Socializing second language acquisition

Abstract

Some ten years ago, Ben Rampton (1997) wrote about ‘retuning’ applied linguistics, moving the field in the direction of more multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of language-related problems in the real world. In making such a suggestion, Rampton was following Del Hymes, who proposed a reformulation of sociolinguistics some 25 years earlier. Specifically, Hymes (1974a) argued for three changes to sociolinguistics. First, sociolinguists should study language as not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a social one, examining social problems and language use in addition to the formal features of language. Second, sociolinguistic research should be socially realistic; that is, it should be based on data collected from existing speech communities. Third and finally, sociolinguistic research should be socially constituted, beginning with a discussion of how the social emerges out of a concern for function, before moving to explore how formal features of language are organized to serve the social.