Social Dimensions and Processes in Second Language Acquisition: Multilingual Socialization in Transnational Contexts

Abstract

Social aspects of second language acquisition (SLA) and the contexts in which people attempt to learn and use languages and seek to become integrated within new and changing cultures have been examined for decades from various theoretical perspectives. In this article, I present some of the ways in which ‘social’ experience is being theorized in SLA and in broader fields that intersect with SLA, such as linguistic anthropology. I then discuss how the Douglas Fir Group (DFG, 2016) originally portrayed the many interlinking factors affecting SLA in our multilingual world on several analytic levels and suggest ways of perhaps reconceptualizing the model while retaining its powerful heuristic value. Next, I describe language socialization research as 1 productive social approach and provide examples of research in 2 transnational domains—study abroad and heritage language learning—that demonstrate a multiscalar approach to examining social dimensions of language development and use. The article ends with a discussion of transdisciplinarity in SLA research. I suggest possibilities for team-based research projects that aim to understand cases from multiple, integrated perspectives on different scales of analysis, and then provide a brief reflection on some of the troubling political ideologies that SLA researchers who embrace multilingualism must now confront on a daily basis.