Publisher's Synopsis
Encyclopaedia of Studies in Social and Cultural Foundations of Languages focuses on the ways in which chil¬dren are both socialized through language and socialized to use language in culturally specific ways. The contributors examine the verbal interactions of small children with their caregivers and peers in several different societies around the world, showing that these interactions are socially and culturally organized, and that it is by participating in them that children come to understand sociocultural orientations. In order to make a fuller interpretation of second language socialization processes in intercultural communication contexts, this book looks into the basic assumptions of language socialization and the tenets of intercul¬tural transformation studies before arguing for the feasibility of weaving the two research paradigms to create a more inclusive theoretical framework of intercultural language socialization. An elaboration of such a framework holds promise to enable a more panoramic interrogation of the joint development of L2 learners' language competence and sociocultural knowledge in complex intercultural communicative contexts. This effort will not only expand and enrich the two research paradigms themselves, but also compensate for the dearth of research in this interdisciplinary field. The chapter contained in this Book presents the language socialization research, which documents and theorizes the diversity of cultural paths to communicative competence and linguistic/cultural community membership.
