Accumulating Semiotic Resources for Social Actions: A Case Study of L2 Icelandic in the Wild. (3rd March 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: THEODÓRSDÓTTIR, GUÐRÚN; ESKILDSEN, SØREN W.
• Other Names: ESKILDSEN SØREN W. guestEditor.; DOEHLER SIMONA PEKAREK guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Modern language journal. Volume 106(2022)Supplement 1
• Page Start: 46
• Page End: 68
• Publication Date: 2022-03-03
• Subjects: language learning in the wild -- longitudinal L2 learning -- interactional competence -- usage‐based models of language; Languages, Modern -- Periodicals; Languages, Modern -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 407
• DOI: 10.1111/modl.12752
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0026-7902

Abstract

Abstract: This study investigates a second language (L2) speaker's use and learning of the Icelandic auxiliary verb ætla (pronounced /aihtla/) in the wild. This analytic focus is motivated by the L2 speaker's (Anna) own orientation to ætla as a learnable. We track Anna's use of ætla in naturally occurring social interaction over time. Anna first learns to use ætla to make requests in service encounters but this does not automatically transfer to other environments, suggesting an intricate relationship between ætla and the social action it is used to accomplish. The study illuminates (a) how this relationship between ætla expressions and the social actions they are used to accomplish develops over time, and (b) how Anna's increasingly diversified and productive varieties of ætla expressions co‐emerge with increasingly varied action accomplishment. Together, these two dimensions of L2 learning form the backbone of Anna's L2 grammar as an emergent accumulation of semiotic resources for social action. This serves as the backdrop for the article's implications for L2 education: (a) We promote the idea of exemplar‐based and interactionally situated L2 teaching, and (b) we call for increased awareness of situated and developing interactional competence and usage‐based processes and practices in the education of L2 teachers. Abstract :