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Alignment and Interaction in a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition Author(s): Dwight Atkinson, Eton Churchill, Takako Nishino and Hanako Okada Source: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 91, No. 2 (Summer, 2007), pp. 169-188 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4625999 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Wiley and National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.78.81 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:39:45 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Alignment and Interaction in a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition

Alignment and Interaction in a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language AcquisitionAuthor(s): Dwight Atkinson, Eton Churchill, Takako Nishino and Hanako OkadaSource: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 91, No. 2 (Summer, 2007), pp. 169-188Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers AssociationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4625999 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 02:39

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley and National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations are collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Journal.

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Page 2: Alignment and Interaction in a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition

Alignment and Interaction in a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition DWIGHT ATKINSON Department of English Purdue University 324 Heavilon Hall 500 Oval Dr. W Lafayette, IN 47907-2038 USA Email: [email protected]

ETON CHURCHILL Department of Cross-Cultural Studies Kanagawa University 3-27-1 Rokkakubashi Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama 221-8636 Japan Email: eton_c@yahoo. com

TAKAKO NISHINO Graduate College of Education Temple University Japan 2-8-12 Minami Azabu, Minato-ku Tokyo 106-0047 Japan Email: [email protected]

HANAKO OKADA Graduate College of Education Temple University Japan 2-8-12 Minami Azabu, Minato-ku Tokyo 106-0047 Japan Email: [email protected]

This article argues for the crucial role of alignment in second language acquisition, as conceptu- alized from a broadly sociocognitive perspective. By alignment, we mean the complex processes through which human beings effect coordinated interaction, both with other human beings and (usually human-engineered) environments, situations, tools, and affordances.

The article begins by summarizing what we mean by a sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition. We then develop the notion of alignment, first in terms of general learning/activity and next in relation to second language (L2) learning. Following that, we provide an extended example of alignment-in-action, focusing on the coordinated activities of a Japanesejunior high school student and her tutor as they study English in their sociocognitively constructed world. Next, we speculate on possible uses of the alignment concept in L2 research and teaching, and finally we conclude by restating our claim-that alignment is a necessary and crucial requirement for L2 development.

ALIGNMENT IS THE COMPLEX MEANS BY which human beings effect coordinated interac- tion, and maintain that interaction in dynamically adaptive ways. It is a fundamental tenet of the sociocognitive approach to second language ac- quisition (Atkinson, 2002; cf., Gee, 1992; Watson- Gegeo, 2004) that L2 development takes place through such articulated mind-body-world activ- ity, of which the cognitive internalization of input

is only a part. In this sense, language learning is akin to improvisational dance, team sports, conversation, driving, and in fact all forms of interaction-what goes on between is of equal im- portance to what goes in and how it gets processed. Indeed, if thinking, feeling, doing, and learning are all part of a larger ecological circuit, as we will argue, then what goes on between and what goes in cannot properly be separated.

In this article, we begin by summarizing what we mean by a sociocognitive approach to sec- ond language acquisition. Next, we develop the notion of alignment, first in terms of general learning/activity, and then specifically in relation

The Modern Language Journal, 91, ii, (2007) 0026-7902/07/169-188 $1.50/0 02007 The Modern Language Journal

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170 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)

to L2 learning. Following that, we demonstrate the workings of alignment in a particular case of real-world, real-time doing-learning. We then briefly speculate on further uses of the alignment concept in L2 research and teaching. Finally, we restate our main claim-that alignment is a cru- cial aspect of second language acquisition. Our intentions throughout are exploratory and infer- ential rather than absolutive and truth-telling, yet we aim to offer a preliminary account of an im- portant aspect of L2 development.

A SOCIOCOGNITIVE APPROACH TO SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Historically, the field of SLA has been domi- nated by a highly cognitivist orientation. From this perspective, L2 development is largely a pro- cess of cognitive internalization and restructur- ing (Davis, 1995; R. Ellis, 1997; Gass, 1996; Long, 1997; Mitchell & Myles, 2004). In the words of Long (1997), "Most SLA researchers view the object of inquiry as in large part an internal, mental process: the acquisition of new (linguistic) knowledge" (p. 319). This perspective assumes a basic division between mind and world, and a concomitant neglect of the latter, as seen, for example, in Gass's (1996) widely cited model of L2 learning. It also assumes the internalization of something discrete: lexicogrammar. Although we do not deny that something is internalized (in a manner of speaking) during L2 development, our approach starts in a different place and leads in different directions.

We begin by viewing L2 development as engage- ment and participation in a dynamic and chang- ing mind-body-world continuum. Our argument can be broken down into three stages:

1. If language is crucially a form of social ac- tion and/or a tool for performing social action, then it must be learned in, for, and by virtue of the social world.

2. Yet the term social is problematic here- as part of a larger, historically constituted mind versus world, psycho- versus socio-, internal versus external dichotomy, the cognitive and the social have been diametrically opposed.

3. We do not accept this dichotomy as an ad- equate description of reality. Instead, we seek to view mind, body, and world relationally and inte- gratively, as constituting a continuous ecological circuit. Although this position has had little ef- fect so far on the SLA field (Zuengler & Miller, 2006), it has been argued by many scholars, in- cluding the anthropologist and pioneer cyberneti- cist1 Gregory Bateson (1972):

If you want to explain or understand anything in human behavior, you are always dealing with total circuits, completed circuits. This is the elementary cybernetic thought. ... Suppose I am a blind man, and I use a stick. I go tap, tap, tap. Where do I start? Is my mental system bounded at the handle of the stick? Is it bounded by my skin? Does it start halfway up the stick? Does it start at the tip of the stick? But these are nonsense questions. The stick is a pathway along which transforms of difference are being transmitted. The way to delineate the system is to draw the limit- ing line in such a way that you do not cut any of these pathways in ways which leave things inexplicable. (p. 465)

Lemke (1997) elaborated on Bateson's example:

Bateson (1972) followed the chain of differences that make a difference [i.e., the flow of information] out- ward from the mind-brain into the motor-body that wielded the cultural tool that engaged the material environment that reacted back on the tool, chang- ing the dynamic state of nerves, muscles, heart rate, adrenalin, glucose, brain activity, meaning, choice, values, action, and activity. Where could you break this circuit? Where did cognition end and action begin? Cognition, information processing, meaning-making, flowed through the circuit. The system of relevance in which to define and study cognition, now synonymous with meaningful activity, was not arbitrarily bounded by the brain or the body. It was the whole inter- acting "ecology," including body and brain and tool and environment, through which that circuit flowed. (pp. 37-38)

As a way of capturing the radically integrated na- ture of mind-body-world in which and by virtue of which behavior, cognition, and learning take place, we adopt the term sociocognitive (Atkinson, 2002) to describe our approach to second lan- guage acquisition. It marks the fundamental claim that the social, the physical, and the cognitive are parts of the same larger processes, processes that also underlie L2 development. To put it more polemically, if one accepts the proposition that language functions primarily to perform ac- tion in the world, then a cognitive-individualistic perspective-that is, one that views acquisition as the formation of substantially private linguis- tic knowledge, and such knowledge largely as an internally coherent formal system-can only be more wrong than right. Thus, Schegloff, Ochs, and Thompson's (1997) rhetorical question re- garding language and its use seems to hold as well for its acquisition:

Given the thoroughgoing situatedness of language's observable engagement with the world, and its role as an instrument in the effecting of real worldly projects, does it not make more sense, is it not theoretically more plausible, to suppose that interactional and pragmatic organizations play a primary and formative

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role, rather than a residual one, in the organization of conduct, including talk, and that grammar and syntax are, if not subordinate, then not more than co-ordinate with them, for example, by being among the available resources and practices informing the interactional and pragmatic organizations? (p. 26)

In other words, what kind of model would posit language learning as the cognitive privatization of linguistic knowledge, only to have it reemerge in actual use? Such a model could only be more philosophical than biological/evolutionary, a por- trait of a conceivable world rather than (in the terms of Schegloff et al., 1997) a plausible one. It is far more intuitive that language never simply "goes inside" at all.

Our view of second language acquisition is built on a critical mass of research in linguistics, first language acquisition, cognitive science, interac- tional sociology, anthropology, psychology, philos- ophy, discourse analysis, and language-in-use (for partial reviews, see Atkinson, 2002; Gee, 1992; and Watson-Gegeo, 2004). Its closest SLA relatives are neo-Vygotskian sociocultural theory (e.g., Lantolf, 2000), chaos and complexity theory (Larsen- Freeman, 1997, 2002), language socialization per- spectives (Watson-Gegeo, 2004; Watson-Gegeo & Nielsen, 2003), ecological views (e.g., van Lier, 2000, 2002), efforts to link sociolinguistics and SLA studies (e.g., Block, 2003), and conversation- analytic initiatives in SLA (e.g., Firth & Wagner, 1997; Markee & Kasper, 2004). Yet our approach is our own, as demonstrated here and in our ear- lier work.2

ALIGNMENT

If a sociocognitive approach to second lan- guage acquisition is to be more than just a theoretical proposal, however, we must show L2 development actually occurring in, for, and by virtue of integrated mind-body-world ecologies. To do so, the concept of alignment must first be developed. Previously, we defined alignment as the means by which coordinated interaction is effected and maintained by human actors. Go- ing further, we can now say that alignment is the means by which human actors dynamically adapt to-that is, flexibly depend on, integrate with, and construct--the ever-changing mind-body-world environments posited by sociocognitive theory. In other words, alignment takes place not just between human beings, but also between hu- man beings and their social and physical environ- ments. Extending Bateson's (1972) and Lemke's (1997) examples, the stick, the street, the people on the street, nonhuman affordances3 (such as

handrails) and obstacles, the stick-user's hands, muscles, nervous system, circulatory system, en- docrine system, brain, and various other features of his sociocognitive environment are all part of the same larger circuit of meaning and under- standing, with each part existing in a dynamically adaptive relationship to the whole. For the indi- vidual, if the mind-body-world environment is permanently in flux, then in order to survive and flourish he or she must engage in a permanent process of dynamic adaptivity to it. As a first ap- proximation, let us equate this ongoing process of adaptive dynamics fundamentally with learn- ing; that is, the adaptiveness characterizing the ongoing alignment of the human organism to its changing environment is simply learning by another name. Learning, in this sense, is not a special case for cognition, consciousness, the class- room, or anything else. It is rather the default pro- cess by which humans survive in an unpredictable environment.4

A relevant thought experiment would be to imagine Bateson's (1972) unsighted individual ac- tually learning to navigate in his environment. Undoubtedly, the greater part of his learning could result only from participation: by engag- ing with and experiencing his environment as an unsighted navigator. Through continually at- tempting to align one learns to do so, whether such attempts originally take place with explicit assistance from others, or more or less solo.5 And what, in the end, has one "learned" in this process? Certainly not, we assume, a set of cognized rules or algorithms for successful task completion- a brittle, decontextualized, internally coherent grammar of unsighted walking-but rather vari- ous means of and affordances for sensitive and dynamic adaptation, in other words, sociocogni- tive alignment. How to align flexibly with one's environment so as to successfully negotiate it- how to perform the sociocognitive action of suc- cessful, unsighted movement in an ever-changing surround-is the name of the game here, not the salting away of formal code in insulated cognitive space.6

This is not to say, however, that such learning (in fact all learning) is not cumulative. And it is here that our first try at defining learning as the on- going process of adaptive dynamics in a changing environment breaks down. In our view, learning is the default process of continually aligning one- self with one's sociocognitive environment, but it is also more: It is incorporating that experi- ence into flexible models, strategies, networks, and perspectives-the actual terms should not be taken too seriously because they do not do justice

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to the depth and complexity of mind-body-world alignments. As a second approximation to a defi- nition of learning, we therefore offer trajectories of ecological experience and repertoires of participation, gained in the process of adaptive dynamics.

The theory of mind that best supports this view of learning is connectionism (e.g., Churchland, 1996; N. Ellis, 1998, 2003; Gee, 1992). Instead of a substantially closed cognitive system devoted to decontextualizing, internalizing, and performing mechanical operations on input, connectionism posits a fundamentally open system specializing in pattern recognition and exploitation of en- vironmental features. Whereas stable, substan- tially fixed cognitive representations are the common currency of traditionally conceived cog- nition, connectionists argue for "cognition with- out representation"-knowledge stored in the patterning of connections among neurons in complex networks, which are continually being modified and updated on the basis of experi- ence with and in the world. Connectionist net- works are thus "intricate systems of simple units which dynamically adapt to their environments" (Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 1991, p. 21). Although they sometimes reach metastable states, connec- tionist networks never stop learning, and radi- cal environmental changes lead to radically new learning profiles. Once again, if the main chal- lenge for human beings is to survive in an unpre- dictable environment (see note 4), then nothing less than an open and integrated cognitive system will do.

ALIGNMENT AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

But what, specifically, of second language ac- quisition? If all learning takes place according to the principles we have outlined, then L2 develop- ment is obviously included. Although it would be foolish to deny that L2 learning has its own spe- cial traits, we focus here on the features it shares with other forms of dynamic adaptivity/learning. Future research will have to tease out such dif- ferences and complexities from a sociocognitive point of view.

A common assumption in mainstream SLA research-common partly because it seems to be true-is that cognition is invisible. If L2 develop- ment is largely an internal cognitive process, it is therefore the case that we cannot study it di- rectly, but only by examining various artifacts of that process: scores on tests, error profiles, intro- spective reports (e.g., grammaticalityjudgments), postlearning performance measures, and so on.

Capturing the actual processes of L2 development is therefore a fraught endeavor from a cognitivist perspective (Doughty, 2003).

From a sociocognitive perspective, however, at least parts of the process are visible. That is, if learning is defined as we did earlier- trajectories of ecological experience and reper- toires of participation, gained in the process of adaptive dynamics-we can show learning pro- cesses in flight, so to speak, in the activities of human beings acting-thinking-being-aligning in and to the world. Alignment in this case includes the learner coming into coordinated interaction with the language being learned, in tandem with the full array of sociocognitive affordances: (a) associated tools (e.g., literacy tools like books, pens, and grammar exercises; embodied tools like physical orientation, eye gaze, and gesture; so- cial tools like interaction and turn-taking); (b) individuals and their multiple roles and identities (e.g., interlocutors, peers, tutors, experts, teach- ers, and family members); (c) socially defined pur- poses, situations, conventions, and participation structures (e.g., politeness, phatic communion, instruction, speech acts, genres, conversations, lessons, work situations, service encounters, and tutoring sessions); (d) historical trajectories (e.g., personal relationships, cross-cultural expe- riences, and individuals' histories of socialization and education); and (e) sociocognitive sys- tems and processes (e.g., connectionist networks, memory for action [Barsalou, 1999; Glenberg, 1997], and cultural models [Holland & Skinner, 1987]). Together, these multiple, interacting are- nas for alignment form the common "ecology of mind" (Bateson, 1972), body, and activity under- lying L2 development.

Although we are not aware of L2 learning theories that attempt to cover quite so much ground, a holistic sociocognitive approach would seem to demand it. At the same time, a multi- tude of concepts in the language-oriented disci- plines now suggest that something like alignment is necessary for language use and acquisition. These concepts include speech accommodation (e.g., Giles & Coupland, 1991), framing and footing (Goffman, 1974), coordinated interac- tion (e.g., Goodwin, 2000), contextualization cues (Gumperz, 1982), involvement (Tannen, 1989), co-authorship (Goodwin, 1986), co-membership (Erickson, 2001),joint attention (e.g., Tomasello, 1999; Zukow-Goldring & Ferko, 1994), inter- actional routines (e.g., Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986; Watson, 1975), affordances (Gibson, 1979; Greeno, 1994), communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), zone of proximal

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Dwight Atkinson et al. 173

development (e.g., Cole, 1985; Vygotsky, 1978), social convergence (Young, 1987), indexicality (e.g., Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989), invest- ment (Norton, 2000), attention (Schmidt, 1990), task engagement (e.g., Platt & Brooks, 2002), in- tegrative motivation (e.g., Gardner, 1985), and, in a negative sense, social and psychological distance (Schumann, 1978) and complementary schismo- genesis (Bateson, 1972).

SOCIOCOGNITIVE SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: AN EXAMPLE

Earlier Experiences With the "Have You Ever" Construction

In this section, we attempt to show the workings of alignment vis-A-vis L2 development in a real- world, real-time case of doing-thinking-learning. The situation we analyze is not a particularly promising one from a mainstream SLA perspec- tive: It centers on a grammar worksheet exercise on the English present perfect tense. This exer- cise was one of many assigned as summer vacation homework for Ako,7 aJapanesejunior high school student and one of the two main participants in this study. Ako had left all 20 pages of exercises undone until 2 weeks before school was to recon- vene, and with the (very active) help of the other main participant, her aunt Tomo, she was work- ing hard to finish them. Our primary data are drawn from a videotape of this tutoring session. We begin, however, by giving background infor- mation about the two participants and the physi- cal and social learning contexts in which theywere located.

Fourteen years old at the time of the study, Ako was a third-year student in a private junior high school in Tokyo. Her exposure to English as a foreign language (EFL) had begun in Grade 1 of elementary school, where students and teacher engaged in English-related activities such as songs and games for 40 minutes each week. In junior high school, Ako's EFL instruction had intensi- fied to five or six 50-minute classes per week (de- pending on the year) and had taken on a gram- mar focus. However, despite this history of ex- posure and instruction, Ako appeared to have learned rather little of the language. She knew and could use a number of high-frequency vo- cabulary words (e.g., boy, girl, dog, cat, pen, num- bers, the days of the week, and months of the year) and social expressions (e.g., hi, thanks, see ya, and good night). She also reported having a de- sire to communicate in English, and felt the best way to learn was through actual communication

(Interview with Ako, 2005). However, Ako had been placed in a low-proficiency English class in her junior high school and appeared unsuc- cessful even there: She received low grades, was made to take extra instruction, and was appar- ently viewed by her teachers as unmotivated be- cause the school had notified Ako's mother that she needed to study harder. Ako herself reported finding the largely grammar-focused instruction offered by the school difficult and uninteresting (Interview with Ako, 2005).

Ako's aunt Tomo, on the other hand, was an ac- complished user of English. At the time, she was working as a part-time instructor of English edu- cation at aJapanese university and studying in an L2 education doctoral program at the Japan cam- pus of an American university. She had previously taught English in junior high school for 5 years, high school for 2 years, and university and kinder- garten for 1 year each. Unlike Ako, Tomo had been a successful student of English in secondary school, and, based on that and subsequent expe- riences, she believed that both explicit grammar instruction and real-world communication were crucial for acquisition.

Because they lived next door to each other, Ako visited Tomo's house daily. As a result, their re- lationship was extremely close. At Tomo's, Ako typically passed the time by using the computer, watching TV, eating sweets, and chatting with her aunt, but when she had English homework or ex- ams to prepare for, she sought Tomo's help.

When Ako and Tomo worked on English to- gether, they usually adopted the conventions of an educational speech event commonly known as "tutoring" (kateikyoshi o suru). This outside-school form of educational support involves a kateikyoshi (lit. 'home teacher') and a student (most typically a secondary school student) working together one to one. In the case of EFL, such sessions often fo- cus on grammar exercises set by the school.8 In the model tutoring situation, student and tutor sit side-by-side, with the student completing the ex- ercises more or less independently and the tutor then checking the exercises and giving comments and corrections where needed. But although this was the model Tomo aimed to achieve with Ako, she stated that she was unable to attain it during the period in which the video was made because Ako either needed or wanted more help, and con- stantly succeeded in "pulling me [i.e., Tomo] into her world" (Interview with Tomo, 2005).

In order to show the workings of mind-body- world alignment in second language acquisi- tion, we first present an in-depth analysis of

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approximately 1.5 minutes of videotaped interac- tion from Ako and Tomo's tutoring session. Pre- ceding this episode, they had spent approximately 5 minutes working together on a set of worksheet exercises focusing on the present perfect tense, to which Ako had first been formally introduced earlier that year. As shown in Figure 1, these ex- ercises required a variety of present perfect con- structions, in both declarative and interrogative forms. In Section 3 of these exercises-the sec- tion immediately preceding the one in question-- students had been directed to convert short sen- tences featuring simple past tense verbs into sen- tences containing present perfect verbs, based on a time adverbial prompt.

As the videotaped episode begins, Ako and Tomo are sitting side-by-side at Tomo's dining room table, working on Section 4, sentence 3 of the exercises. This section comprises 10 Japanese sentences that the student is simply directed to Put into English (see Figure 1). Having finished the second of these sentences together, Tomo has just reached over and lifted Ako's left hand from beneath the table, based on her conventional un-

derstanding that students should sit up straight with both hands on the table when they study (Interview with Tomo, 2005). At the same time, in a voice that began in a mock-serious tone but ended in laughter, Tomo has said (in Japanese): "Hey, all the college students in Japan are watch- ing [this video]. So let's study!" Ako has laughingly replied (in Japanese), "Oh, sorry!" while glancing directly at the video camera. She then pulls her chair closer to the table and fixes her gaze on Section 4, sentence 3 of the worksheet, the target translation of which is 'Have you ever written a let- ter in English?'. The ensuing interaction (the first 17 seconds from a 1.5-minute episode) is shown below in Excerpt 1, with associated images from the video (Pictures 1.1 through 1.4).9

Let us now provide a running commentary on this excerpt, focusing on the multiple forms of mind-body-world alignment that occur or can be inferred to occur. Our claim is that such align- ment is crucial for second language acquisition, but a careful analysis of the interactional details of Excerpt 1 must precede an elaboration of this claim.

FIGURE 1 Ako's (completed) grammar worksheet, as featured in Excerpts 1-4

(2) My mother became sick yesterday She is sttill sck now. (3)

~fat

1 5#l(-

ff-,tL7,Q '.Cgj

.o

&C ? NO4

My mother s ( eick ./ - yesterday. (4) b 3j H rk T1i .

(3)1 lost my umbrella. I don't have now

= _ _ _ _ my umbrella (5) h / it . (4) Ken went to Australia. He is nothere now

= Ken ~ to Austraha. (6) a 10 frA0l) 1t -t. .~<

-q R ~ e- 70 O10 (1) 1 didn't aee Mie. (fora longtime k - Cv))

(2) Did your mother vmsit Olunawa? (ever tZ I5E !5l6r) "

(8) He -)- Yti 8- U/Lt- X 3 7named7dt tt)bd 3 B .

(4) Wedidn't wrte ZJim. (never -. T)( O )4A89 t J ,

(5) (3)He ha read this boo My mother aways keeps the room clean

(2 4?

?'astwt 69k 0 0) It0) A *1

I-O,(4)

M

ad

It

o

let u) 1 wat- h7). Ittor5t0o1o.u /.

(Gl ha ve been bousy for two wmk. I FAA%-'to

f 4-5I O ...

t . H e vv(Qyn \'v-Kyoij, 6h 6Oll ?Fgee _____ '

F5 *- MakheA B,BIS*t IV Put into Englibh. A -byCN,

1. Put to Japanese. . _ .... (0) Ka3M 3 Id'1 (1)The news made him happy. ~ n - it. : 5 _i~Ifl: 12

(xie u 4i2) He named the baby Ben. !W I v, o tt.: (3) My mother always keepa the room clean, *(,2A Z'

(2(h(/tKBtct) tzCAIIADnttA. (4) We had Dad ftx our bicycle __ A- " A f;, t _ z T? ;xat,,_'D

(5) My parenta let us watch TV for two hours- f

r 0

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Dwight Atkinson et al. 175

EXCERPT 1 Have You Ever Write, Written?

01 A: ((Reads first part of exercise item quickly under her breath)) 02 =?Anata wa ima made ni eigo de tegami=?< (2.0) Ima made ni=

[Lit: You (Top) until now in English letter] Until now 03 T: ((Softly shadowing A's volume, intonation, and gestures)) (Picture 1.1) 04 =?Un ima made'

Right, until now 05 (1.0) 06 A: [Ne:ba:

Never 07 T: [>Sakki no tsukaeba iinjanai?< (Picture 1.2)

Why not use the one you used before? 08 A: Ima made (.8) n- e:va ka

Until now ne- ever? 09 T: Have you ever toka nantoka=

Have you ever blank blank 10 A: =Have you eva writu, written= (Picture 1.3)

Have you ever write, written 11 T: =Un. (Picture 1.4)

Right. 12 A: ((Softly, then laughs as she writes on the worksheet)) 13 OMattete wasureru?

Wait, I'll forget

PICTURE 1.1 PICTURE 1.2

PICTURE 1.3 PICTURE 1.4

In Lines 1 and 2, Ako is busy aligning her- self with Sentence 3 on the worksheet: Under her breath, she reads the first part of the sen- tence, Anata wa ima made ni eigo de tegami 'You

[topic marker] /until now/in English/letter'. She then leans to her right, puts her right hand to her ear, and looks up and to her left as she

repeats the adverbial ima made ni 'Until now'

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a bit louder in a 1-3-2 intonation pattern. The choice of the adverbial as Ako's initial focus of attention may well be significant because the items in the previous section of this exercise were all keyed to adverbial prompts. Cognition is there- fore likely being guided and organized here by the in-the-world affordance of preexisting models, just as it is by Ako's verbalization of her thinking processes.

In tight coordination with Ako's actions, Tomo also leans to her right and puts her right hand to her forehead (see Picture 1.1 in Excerpt 1). She then latches Ako's second ima made ni with the confirmation Un 'Right', followed by a par- tial repetition of Ako's utterance (ima made 'until now') in a softness of voice and intonation pattern closely mirroring Ako's. By so doing, Tomo imme- diately produces and displays her own alignment with Ako and the activity she is engaged in, and she does so by simultaneously combining action in "multiple semiotic fields that mutually elaborate each other" (Goodwin, 2000, p. 1494): gesture (hand to forehead), bodily orientation (leaning to right), linguistic confirmation (Un), linguistic repetition (ima made), intonation (1-3-2 pattern), and voice volume (soft). It should also be noted that, through her utterance, Tomo not only con- firms but also co-constructs Ako's focus on the ad- verbial; in this important sense, cognition is being sociocognitively organized and managed.

Next, after a short pause, Ako (Line 6) takes her first stab at translating the exercise item by producing what appears to be a guess at the En- glish equivalent of the adverbial, Ne:ba: 'Never'. By doing so, she seems to show that she has cho- sen, or is headed toward choosing, the Have you ever experience construction of the present per- fect tense, only one of several possibilities featured in these exercises. At precisely the same time as Ako is stating this initial hypothesis, Tomo pro- poses (Line 7) her own approach to translating the sentence: Sakki no tsukaeba iinjanai? 'Why not use the one you used before?'. That is, she suggests that Ako use an earlier, already completed item on the page as an in-the-world model to assist cogni- tion, or, more concretely and sociocognitively, to assist answering because cognition is worth little here unless "externalized" for the tutor to correct or confirm.'0

As Tomo makes this suggestion, she projects her proposed solution into physical space, trac- ing and in fact aiding her visual search with the real-world tool-her pen-held in her right hand (Picture 1.2 in Excerpt 1). As Tomo's search con- tinues, Ako shifts her gaze first to Tomo and then to the worksheet where Tomo is searching with her pen. At this point (Line 8), Ako repeats the

adverbial in the partial form that Tomo had just used (ima made), but then continues her earlier course of action by revising her own initial hy- pothesis, Ne:ba:, to n- e:va ka 'Ne- ever?'. Here, we might say that the two participants' sociocognitive worlds seem momentarily to overlap rather than align; each seems to be engaged in seeking her own mind-body-world solution to the problem.

However, having failed to find the item she is searching for, Tomo reestablishes theirjoint atten- tion and shared definition of the situation by tak- ing Ako's new hypothesis e:va and contextualizing and expanding it within a larger fill-in-the-blank frame (Line 9): Have you. ever toka nantoka 'Have you ever blank blank?'. She thus narrows the so- ciocognitive problem space considerably. That is, Tomo's scaffolding now affords Ako the opportu- nity to focus almost entirely on determining the correct form of the main verb-a major and com- plex point in this exercise because irregular verb forms are well-known trouble spots for Japanese learners of English, and in fact, Tomo (not to men- tion Ako's school) has been strongly promoting the memorization of such forms in her sessions with Ako.

Ako's response, Have you ever writu, written (Line 10), is highly sociocognitive, involving mul- tiple forms of meaning-making, including ges- ture, eye gaze, bodily orientation, speech volume, and intonation, all taking place in tandem with "externalized thought" and, as we will argue, ex- ternalized learning processes (see note 10). In fact, Ako's first proposal for the correct verb form in this excerpt, writu, may be viewed as an inter- mediate step that sociocognitively bootstraps (Red- dington & Chater, 1998) her into the correct an- swer, given that Tomo has been drilling her on ir- regular verbs in a similar sequence, eat-ate-eaten, write-wrote-written, and so on.11

In any case, Ako physically aligns her answer first to the worksheet by raising her left hand and bringing her left index finger down on the exercise item just as she pronounces the sec- ond, emphasized syllable of writu (Picture 1.3 in Excerpt 1). She then shifts her gaze to Tomo, and revises her answer to written exactly as she moves her already-raised right hand to point her right index finger at Tomo (Picture 1.4 in Excerpt 1). Here, then, Ako's thinking processes seem to be highly "externalized" and in fact intersubjectively constructed with Tomo: We see two hypotheses occurring in rapid succession, the first hypothe- sis partly correct (in that it produces a target-like verb form, although not the correct one), and the second hypothesis actually yielding the cor- rect answer. These answers are produced in di- rect (and gesturely dramatized) alignment with

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two of the major affordances in Ako's sociocogni- tive environment: the worksheet and Tomo her- self. In the latter case, by pointing at Tomo, Ako seems to indicate that she is co-cognizing in close alignment with her. To put it more traditionally, she seems to realize that if she doesn't produce the correct form, Tomo will either prompt her further or produce it herself. We therefore get something like a Vygotskian zone of proximal de- velopment (Cole, 1985; Vygotsky, 1978), wherein the unit of action is the dyad-the novice and ex- pert functioning as a cross-cognitive organism-- rather than as cognitive monads involved in the same activity.

But where is second language acquisition in all this? Although we have not yet provided suf- ficient data to support our argument, let us out- line it here: The interaction in Excerpt 1 is seri- ous inter-action-productive activity in which hu- man actors and nonhuman affordances collude in constructing an exercise answer in ways that blur the boundaries between person and person, per- son and object, social action and cognition, and learning and use. As mentioned above, a zone of proximal development is one way to conceptu- alize this activity, and conceptualizing it this way offers certain advantages. It suggests the indivis- ibility of the expert-novice dyad, as well as the construction of an active and dynamic "zone" in which guided participation is taking place. Staying within the Vygotskian framework for a moment, we can further say that the action in Excerpt 1 involves mediational tools (Wertsch, 1985): the ex- ercise worksheet (and, more specifically, the items on it), Tomo's pen, Ako's finger-pointing, and, in fact, the whole complex repertoire of meaningful action within and across multiple semiotic fields. These actions include gestures, eye gaze, posture and bodily orientation, proxemics, kinesics, writ- ten language, and, of course, spoken language itself and its many strategies and resources for meaning-making (e.g., repetition, backchannels, questions, confirmations, emphasis, intonation, volume, pacing, discourse markers, grammar, and various involvement and contextualization strate- gies). Going beyond the Vygotskian framework, however, we can say that the kind of learning we infer as occurring through these inter-activities is not ultimately aimed at the internalization of a language of thought (the Vygotskian position) or a decontextualized set of grammatical rules (the cognitivist SLA position). Quite to the contrary, Ako is developing repertoires ofparticipation-ways of linking herself more closely and directly to the world through the dynamic development of lin- guistic (combined with other) tools for so doing.

To put it more directly, our argument is that any time anyone does anything new and different in a sociocognitive world-in this case, responding to a grammar exercise item on the English present perfect tense in a one-to-one tutoring session- that person is engaging in developmental activity. Thus, Ako's "mindset"-or, more accurately, her social mindset (Gee, 1992)--will be different as a result of this experience from what it was going into the experience. Whether one wants to call this activity learning per se is not vitally impor- tant at this point in our argument, but if there is substantial agreement that much L2 learning is a gradual, cumulative process, then we would argue that it has to be this kind of process-this kind of guided, negotiated trajectory of experience, involving multiple repetitions in slightly varying contexts, bootstrapping, and the sociocognitive building up and negotiation of hypotheses. More specifically, from Ako's reading the full sentence under her breath straight off the worksheet, to focusing her and her tutor's sociocognitive atten- tion on the adverb, to producing for sociocogni- tive negotiation a first hypothesis of an answer, to taking Tomo's cue and engaging in a (highly scaf- folded) oral fill-in-the-blank activity, Ako demon- states elements of learning "in flight," or trajecto- ries of ecological experience and participation. And such experience takes place not in some lonely, insulated cognitive space, but "out there" (or perhaps "in-out there") in the enactment of real-world activity in a particular sociocognitive context.

Excerpt 2 continues directly from Excerpt 1, and includes the remaining 1.25 minutes of the episode under consideration. Excerpt 2 includes many of the same interactive features as Excerpt 1. Thus, the highly aligned and dynamically adap- tive character of the interaction is indicated by the way the correct answer is co-constructed through the simultaneous use of linguistic and other semi- otic tools, including eye gaze, bodily orientation, memory, gesture, facial expressions, laughter, rep- etition, writing and written language, voice speed, intonation, volume, overlap, and latching. Al- though we provide a running commentary on the full excerpt below, we focus especially on two seg- ments of the interaction: Tomo's dramatization regarding the missing article in Lines 12-17, and, from Line 20, her reframing (Goffman, 1974) of the grammar exercise as a real-world conversation in the target language, and the important role of play in this shift.

As Excerpt 2 begins, Ako is preoccupied with writing down the part of the exercise answer negotiated in Excerpt 1, verbalizing as she writes.

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EXCERPT 2 Have You Ever Written a Letter in English? 01 A: ((Reads aloud while writing first part of answer on worksheet)) 02 Have you:(1.0) eva::=

Have you ever 03 T: =Un

Right 04 (3.0) 05 A: ((Checks spelling with T as she continues writing)) 06 /ri/::: (1.7) oatteru ( )?o

Wr- Correct ? 07 (.5) 08 T: Um o::: atteru. Kyo saeteru 'do shita no. ((laughing)) 09 [Ma ii yao

Right. Wow, correct! You're sharp today! What's going on? Anyway...

10 A: ((Laughs slightly, then continues reading aloud)) 11 [Have you ever written: (1.0) lettA: in Englisha?

Have you ever written letter in English? 12 T: Un letta ikutsu?

Right, how many letters? 13 A: Letta:

Letter 14 T: ((Mimes writing simultaneously with both hands)) 15 >Koyatte letta [?ippen ni'sa futatsu kakenai kara<= (Picture 2.1)

Like this, you can't write two letters at the same time! 16 A: [a LETTA [[a letta

A letter a letter 17 T: [[=so a letta un

Right, a letter, right 18 A: ((As she writes last part of answer down)) 19 Le:tta (.5) a letta (2.0) in Englishu.=

Letter, a letter in English 20 T: ((Starting very quietly)) =?li ne. (1.0) Have you ever' written 21 a letter in English? (2.5) ((Louder, while nudging A with her elbow)) 22 Have you ever written a letter in English? (Picture 2.2)

Good. 23 A: ((Looking at T)) WHAT? 24 T: Have you ever written a le- letter in English? (Picture 2.3) 25 A: ((Looking at exercise sheet)) Yes I havu.

Yes I have. 26 T: To whom. 27 A: Huh? 28 T: To whom. 29 A: Whom tte nani, [ah:::::

What does whom mean, oh ok ok 30 T: [To: Maachan Maachan Maachan (.3) to::: 31 (3.0) your friend. (Picture 2.4) 32 A: Hh hh? ((laughing coyly and with a big smile))

Uh huh 33 T: Your friend? 34 A: AhtHA. ((laughing)) (Picture 2.5)

Uh huh! 35 T: Ahso.=

Oh really. 36 A: =Ye::s. ((laughing)) 37 T: Honto ni?=

Really? 38 A: =Nande nani [o kitai shiteru no.

Why? What do you want to hear? 39 T: [Honto ni? ((points with pen to prepositional

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40 phrase in English in just-finished item on grammar worksheet)) 41 Honto ni kaita koto=

Really? Really? Have you really written

42 A: =Ah Eigo de? Oh, in English?

43 T: Un. Right.

44 A: Eigo de WA (.3) NAI. >Kako kana to omotta obachama oshiete?< In English, no. I thought I might write (though)-will you show me how, aunty?

45 T: Un. To whom= Yes. To whom?

46 A: =Are da yo That one.

47 T: To whom= 48 A: ((Pinching T's arm)) =America no sa America ni ichatta

American, the one who went to America.

PICTURE 2.1 PICTURE 2.2

PICTURE 2.3 PICTURE 2.4

PICTURE 2.5

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As she finishes spelling out written, Ako quietly checks her spelling with Tomo: atteru ( )? 'Cor- rect?' in Line 6. Probably because Ako is a poor speller (Interview with Tomo, 2005), Tomo re- sponds excitedly with a partial repetition and praise, Um o:::: atteru. Kyo saeteru 'Right. Wow, cor- rect! You're sharp today!' in Line 8, while shifting her gaze from the worksheet to Ako, leaning to- ward her, and laughing slightly. Tomo then contin- ues more quietly with do shita no? Ma ii ya 'What's going on? Anyway ...' as she refocuses her gaze on the worksheet, apparently indicating a desire to return quickly to the task at hand. As Tomo expostulates, Ako looks at her with a big smile, leans toward Tomo slightly as Tomo leans toward her, then returns to the task of writing her answer, repeating aloud what she is writing or is about to write (Line 11): Have you ever written: lettA: in Englisha ?

Tomo's response to the missing article in Ako's answer is quite interesting and revealing from a sociocognitive viewpoint. As a well-known trouble spot for Japanese learners of English, sometimes including quite advanced ones, Tomo treats the issue of the missing article in two graduated steps. First, in Line 12, she simply tries to draw Ako's attention to it by asking Letta ikutsu? 'How many letters?', apparently hoping to cue Ako's knowl- edge that all singular count nouns need articles. But Ako provides the same answer as previously: Letta:. Tomo then increases her level of involve- ment, actively instantiating by means of an in-the- world dramatic performance the consequence of the missing article. She does so in a highly ani- mated way, by pretending to write with both hands simultaneously (Picture 2.1 in Excerpt 2) while saying (Line 15) rapidly and excitedly Koyatte letta ippen ni safutatsu kakenai kara 'Like this, you can't write two letters at the same time!'. In so doing, Tomo uses a rich array of sociocognitive tools to focus Ako's attention on the missing article: voice- quality features (e.g., speed, volume, and empha- sis); an indexical (Koyatte 'Like this') grounding her words in concrete physical action and simul- taneously calling Ako's attention to that action; a discourse marker indicating emphasis (sa); and a complex set of gestures and bodily motions consti- tuting the mimed action of writing simultaneously with both hands. Tomo's point in doing so may reflect the following practical consciousness (Gid- dens, 1979): Because it is normally impossible to write two letters at the same time, the singular- ity of the product resulting from a single act of writing-a single letter-needs to be marked, and this is properly done by supplying the indefinite article.

In fact, Ako supplies the missing article twice (a LETTA a letta, Line 16) well before Tomo gets very far in either her utterance or accompanying action. Tomo then quickly confirms this answer by overlapping Ako's second a letta (Line 17). Al- though it is impossible to know exactly what brings the correct answer to Ako's awareness, the fact that she pronounces the answer loudly and twice in quick succession suggests that Tomo's height- ened (and dramatized) affect may have had a fa- cilitative role. This example is thus another possi- ble case of sociocognitive alignment encouraging language development, if, as we have argued, lan- guage development is based on trajectories of ex- perience with the language as sociocognitive tool. It is also the case, as elsewhere in Excerpts 1 and 2, that the answer itself is highly co-constructed: It is the result of cognition distributed across, rather than simply localized in, Ako and Tomo, and ac- tion that grounds, distributes, and enables that cognition in a complex public-cognitive space.

Following Ako's correct response, and Tomo's confirmation of it, Ako continues to read aloud as she finishes writing her now revised answer, with Tomo confirming its correctness (li ne. 'Good.') in Line 20.

To this point, the focus of the interaction has been on accurately translating a grammar exer- cise item. Tomo now attempts to engage Ako in real-life communication. She starts quietly with Have you ever written (Line 20) while continuing to look at the exercise and with her hand partly covering her mouth. She then continues in fuller voice, a letter in English? as she shifts her gaze to Ako. But Ako remains focused on the work- sheet. Tomo next leans slightly toward Ako and nudges her with her elbow (Picture 2.2 in Excerpt 2) while repeating more loudly, Have you ever writ- ten a letter in English ? Ako responds with a loud WHAT? as she swings her head and gazes at Tomo (Picture 2.3 in Excerpt 2), a response that seems to signal three things: (a) an acknowledgment that she and Tomo are now engaged in a dif- ferent kind of speech activity-real-world English conversation-because her response is, in fact, in English; (b) a willingness to align, and preliminary alignment, to "playing the game"; and (c) that she does not know how to go on-that she needs help from Tomo to play the game in a satisfactory way.

In response to Ako's signal, Tomo repeats her question, unchanged, for a third time (Line 24). As if searching for an answer, Ako returns her gaze to the exercise sheet (it should be noted, however, that the answer to Tomo's question does not appear on the exercise sheet), and then an- swers Yes I havu. Tomo next responds with a new

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question, To whom? but Ako's response to this question, Huh? (a linguistic item formally and functionally indistinguishable inJapanese and En- glish), again signals incomprehension, leading Tomo to repeat her question with added empha- sis on the first phoneme of whom. In response, Ako asks (in Japanese) a question targeting the exact source of her incomprehension: Whom tte nani 'What does whom mean?'. Here, the ongo- ing search for alignment thus comes to focus on a single lexical item. Ako immediately follows her question with ah:::::, a marker of delayed recog- nition (perhaps that whom is a variant of who), ex- actly as Tomo provides an example, To: Maachan Maachan Maachan, where the example repeats the first (presumably nonproblematic) part of Tomo's previous utterance, To, and then fills the slot of the problematic item with a familiar name, Maachan (the name of Ako's older sister), which Tomo quickly repeats two additional times.

At this point, a new frame for interpretation is introduced as the interaction becomes playful, leading to an even higher level of interactivity and alignment than before. The flashpoint seems to be the highly co-constructed negotiation sur- rounding Tomo's initial cueing of the meaning of whom with the example of Ako's older sister's name, and then Tomo's reformulation of her ex- ample to your friend a few seconds later. More specifically, as Ako seems to begin aligning to Tomo's question, To whom, a cultural model of romance (Holland & Skinner, 1987) appears to be sociocognitively activated. This development in itself may not be very surprising, since Ako is a 14-year-old with a very active interest in teenage boys of a similar (or greater) age, and Tomo is a dyed-in-the-wool romantic (Interview with Tomo, 2005). As a result, Tomo and Ako frequently ban- ter about romance, and in the recent past, Tomo has shown great interest in Ako's incipient love life, real or imagined. Given this background, we would interpret the continuation of Tomo's utter- ance immediately subsequent to the repetition of Maachan Maachan Maachan as follows.

After Tomo repeats Maachan, she pauses briefly and then begins to reformulate her example by uttering an extended to:::, followed by a 3- second pause. This momentarily unfilled slot acts as an opening for Ako to involve herself in co- constructing the example, and she does so by act- ing (we know of no other way to put it) "coy." Thus, starting with Tomo's to::: and ending with her ut- terance of your friend about 4 seconds later, Ako glances at the camera, gazes off into the middle distance, tilts her head to the right, and, batting her eyelashes in a sidelong mock-flirtatious glance

at Tomo, places her left hand on her throat and cracks a mischievous smile as she raises her eye- brows (Picture 2.4 in Excerpt 2). It is to Ako's actions, therefore, that Tomo is responding when she completes the utterance with your friend. But this is no doubt an overly individualist-cognitivist way to describe what has happened because the cognition here is highly shared, highly mutual, and highly public. It is therefore probably mis- guided to try to assign responsibility for the ini- tiation of romantic play to just one of the par- ticipants. Rather, it is serious inter-action, just as improvisational dance (Rogoff, 1998), spatial un- derstanding (Gauvain, 1993), or finding one's way in a city (Gee, 1992) or through the woods (Glenberg, 1997) are serious forms of inter-action. It is the combined activity-the performing of so- cial action in a dense sociocognitive ecology-that is significant here.

The rest of the interaction around Tomo's ask- ing the real-world question, Have you ever writ- ten a letter in English? can be described as fol- lows. In Lines 32-36, Ako continues to display heightened affect marking a sense of playfulness, as Tomo undertakes to grill her, also playfully, on whether Ako truly has written a letter to a "friend" in English. Thus, continuing to smile and raise her eyebrows in Line 32, Ako replies Hh hh? 'Uh huh!' in a markedly sing-song intonation. Tomo then repeats, with confirmation-seeking intona- tion, Your friend? to which Ako responds in Line 34 Ah HA! 'Uh huh!' with still further (and ob- viously playful) intensified affect, as marked by a pronounced intonational contour and contin- ued big smile and raised eyebrows (Picture 2.5 in Excerpt 2). Tomo counters with a somewhat lack- adaisical sounding (or perhaps coy on her own part) Ah so 'Oh really?', to which Ako responds immediately and laughingly with Ye::s in Line 36. Tomo then seeks to confirm the truth of Ako's an- swer with Honto ni? 'Really?', to which Ako imme- diately latches Nande nani o kitai shiteru no 'Why? What do you want to hear?' in Line 38. Tomo thereupon overlaps Ako, repeating her own pre- vious utterance, Honto ni 'Really?', while point- ing with her pen to the prepositional phrase in English on the grammar worksheet, and then fol- lows up in Line 41 by asking Honto ni kaita koto 'Have you really written?'. However, Ako breaks into Tomo's utterance with Ah Eigo de? 'Oh, in English?' and, following Tomo's confirmation, an- swers the question in Line 44: Eigo de WA NAI. Kako kana to omotta obachama oshiete? 'In English, no. I thought I might write (though)--will you show me how, aunty?'. Tomo then responds in the positive Un. 'Yes.' and continues by repeating

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her earlier question To whom? twice more (Lines 45, 47), the first time receiving the rather vague answer, Are da yo 'That one', and the second time receiving a slightly less vague elaboration, America no sa America ni ichatta 'American, the one who went to America'. While she is giving this answer, Ako gently pinches the flesh on Tomo's upper left arm, further indicating the playful nature of the interaction. At the same time, we should note in concluding our description of Excerpt 2 that, from the point where Tomo turns it in a commu- nicative direction, the interaction is not a particu- larly smooth one. Tomo is forced to do a lot of scaf- folding, repetition, and decomposition, and Ako seems to struggle to understand-to align herself to the social action that Tomo is performing.

Later Experiences With the "Have You Ever" Construction

So far, we have presented Ako's experience with the Have you ever construction at a single point in time. As suggestive as such examples may be, they indicate little if anything about the cross- time trajectories of experience-the developing repertoires of participation that we claim char- acterize second language acquisition from a so- ciocognitive perspective. We therefore offer four additional examples that suggest Ako's growing ability to align to her sociocognitive environment using the target grammatical construction. Un- like our previous examples, those presented here are intentionally minimalistic: We seek merely to give an inkling of Ako's growing sociocog- nitive experience with the grammatical form in question.

The first example (Excerpt 3) occurs later in the same tutoring session, as Tomo and Ako begin to answer item 9 (see Figure 1), which requires translation of a paired question and answer.

Compared with her performance in Excerpt 1, where she needed extensive scaffolding to arrive at the correct answer, Ako here immediately of- fers Ha: you (Line 5); then, with only minimal prompting, Have you eva (Line 7), and, following that, Have you eva r/i/du (Line 9). Although Ako's accuracy is still developing, her comparative flu- ency with the forms-and even their approximate accuracy-seem qualitatively different from what they were about 15 minutes earlier.

Similar developments can be seen in Excerpt 4, in which Tomo and Ako co-construct the transla- tion for the last item (Item 10; see Figure 1) in this section of the exercises.

In this excerpt, Tomo begins by trying to alert Ako that the adverbial (kore made ni 'up to this

point') in the sentence to be translated is a close synonym of the ima made 'until now' found in Item 3 of the exercise and translated in Excerpt 1, and thus can be translated in the same way. Ako imme- diately supplies Eva (Line 4), Havu you eva: (Line 6), and then takes a stab at the verb, Lis:? ten? (Line 8)-all with only minimal guidance from Tomo. As in Excerpt 3, we therefore seem to be seeing (in Vygotksian terms) microgenetic12 development in relation to Excerpt 1. In our own terms, we might say that, although the target structure has by no means simply been learned, the example may show learning taking place.

The third example occurred inJune 2005 dur- ing a tutoring session held to prepare Ako for her first English exam in the high school she had en- tered 2 months earlier. The example (recorded only in fieldnotes) involved Tomo trying to ex- pand on a textbook grammar explanation of ad- verbials frequently used with have constructions, wherein the citation example was "Have you ever seen a panda? Yes, I have." After reviewing the grammar point and example, Tomo tried to use the latter for authentic communication, asking Ako, "Have you ever seen a panda?" Ako immedi- ately replied, "Yes. I (pause) have. I have. I have seen a panda and okapi recently. I (pause) I went to Animal Land last (pause) last week" (Tomo's fieldnotes, 2005). The point of interest here is not that Ako succeeded in producing the Yes, I have short-answer form (she had done that previ- ously on a number of occasions), but rather that she successfully expanded on the utterance, using the present perfect tense accurately and appropri- ately to communicate personal experience.

Our final example (Excerpt 5) comes from a tutoring session held in August 2005, once again to help Ako complete summer homework. In the exercise in question, students were required to read a short passage describing Japan's Mount Fuji, and then to answer questions about it in writing. Tomo, however, decided to ask the ques- tions orally before letting Ako see them. The first four questions queried various facts about Mount Fuji; only the fifth and final question targeted the reader's personal experience, using the Have you (ever) construction.

Although this example again starts from a text- book exercise, it suggests Ako's growing ability to participate meaningfully in conversations using the Have you (ever) experience construction. In fact, the adverb ever, which much of her prior ex- perience with the construction was likely keyed to (see Excerpts 1-4), is not even included in this exchange. Ako is nevertheless able to ac- curately and appropriately share her personal

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EXCERPT 3 Have You Ever Read a Book on English History? 01 T: ((Reading item to be translated)) 02 >Anata wa eigo no rekishi ni tsuite no hon o yo- (.4) 03 yonda koto ga arimasuka HAI (.3) sengetsu soreni tsuite no hon 04 ?NIsatsu yomimashita. <

Have you ever re- read a book on English history? Yes, I read two books on it last month. 05 A: ((While yawning)) Ha: you

Have you 06 T: Have [you ((yawns)) 07 A: [Have you (.6) eva 08 T: AHA? 'linjanai.'

Right. Ok. 09 A: ((Leans toward T)) Have you eva r/i/du

Have you ever read 10 T: Reddo.

Read 11 A: RedDO.

Read 12 T: Un.

Right

EXCERPT 4 Have You Ever Heard This Story? 01 T: "Sugoi taihen da ne, nagai neo (.8) 02 a >hai saigo no mondai hai anata wa kono hanashi o 'su-? kore 03 made ni, ima made ne, kiita koto arimasuka?<

This is really hard, isn't it? It's long. Ok, last item. Ok, have you ever up to this point-until now, right?-heard this story?

04 A: Eva Ever

05 T: Un Right

06 A: Havu you eva: Have you ever

07 T: Un Right

08 A: Lis:?ten? ((turns head and gazes at T)) 09 T: ((Smacks lips)) [listen 10 A: [HEah ((raises both hands and points to T with 11 pencil in right hand))

Hear 12 T: Un hear no ii ne hear hea:rd? ((prompting A with rhythmic 13 downward cuts of hand to supply third principal part of verb))

Right, hear is better-hear, heard...

experience-almost exactly what she had real trouble doing in Excerpt 2.

IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND TEACHING

Although concepts related to alignment as de- scribed in this article exist in sociolinguistics and first language acquisition (as listed previously), we are not aware of its development in second

language acquisition studies.'" We will therefore speculate briefly on the concept's implications for L2 research and teaching in this section.

In terms of research, we can envision a shift in focus from what goes on within the learner in the L2 acquisition process-cognitive internaliza- tion and restructuring of language-to what goes on between the learner and his or her sociocog- nitive world. If cognition exists in the world as well as the head, and especially if it exists in an

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EXCERPT 5 Have You Climbed Mount Fuji? 01 T: Number five. Have you climbed Mount Fuji? 02 A: ((Tiredly, with head on table)) No. 03 T: No. 04 A: ((Looking up at T)) I (.9) have (.8) not 05 T: So:. Are you- have you climbed any mountain?

I see. 06 A: Asama

Mount Asama. 07 T: (Hon)tfto.

Really? 08 A: Yeah. 09 T: (Asama mountain) Whe:n (.6) did you climb. 10 A: ((Closing her eyes)) Shogakusei no toki kana

In grade school maybe? 11 T: Honfto.

Really?

integrated space subsuming both locations, then we will have to go there to find it. Qualitative re- search methods, such as those used by Hutchins (1995) to study "cognition in the wild," will have a key role to play here.

In fact, there has been considerable movement in the last decade toward more interactive views of L2 development, as evidenced in the work of con- versation analysts (e.g., Firth & Wagner, 1997; Mar- kee & Kasper, 2004) and neo-Vygotskian socio- cultural theorists (e.g., Ohta, 2001). However, as pointed out by various researchers (e.g., Zuengler & Miller, 2006), a "great divide" still exists in SLA between social and cognitive approaches. Further research employing and developing the align- ment concept can lessen the distance between these two positions.

In terms of teaching, we can envision the con- cept of alignment playing various roles. Thus, in a world where learner autonomy, student- centered learning, computer-mediated instruc- tion, programmed instruction, and instructional outsourcing (see Miyazato, 2006, for the last phe- nomenon in the Japanese context) are increas- ingly prominent features of the landscape, the notion of alignment developed in this article can function as a healthy reminder of the central role of teachers. If fine-grained, mutual-knowledge- rich, dynamically adaptive alignment of the sort described here is necessary for second language acquisition, then teachers have decidedly impor- tant roles to play.

At the same time, our conceptualization of alignment also moves beyond (traditionally con- ceived) teachers in (traditionally conceived) class- rooms. It does so in at least two ways: (a) by broadening the notions of teacher and classroom substantially; and (b) by including within its scope

nonhuman tools and affordances. In the first case, we could say that the world is full of teachers- family members, friends, peers, colleagues, lovers, and so on-basically anyone a person can align with in meaningful interaction. Given the vastness and variety of L2 learning, it seems clear that most L2 learning in the world occurs in the presence of such teachers, in the course of everyday life. The language teacher and the language classroom per se are thus relatively exotic species, although in no sense less important for this reason. A broader and more realistic understanding of the diversity of teaching/learning in the world today may help us design our classrooms and what happens in them more effectively (Lave, 1996).14

In the second case, the notion of alignment de- veloped in this article highlights the critical role of inanimate (but usually human-made) objects and environments-what we have described as tools and affordances-in L2 learning. The gram- mar exercise that Ako and Tomo were working on, for instance, was a major part of their learn- ing environment-the activities they engaged in could not have proceeded without it. This insight can perhaps also be extended to explain some of the success of noninstructed L2 learning activities such as extensive reading (e.g., Day & Bamford, 1998), wherein those who learn best seem to be those engaging or aligning with the activity most deeply.

We do not, however, want to argue that align- ment takes place along single dimensions-in extensive reading, for instance, solely between reader and book. As seen in our data, align- ment is profoundly multidimensional. Thus, Ako and Tomo aligned not just with each other, but with a rich array of sociocognitive tools and affor- dances: grammar exercises, pens, books, tables,

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Dwight Atkinson et al. 185

chairs, conventional definitions of the situation (e.g., the tutoring speech event), participant roles, gestures, bodily orientations, even video equipment-the list goes on and on. Whether and how a particular affordance contributes to learning is an empirical question, but it seems likely that their co-occurrence creates synergis- tic effects, by making the learning activity more deeply engaging. The implication for teaching here may thus be "the more alignment the bet- ter," although it is not clear to us how to enact this principle in the classroom. But perhaps research reaches its proper limit here: As with many other phenomena that L2 researchers study, teachers already know quite a lot about alignment and en- gagement, and are doubtless the best judges of how to instantiate it in the classroom, which, in fact, they are probably already doing every day.

CONCLUSION

In this article, we have attempted to present a dynamics rather than a mechanics of second lan- guage acquisition. Our starting point has been a critique of cognitivist SLA. Although it has long represented "the heart and soul of SLA" (Block, 1996), this approach seems to require revision in at least two senses: (a) in that it functions by removing language and its acquisi- tion from the world and imprisoning them sub- stantially in learners' heads; and (b) in that it represents a mechanics of second language ac- quisition, wherein learning is viewed as an input- organization-storage-output process modeled on the metaphor of a machine, and more specifi- cally a computer. Our claim, however, is that nei- ther of these assumptions does justice to the rich, human, dynamic, and engaged processes of L2 development.

Instead, we have argued for an approach to second language acquisition that is based on a fundamental fact of human existence and ex- perience: alignment. Without aligning to one's environment-without, that is, functioning as part of a larger, interactive mind-body-world ecology--human beings quickly cease to exist. As many have argued (e.g., Bateson, 1972; Chiel & Beer, 1997; Gibson, 1979), substantially all human behavior is based on this principle of dynamic ecological adaptivity, so we cannot see how learn- ing, including L2 learning, could be different. To found one's approach to L2 learning on a de- contextualized machine metaphor rather than a basic principle of human existence seems funda- mentally misguided in this sense.

However, we do not thereby dismiss the impor- tance of cognitive activity in second language ac-

quisition. Rather, we agree with the cognitive sci- entist Andy Clark (1997) that "much of what we identify as our cognitive capacities may ... turn out to be properties of the wider, environmen- tally extended systems of which brains are just one (important) part" (p. 214). In SLA studies, this view has been expressed most cogently by Larsen-Freeman (2002; cf., Sfard, 1998), who re- gards neither the socially focused "participation metaphor" nor the cognitively focused "acquisi- tion metaphor" as in themselves adequate expla- nations for the complex phenomenon of second language learning. In Larsen-Freeman's view, as in our own, it can only be both.

We have not intended in this article to pro- duce a testable hypothesis about second language learning. Rather, we have tried to present a so- ciocognitive approach as a useful thinking tool- a lens for conceptualizing L2 development on a more dynamically human basis. In doing so, we have offered both a theoretical standpoint and a small amount of data suggesting that trajecto- ries of experience and repertoires of participation develop interactively, dynamically, and longitudi- nally. We fully recognize the preliminary nature of this work, but, in tandem with all other ap- proaches to second language acquisition, we be- lieve it presents a plausible (because environmen- tally realistic) way forward.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank David Block, Andy Cur- tis, Juliet Langman, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Lourdes Ortega, Richard Schmidt, and Andrea Simon-Maeda for their thoughtful and stimulating comments on this pa- per, Paul Kei Matsuda and Jinju Nishino for their ex- cellent technical advice, and Sally Magnan andJacques Arceneaux for their care and patience while shepherd- ing this paper through the publication process.

NOTES

1 Cybernetics was the original basis for cognitive sci-

ence (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991). Clark (2003) defined cybernetics as "the science of control and com- munication in animals and machines" (pp. 13-14) and stated that "cyberneticists were especially interested in 'self-regulating systems"' (p. 14).

2 Differences between our approach to second lan- guage acquisition and that of neo-Vygotskian sociocul- tural theorists were described in Atkinson (2002). See Kinginger (2002), Kirshner and Whitson (1997, p. 8), and Wertsch (1998, p. 111) for related assessments.

3 According to Greeno (1994), "the term affordance refers to whatever it is about the environment that con- tributes to the kind of interaction that occurs" (p. 338).

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"Interaction," in this sense, refers to any relational activ- ity of human actors with/in their environment, which includes other human actors. The concept ofaffordance is a crucial component of Gibson's (1979) ecological psy- chology, an important inspiration for our approach to second language acquisition.

4 Compare Glenberg (1997), in his argument for human memory as fundamentally action-caused and action-oriented:

We live in a dangerous, three-dimensional world. Given the size, density, and physical capabilities of our bodies, the natural environment is hostile. We are open to predation, and our interactions with the world can lead to injury from freezing, burning, drowning, and falling. Clearly, survival requires the capability to navigate this environment and, just as clearly, our perceptual system has evolved to do just that. For example, we have developed impressive abil- ities to use information ... to guide action so that obstacles are avoided. (p. 4)

5 In expressing ourselves in this way, we are bump- ing up against the limits of language because we do not believe that any sociocogitive action actually takes place "solo." Multiple tools, affordances, processes, and interactions-including the (again, so-called) ambient environment itself-are always involved in action-in-the- world.

6At most, such acquisition would be an epiphe- nomenon of the process by which the unsighted nav- igator learned to negotiate his physical environment.

7 Pseudonyms are used for the research participants' names in this article.

8 There are various other kinds of materials as well. For example, large bookstores in Japan typically have a special section for doriru 'drill' materials, which are commonly used in such tutoring sessions.

9The data in this article are transcribed according to the conventions developed by Gail Jefferson (e.g., Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974) for conversation analysis. More specifically, we adopt the updated version of the Jefferson system given in Ochs, Schegloff, and Thompson (1997, pp. 461-465). We have augmented this transcription system, designed to capture native speaker-native speaker conversation, with two features from the system used in Markee and Kasper (2004, pp. 499-500): (a) the use of grammatical glosses in literal translations, and (b) the use of phonetic transcription where necessary to indicate variations in pronunciation.

10 Our reference to 'externalized' cognition is an- other case of the limitations of language in describing the kinds of phenomena we focus on in this article (see note 5, above). In fact, we believe that cognition is al- ways externalized, in the sense that it is part of a larger sociocognitive ecology rather than something that hap- pens largely or completely in isolated heads.

1 There may also be a "syllable rhythm" repeti- tion/coordination between Tomo's toka nantoka and Ako's writu written, whereby toka and writu are each composed of two syllables and nantoka and written of three (the third syllable in written being represented by

-n, which in Japanese constitutes its own independent syllable).

12 Lantolf (2000) defined microgenetic development as "the reorganization and development of mediation [i.e., the internalization of socially symbolic artifacts] over a relatively short span of time (for example, be- ing trained to criteria at the outset of a lab experiment; learning a word, sound, or grammatical feature of a language)" (p. 3). Our own way of making sense of this definition is to see microgenetic development as the increased presence of different learned forms and functions-not yet highly systematized-in some kind of a more or less freely varying grammatical/functional inventory (R. Ellis, 1994; Tarone & Liu, 1995), or as the leading edge of a grammatical construction or minisys- tem (Fillmore, Kay, & O'Connor, 1988).

13 Ohta (2001), following Strauss (1995), studied the learning and use of various expressions of alignment in Japanese as an L2. Ohta defined these expressions as "expressions ... used by one speaker to show empathy, understanding, or concurrence with another" (p. 181). Although she did not develop the notion of alignment per se, two points in Ohta's work may be relevant to our own: (a) she reviewed other research that shows that some kinds of aligning expressions are markedly more frequent in L1 Japanese than in American En- glish; and (b) at one point, she suggested that the perceptual saliency of a particular aligning expression may be increased by the "heightened mutual orienta- tion produced through its production and utterance" (p. 192).

14The educational anthropologist Jean Lave (e.g., 1988, 1996) has dedicated her career to establishing the fact that school-based learning is a relatively rare and specialized form of learning if looked at from a broad anthropological perspective. The notion of communi- ties of practice (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991) is one major result of Lave's work, and has many implications for the concept of alignment developed here.

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