The impact of learning context on the acquisition of sociopragmatic variation patterns in non-native speaker teachers of English
Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The study is a cross-linguistic, cross-sectional investigation of the impact of learning contexts on\nthe acquisition of sociopragmatic variation patterns and the subsequent enactment of compound\nidentities. The informants are 20 non-native speaker teachers of English from a range of 10\nEuropean countries. They are all primarily mono-contextual foreign language learners/users of\nEnglish: however, they differ with respect to the length of time accumulated in a target language\nenvironment. This allows for three groups to be established – those who have accumulated 60 days\nor less; those with between 90 days and one year and the final group, all of whom have accumulated\nin excess of one year. In order to foster the dismantling of the monolith of learning context, both\nlearning contexts under consideration – i.e. the foreign language context and submersion context are\nbroken down into micro-contexts which I refer to as loci of learning. For the purpose of this study,\ntwo loci are considered: the institutional and the conversational locus.\nIn order to make a correlation between the impact of learning contexts and loci of learning on the\nacquisition of sociopragmatic variation patterns, a two-fold study is conducted. The first stage is\nthe completion of a highly detailed language contact profile (LCP) questionnaire. This provides\nextensive biographical information regarding language learning history and is a powerful tool in\nilluminating the intensity of contact with the L2 that learners experience in both contexts as well as\nshedding light on the loci of learning to which learners are exposed in both contexts. Following the\ncompletion of the LCP, the informants take part in two role plays which require the enactment of\ndifferential identities when engaged in a speech event of asking for advice. The enactment of\nidentities then undergoes a strategic and linguistic analysis in order to investigate if and how\ndifferences in the enactment of compound identities are indexed in language.\nResults indicate that learning context has a considerable impact not only on how identity is indexed\nin language, but also on the nature of identities enacted. Informants with very low levels of crosscontextuality\nindex identity through strategic means – i.e. levels of directness and conventionality;\nhowever greater degrees of cross-contextuality give rise to the indexing of differential identities\nlinguistically by means of speaker/hearer orientation and (non-) solidary moves. When it comes to\nthe nature of identity enacted, it seems that more time spent in intense contact with native speakers\nin a range of loci of learning allows learners to enact their core identity; whereas low levels of\ncontact with over-exposure to the institutional locus of learning fosters the enactment of generic identities.
Author: Anne Marie
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1809458572