexts. Modern Language Journal Focus Issue 91.5, 905–920.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. & Whiteside, A. (in press). Language ecology in multilingual settings: Towards a theory of symbolic competence. Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997). Chaos/complexity science and second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics 18.2, 141–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2002). Language acquisition and language use from a chaos/complexity theory perspective. In Kramsch, (ed.), 33–46.Google Scholar
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003). Teaching language: From grammar to grammaring. Boston, MA: Heinle/Thomson.Google Scholar
Larsen-Freeman, D. & Cameron, L. (eds.) (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Leather, J. & van Dam, J. (eds.) (2002). Ecology of language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liddicoat, A. (2006). Teaching culture through grammar. Presented at the Berkeley Language Centre, 7 December.Google Scholar
MLA (Modern Language Association; Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages) (2007). Foreign languages and higher education: New structures for a changed world. New York: Modern Language Association. <http://www.mla.org/forlang>..>Google Scholar
Nora, P. (1997). Les lieux de mémoire. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Passel, J. S. (2005). Unauthorized migrants: Numbers and characteristics. <http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=46>..>Google Scholar
Passel, J. S., Randall, C. & Fix, M. E. (2004). Undocumented immigrants: Facts and figures. <http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=1000587>..>Google Scholar
Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and transcultural flows. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rampton, B. (1995). Crossing. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rampton, B. (1998). Speech community. In Verschueren, J., Ostman, J. O., Blommaert, J. & Bulcaen, C. (eds.), Handbook of pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–34.Google Scholar
Rampton, B. (1999a). ‘Deutsch’ in Inner London and the animation of an instructed foreign language. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3, 480–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rampton, B. (ed.) (1999b). Styling the Other. Special issue of Journal of Sociolinguistics 3 & 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, G. (2006). ‘There's no Jose here.’ Following the hidden lives of Mexican immigrants. New York: Nation Books.
Van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy and authenticity. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Lier, L. (forthcoming). From communicative competence to semiotic competence. In Werlen, E. & Weskamp, R. (eds.), Kommunikative Kompetenz und Mehrsprachigkeit: Sprachenlernen konkret (vol. 6). Baltmansweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Whiteside, A. (2006). ‘We are the explorers’: Transnational Yucatec Maya-speakers negotiating multilingual California. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Zarate, G., Lévy, D. & Kramsch, C. (eds.) (2008). Précis du plurilinguisme et du pluriculturalisme. Paris: Contemporary Publishing International SARL.Google Scholar