Since its inception over half a century ago, second language acquisition research has logically been focused on the factors, learners, and pedagogies that both foster and inhibit second language learning and teaching. For the past two decades, however, the metaphorical implications of focusing on "acquisition" have been questioned as representing too limited a view of the complexities involved in learning and using an additional language (e.g., Firth & Wagner, 1997). More recently, the Douglas Fir Group (2016) attempted to account for the many variables, from the macro to the meso and down to the micro level, that affect additional language teaching and learning. In his analysis of the Douglas Fir Group framework, Hult (2019) praises the robust and holistic effort to identify the many contexts influencing language use, yet he also calls for greater clarification of the connections between these contexts in order to better understand the dynamic social (inter)action of language use. To address this shortcoming, he proposes nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) as an appropriate model for capturing the multidimensionality and dynamism of language use. This presentation responds to this proposal by reporting on a case study contextualized within a nexus analytical approach of four university learners of beginning German in the United States – two domestic and two international students - during their first two semesters of study. In order to better investigate this increasingly diverse student population - the number of international students enrolled in post-secondary institutions in the United States has increased 72% over the past ten years - as well as the dynamism and multidimensionality of language learning, this comparative case study examines the nexus of the three discourses that mediate the social action of this language learning experience: the life histories and experiences of the social actors involved (historical bodies); the relationships of those social actors (interaction order); and the wider circulating discourses present in U.S. and international higher education (discourses in place). Primary data sources are structured interviews with the participants centered around their own language learning development as manifested in monthly writing assignments. Participant observation and field notes provide additional data. Results highlight the benefits of approaching additional language learning as social action in that it brings to the fore multiple variables that traditionally have not been considered as factors in Ln research: personal experiences; macro-level ideological factors; social contextual factors. Adhering to the final stage of nexus analysis, the presentation closes with implications of this analysis for beginning language instruction for today's internationalized university.
Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (1997). On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research. Modern Language Journal, 81(3), 285–300.
Hult, F. M. (2019). Toward a unified theory of language development: The transdisciplinary nexus of cognitive and sociocultural perspectives on social activity. The Modern Language Journal, 103(S1), 136–14.
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2004). Nexus analysis: Discourse and the emerging Internet. Routledge.
The Douglas Fir Group. (2016). A Transdisciplinary Framework for SLA in a Multilingual World. The Modern Language Journal, 100(Supplement), 19–47.
