SOCIOLINGUISTIC COMPETENCE
Keywords:
In pursuing a wide range of questions concerning second language acquisition and use, researchers have drawn upon theoretical constructs and research methods developed in various sociolinguistic subfields and allied areas, including language socialization (eg Bayley and Schecter 2003; Kramsch 2002), cross-cultural communication (eg Cameron and Williams 1997), and conversation analysis (eg Markee 2000). Indeed, some scholars have called for a reconceptualization of SLA research to redress what they see as the ‘imbalance between cognitive and mentalistic orientations, and social and contextual orientations to language’(Firth and Wagner 1997: 295).Abstract
In recent years, researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) have paid increasing attention to the sociocultural context of language learning. Studies have drawn from a variety of sociolinguistic frameworks to examine the relationship between second language (L2) speakers’ multifaceted social identities and their opportunities for access to the target language (eg Norton 2000), gender and choice of code in bilingual contexts (eg Woolard 1997), the effects of gender and style on L2 speakers’ choice among phonological variants (eg Major in press), language use in multilingual adolescent urban peer groups (eg Rampton 1995), and home language practices and minority language maintenance (eg Schecter and Bayley 2002).
References
Regan, V., & Bayley, R. (2004). Introduction: The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence. Journal of sociolinguistics, 8(3), 323-338.
Dewaele, J. M. (2004). The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence in French as a foreign language: An overview. Journal of French Language Studies, 14(3), 301-319.
