The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Carol A. Chapelle

The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics - Carol A. Chapelle


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control to the novice at the appropriate time (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006).

      Another important historical development that has influenced the view of agency in SLA is poststructuralism along with the array of critical theories that followed. As part of movements from structuralist (including the complete denial of human agency, e.g., Levi‐Strauss) to poststructuralist perspectives (e.g., featuring the power of discourses), humanist approaches to research centering on sovereign individuals were attacked. Meanwhile, social theorists such as Bourdieu (1977) and Giddens (1984), who attempted to find the connection between structure and agency, influenced the understanding of agency in SLA. Although human beings are not free agents because they are constrained by social structures and forces, neither are they entirely controlled by forces beyond their purview. Humans can make changes to structures. Along these lines, the influence of critical theories, including British cultural studies, postcolonial, and feminist theories crept into SLA approaches to agency. Here, the attention was on sociopolitical situations and discourses that produce inequalities among individuals. Thus research in SLA informed by a variety of poststructuralist and critical theories now examines power relations embedded in the sociopolitical contexts in which people learn an L2 as well as the agency they exercise in overcoming the challenges they face in that learning.

      In the following sections, the conceptual development of agency from (a) sociocultural and (b) poststructuralist and critical perspectives within the field of SLA will be examined in greater detail. These two perspectives, which originated in completely different theoretical settings, both influenced the social turn in SLA research. Unlike psychological research, which focuses on learner characteristics, including motivation, in which agency is regarded as an individual property or attribute that affects human behavior (Oxford, 2003), agency is viewed as socially structured and embedded in social contexts.

      Agency From Sociocultural Perspectives

      The goal of sociocultural analysis is to understand how human cognition is related to cultural, institutional, and historical contexts (Wertsch, 1991). To account for agency from sociocultural perspectives, the Vygotskyan theory of mediation, the internalization of self‐regulation, and, more broadly, activity theory as well as the notion of community of practice are taken up in this section.

      Extending these perspectives to L2 learning, SLA researchers often examine L2‐mediated private speech (externalized inner speech) as well as dialogic interactions between L2 learners and teachers in order to understand the process of how learners learn to self‐regulate their second language use and how they mediate their thoughts through a second language by, for example, using concepts learned in the L2.

      Activity theory is a framework that permits the study of human practices as developmental processes (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). From this perspective, activity is seen as social practice that provides conditions for psychological development. In everyday situations, human beings respond to tensions, contradictions, and problems that to some extent change the conceptual, social, and material conditions of their lives. In this sense, tensions, contradictions, and problems create opportunities for human development, often through the creation of new artifacts. While Vygotsky created a model of individual goal‐oriented, mediated activity that generates higher mental functions, later theorists such as Leont'ev (1981) stressed the roles community, rules, and labor‐sharing play in structuring this activity. Lantolf and Pavlenko (2001) argue for the importance of using the activity theory framework in discussing agency in SLA. They stress that second language acquisition as activity is “more than the acquisition of forms”; rather, it is about developing “new ways of mediating ourselves and our relationships” (p. 145) with the world. This perspective requires us to respect learners' agency in “constructing the terms and conditions of their own learning” (p. 145) within the social context in which they are placed.

      In Lave and Wenger's (1991) theory, learning is regarded as a situated activity amounting to legitimately participating in a “community of practice” in which an individual is mediated not only by material and symbolic tools but also by the formation of social relationships that are emergent and contingent. Learning thus involves changing relationships as well as transforming identities within one's social world.

      Agency from the sociocultural perspective is “never a ‘property’ of a particular individual: rather, it is a relationship that is constantly co‐constructed and renegotiated with those around the individual and with the society at large” (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001, p. 148). In this sense, agency is a “culturally (in)formed attribute whose development is shaped by participation in specific communities of practice” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 239).

      Agency From Poststructuralist and Critical Perspectives

      Both Bourdieu's and Giddens's theories thus provide a framework for viewing agency in L2 learners by focusing on the dialectic of social structure and agentive actions. Meanwhile, critical theories such as postcolonial theories and feminist theories (e.g., Weedon, 1987; Butler, 1990) supply lenses through which to examine sociopolitical discourses that produce power differences. Within the framework of SLA informed by poststructuralist and critical theories, studies have been conducted focusing on L2 learning by immigrants


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