Language learning and teaching as discursive practice

Abstract

The contributors to this book discuss how language is used in educational contexts both in and out of classrooms, and they describe how language learners do social actions, reflect on their own identities and mediate their own learning. In this concluding chapter, I take the opportunity to reflect on the theoretical positions that the other contributors to this book espouse, respond to some of their narratives, and attempt to recast their diverse approaches to language learning and teaching as a coherent approach to language and social action, which I call Discursive Practice. I argue that integrating diverse approaches into a coherent framework provides greater insights into language learning and teaching, and I begin by examining the relationship between language and context and argue that it is mutually reflexive. In this vein, I continue by expanding the notion of context to include self-identities of participants in social interaction. Such a broader view of context nudges linguistic phenomena from centre stage, and I complain that by a historical focus on language we have ignored important non-verbal semiotic systems that make significant contributions to the social dynamic of interaction.