Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
in Sociocultural Theory
STEVEN L. THORNE
Department of Linguistics and Applied
Language Studies
The Pennsylvania State University
304a Sparks
University Park, PA 16802
Email: sthorne@psu.edu
This article describes the history and continuing development of Vygotsky-inspired sociocultural theories (SCT) and their application in second and foreign language research. In
particular, I emphasize the intellectual traditions out of which SCT emerged and the relation
of SCT to other critical scholarship. The discussion includes long-standing as well as recent
conceptual and methodological innovations in SCT research, the philosophical entailments of
SCT in regard to epistemology and ethical issues, and a select review of SCT second language
studies.
THE STUDY OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACquisition (SLA) has always included a diversity of
theoretical frameworks and approaches to datadriven inquiry. Tensions, however, have also been
an omnipresent feature of the intellectual landscape of the field. Contributing to an extended
intrafield debate (e.g., Beretta, 1991; Block, 1996;
Gregg, Long, Beretta, & Jordan, 1997; Lantolf,
1996; Long, 1990, 1993), Firth and Wagner (1997,
1998), on the one side, argued that the mainstream SLA literature continues to privilege individual cognition and thereby fails to take account
of critical sociolinguistic and communicative issues, and perhaps most importantly, that the interactionist SLA perspective constructs the representationally flat social identity of learner and native
speaker as research proxies for human agents. On
the other side, there is every reason to study the
cognitive and neurobiological aspects of mental
functioning as they relate to communicative performance and development. Sociocultural theory
offers a framework through which cognition can
be investigated systematically without isolating it
from social context or human agency. This framework is possible given that, as Lantolf (2004) explained,
The Modern Language Journal, 89, iii, (2005)
0026-7902/05/393409 $1.50/0
C 2005 The Modern Language Journal
394
general use of the term sociocultural (sometimes
hyphenated as socio-cultural ) in reference to social and cultural contexts of human activity (e.g.,
Heath, 1983; Ochs, 1987; Ochs & Schieffelin,
1984). However, the term sociocultural theory also
invokes a much more specific association to the
work of L. S. Vygotsky and the tradition of Russian cultural-historical psychology (Donato, 1994;
Frawley & Lantolf, 1985; Lantolf, 2000; Lantolf &
Appel, 1994; Swain, 2000; Thorne, 2000b, 2003).
This article addresses sociocultural in this second
and more constrained sense. Due to the near
ubiquity of sociocultural theory (hereafter SCT)
as a general descriptor of the multiple lineages
of Vygotsky-inspired applied linguistics research,
I will follow this convention although I prefer
and also will use the term activity theory, particularly in reference to more recent research (e.g.,
Y. Engestrom, 1987, 1999; Lantolf & Pavlenko,
2001; Leontev, 1981a). Although current SCT
approaches include numerous and somewhat divergent emphases, all would agree with Wertsch
(1995) that the goal of [such] research is to understand the relationship between human mental functioning, on the one hand, and cultural,
historical, and institutional setting, on the other
(p. 56). Furthermore, SCT and activity theory
place emphasis on using research processes and
findings to enact positive transformation in problem situations (Y. Engestrom, R. Engestrom, &
Kerosuo, 2003; Thorne, 2004).
This article is roughly divided into two halves.
The first half describes the intellectual antecedents and development of SCT approaches
up to current work in activity theory, while the
second half outlines contemporary SCT-informed
SLA research with a focus on the methodological,
epistemological, and ethical dimensions to this
work. Discussion of SCT research is provided to
link theoretical arguments with L2 (and other)
contexts. In addition, I present problems and limitations within SCT while also describing strengths
of this framework.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACHES
Sociocultural theory has matured over its approximately 80-year history as a theory of human
development that unites the ontogeny of an individual with the cultural-historical milieu and
the variable processes of participation in culturally organized activity. Creative fusions rooted in
Vygotskys seminal work form an array of interpretive frameworks for addressing problems and
Steven L. Thorne
Vygotsky applied this principle to psychology and
argued that collective human history and ontogenetic developmental processes must both be
addressed in an account of human mental functions (i.e., what Vygotsky termed the genetic
method). Second was Marxs formulation that human consciousness is social in origin. In this
regard, Vygotsky was particularly influenced by
Marxs sixth thesis on Feuerbach, which stated
in part that human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it
is the ensemble of social relations (Marx, 1972a,
p. 145). The third and critically important influence on Vygotskys work was Engelss writings on
the centrality of tool and sign mediation in human
functioning. These influences suggest more than
a modification of epistemology and method, for
essentially, this is a proposal for a new ontology
that describes higher-order3 mental and behavioral control as the internalization of cultural and
linguistic resources (Frawley, 1997).
Vygotskys (1981) genetic law of cultural development brings these three issues together in an
illustration of the mediated processes of individual and collective development. The well-known
formulation is as follows:
Any function in the childs cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the
social plane, and then on the psychological plane.
First it appears between people as an interpsychological category, and then within the child as an intrapsychological category. This is equally true with regard to
voluntary attention, logical memory, the formation of
concepts, and the development of volition. . . . It goes
without saying that internalization transforms the process itself and changes its structure and functions. Social relations or relations among people genetically
underlie all higher functions and their relationships.
(p. 163)
395
biological urges, but from the outside, using and
creating artifacts (p. 29).
The second generation of cultural-historical research began some years after Vygotskys death
and draws its primary inspiration from the
Kharkov school of Soviet psychology, specifically
the work of A. N. Leontev (e.g., 1981a). Despite certain divergences from Vygotskys work,
activity theory, as it became known, is considered
part of Vygotskys lineage (Frawley, 1997; van der
Veer & Valsiner, 1991). Although Vygotsky and
Leontev both proposed that participation in culturally organized activity generates higher mental
functions, their emphases differed significantly.
Vygotskys writings argued for the genesis and mediation of mind by cultural tools (semiosis). This
focus on cultural mediation was constructively
contested in Leontevs (1981b) formulation that
emphasized the genesis and mediation of mind
through sensuous human activity (to paraphrase
Marx, 1972a, p. 144). Activity in this sense refers to
social relations and rules of conduct that are governed by cultural, political, and economic institutions (Ratner, 2002). Leontev and subsequent
activity theorists elaborated this shift by more formally operationalizing the roles of communities,
the rules that structure them, and the continuously negotiated distribution of tasks, powers, and
responsibilities among the participants of an activity system (Cole & Y. Engestrom, 1993, p. 7).4
Third-Generation Developments and Knotworking
The incipient third generation of activity theory is, at the time of this writing, still a work
in progress. Leading third-generation SCT researchers see activity theory not as fixed or completed, but as an evolving community of internationally dispersed practitioners which itself forms
a multivoiced activity system (Y. Engestrom,
1993, p. 64). As such, activity theory provides a set
of heuristics and tools that can be (and should be)
situationally adapted to the processes under consideration.5 Y. Engestrom (2001) described the
third generations ongoing task as that of developing conceptual tools to address dialogue, a multiplicity of participant perspectives, and the interrelations between defined activity systems.6
A recent innovation in this direction is the
metaphor of knotworking (Y. Engestrom, R.
Engestrom, & Vahaaho, 1999), which provides a
theoretical framework for relating multiple activity systems across time and space. Whereas teams
are considered relatively stable human and resource configurations, and networks, similarly, are
396
stable structures within which nodes are accessed
by individuals or collectives, Y. Engestrom et al.
(1999) developed knotworking to describe the
construction of constantly changing combinations of people and artifacts over lengthy trajectories of time and widely distributed in space
(p. 345). They described this conceptual approach as follows:
Knotworking is characterized by a pulsating movement of tying, untying and retying together otherwise
separate threads of activity. The tying and dissolution
of a knot of collaborative work is not reducible to any
specific individual or fixed organizational entity as the
center of control. The center does not hold. The locus
of initiative changes from moment to moment within
a knotworking sequence. Thus, knotworking cannot
be adequately analyzed from the point of view of an
assumed center of coordination and control, or as an
additive sum of the separate perspectives of individuals or institutions contributing to it. The unstable
knot itself needs to be made the focus of analysis.
(pp. 346347)
Y. Engestrom et al. (1999) pointed out the important need to distinguish between individually
and collectively based forms of knotworking. Intersubjectivity is not reducible to either the inter action between or the subjectivity of each participant. Both are needed (p. 354). This distinction
allows the knotworking principle to be used to
analyze, for example, an individuals movement
through time and space or an activity system at
the various levels of individual, artifacts, and regularity of temporal and structural forms (such as
may occur in medical institutionsthe site of the
knotworking researchcourts of law, educational
settings, nightclubs, and workplaces). I consider
knotworking a compelling advance in the adaptive evolution of activity theory to changing life
and work conditions in the 21st century.
To my knowledge, this approach has not been
applied to educational or communicative situations. However, some of my colleagues and I are
applying the knotworking concept to L2 learning issues (Thorne & Kinginger, 2005) through
an examination of Internet and cell phone use by
students studying abroad. It is now common for
students abroad to converse daily with home communities via instant messaging, email, and Weblog (or blog ) technologies (see Thorne & Payne,
2005), while the cell phone has become a necessary communication tool for social integration in
much of Europe and Asia (Katz & Aakhus, 2002).
Is the use of these communication tools constructive for the ostensible goals of in situ language
learning? This is the empirical question we are
addressing through an ecological assessment of
397
Steven L. Thorne
symbolic violence associated with the epistemological prescriptivism endemic to most formal
schooling settings. Recent research in the areas
of composition and writing, education, and use
of technologies for learning has been particularly strong in uniting activity theory with critical approaches to pedagogy, identity, agency, and
power (e.g., Bazerman & Russell, 2003; Prior,
1998; Russell, 1997; Sawchuk, 2003).
Another substantive critique of SCT is that
it does not explicitly provide a detailed view
of language (e.g., Mitchell & Myles, 1998), although recent studies have linked together the
concept of activity with semiotic performance
(see Diamondstone, 2002; R. Engestrom, 1995;
Wells, 1999, 2002). Partly in response to this need,
there have emerged a number of direct applications of SCT to semiotics and additional language learning such as those by Donato (1994,
2004), Hall and Verplaetse (2000), Lantolf and
Pavlenko (2001), Kramsch (2000), Lantolf and
Thorne (in press), Thorne (2000a, 2004), and
van Lier (2004), among others. On a more conceptual level, Thorne and Lantolf (in press) and
Lantolf and Thorne (in press) have developed an
SCT model of communicative practice that enjoins philosophy of language (e.g., Peirce, 1955;
Searle, 1995; Wittgenstein, 1958), emergentist approaches to language (MacWhinney, 2001) and
grammar (Hopper, 1998), usage-based language
acquisition (Tomasello, 2003), and Vygotskian
language theorists (Rommetveit, 1992; Volosinov,
1973); see also Thorne (in press) for a discussion
of SCT and neurobiological approaches to communication and language processing. This body
of work constitutes a modest start toward building greater capacity within SCT for addressing
more broadly the specifics of language development as well as linguistically mediated cognitive
development.
As mentioned previously, from the analysts
perspective, constructing an activity system as a
research object involves defining the roles that
people, institutions, and artifacts play in momentto-moment practice, thus eliding the analytic
blind spots that teacher-, student-, or technologycentered approaches tend to produce. This framework theorizes agency as enabled and constrained
(a) by material and semiotic tools such as languages and literacies, pedagogical frameworks,
and conceptions of learning; (b) by the relevant
communities; and (c) by the historical and emergent rules and divisions of labor that structure the
ongoing activity. Agency will be a focal theme in
the research discussed in the following sections.
First, however, I address the themes of methodology and epistemology.
398
revolutionary capacity of the human species,
through making meaning, to transform their material and symbolic environments.11
Vygotsky (1978) and the theoretical traditions
that are inspired by his work attempted to address the aforementioned concerns by engaging
in process analysis as opposed to object analysis (p. 65). In contrast to methodologies that
suggest the isolatability of variables and phenomena, SCT theorists would argue that though context, language (both learning and use), and subjectivity are analytically separable, and can be
profitably examined as such, such analyses are
most useful when embedded in a holistic processontology that can be described as situated activity
(Hanks, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991). As Nardi
(1996) tersely argued, you are what you do and
what you do is firmly and inextricably embedded in the social matrix of which every person is
an organic part (p. 7). The prominent Russian
philosopher, Evald Ilyenkov (1977), proposed a
similar formulation:
Thinking is not the product of an action but the action
itself, considered at the moment of its performance,
just as walking, for example, is the mode of action of
the legs, the product of which, it transpires, is the
space walked. (p. 35)
399
Steven L. Thorne
cognitive functioning and its development. Based
on data from L2 learners of French,16 they argued
for a concept of competence in which capacities . . . are embedded and expressed in collective
action (p. 515). Furthermore, they contended,
and I agree, that the Vygotskian concept of mediation is more than a means for solving problems
and creating learning possibilities. Rather, the
process of mediation-in-interaction can be understood as part of the methods by which members
construct learning environments, tasks, identities,
and contexts (p. 515; see also Pekarek Doehler,
2002). Though the use of conversation analysis
to provide evidence of development per se remains an outstanding challenge (see Hall, 2004),
the syncretism of conversation analysis and SCT is
a strong example of evolving hybrid frameworks
that increase the explanatory power of both mediated cognition and talk-in-interaction.
A final example of a method that is just emerging into SCT-based L2 research is dynamic assessment, a procedure that unites the goals of better understanding a learners potential through
structured sets of interactions and fostering development (as visible through advancements in performance) through those interactions. Dynamic
assessment is rooted in a construct called the zone
of proximal development (ZPD). Among Vygotskys
many contributions to cultural and educational
psychology, in the West, the ZPD construct has
proliferated most broadly and arguably has had
the greatest impact (Chaiklin, 2003; as related to
L2 research, see Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; Kinginger, 2002). A compelling attribute of the ZPD is
that, in contrast to traditional tests and measures
that only indicate the level of development already
attained, it is forward-looking through its assertion that mediated performance, and discovery
of the qualities of assistance necessary for a particular individual to perform particular competencies, can be indicative of independent functioning in the future. Dynamic assessment methods
involve mediating an examinees performance by
providing prompts and leading questions during
the assessment intervention itself. Its primary goal
is to fuse assessment procedures with interactive
opportunities for learning, and in so doing, to
produce a nuanced understanding of an examinees current and future developmental potential.
Though further discussion is beyond the scope of
this article, Lantolf and Poehner (2004) have provided an in-depth description of dynamic assessment use in education, and also have suggested
guidelines for its use in L2 contexts. In addition, they have prepared a companion article (in
press) that extends principles of dynamic assess-
400
constructed process-ontologies. To differentiate
task and activity, Roebuck (2000) suggested that
the task represents what the researcher . . . would
like the learner to do, and activity is what
the learner actually does. Thus, activity is how
learnersas agentsconstruct the task (p. 84).
Ahearn (2001), an anthropologist who recently
published a stellar review article focusing on
language and agency, described agency as the
socioculturally mediated capacity to act in a
world where all action is socioculturally mediated, both in its production and in its interpretation (p. 112).18 Within a particular social-spatialtemporal configuration, there are constraints and
affordances that make certain actions probable,
others possible, and yet others impossible (Ellis
would likely agree on this point). In this sense,
differences in conceptualizations of agency within
SLA may be a (highly consequential) matter of
emphasis. For task-oriented researchers, a strong
movement within SLA research and pedagogy, the
gravitational pull of a task draws the research participant inexorably into the form of the model.
For activity-oriented researchers, the unilateral intervention of a task, or plan with its accompanying artifacts and orientations, is met by the production of what might be termed a countertask by
the participants, which I liken to Charles Peirces
(1955) notion of the interpretant (p. 99). This
meeting of the initial sign (researchers task)
with a participant-generated sign (countertask)
necessarily implies a difference between the researchers task and what SCT researchers would
describe as the participants activity. Yet critical to
this specific context, the participant is in the position of responding to conditions put forth by the
researcher.19 This fact underscores the unequal
distribution of control as to how the task plays out
as an activity, but does not diminish the multilateral construction of activity as it unfolds in time.
Ellis (2003) concluded his discussion of this issue
by stating that it is not appropriate to reject task
as a legitimate target for study and to insist on the
overriding importance of learner agency in determining activity (p. 201). As long as the task
is the legitimate target for study, again I find
myself in agreement with Ellis. If, however, one
is interested in actual processes of learning and
development that take the learners point of view
into account, then a focus on activity is necessary
and desirable.
Agency and Identity
Of course, a robust conceptualization of agency
requires more complexity than a dichotomized
Steven L. Thorne
that agency is mutable and may transform in response to ongoing and anticipated activity.21 This
is an exceptionally important point upon which
the emancipatory (if also utopian) premise of education is, or should be, built. An outcome of activity in language classrooms may include linguistic,
pragmatic, and discourse grammatical features of
the focus language. But equally important is for
outcomes of a local action to enhance an individuals capacity to perform relevant and competent
identities. This is one aspiration that activity theory shares with critical pedagogynot only to cultivate developing expertise at the level of communicative performance, but also to support ones
continued development as a person. As Lantolf
and Pavlenko (2001) suggested from an activity
theoretical perspective, SLA is about much more
than the acquisition of forms: it is about developing, or failing to develop, new ways of mediating
ourselves and our relationships (p. 145).
The following section reviews two case studies
in illustration of the SCT notion that agency is
a relational construct, is intimately connected to
motivation, and has significant correlations to L2
development.
Contrasting Cases of Interpersonal Mediation
The structural and interactional qualities of L2
settings and their consequences for more than the
development of language ability have been the
topic of research by Lantolf and Genung (2002)
and Thorne (2003). Lantolf and Genung opened
their case study with a quotation from Ehrman
and Dornyei (1998), who said that proponents of
[socioculturally oriented] theories, such as Lave
and Rogoff, suggest that effective learning and
motivation are always socially imbedded (p. 261).
Lantolf and Genung (2002) played on this notion by adding, as will become clear, ineffective learning is also socially embedded. It is not
embedding that makes learning effective; it is
the quality of the social framework and the activity carried out within that framework that determine learning outcomes (p. 176). They then
used activity theory to explicate the case of an
enthusiastic graduate students failed attempt to
learn Chinese in an intensive summer language
program.
The tension began when the doctoral student
in linguistics, PG, a highly motivated and effective language learner (p. 184) and specialist in
SLA, began the course in order to fulfill a degree
requirement but also because she had a strong desire to learn the Chinese language. Her prior experience with foreign language courses had been
401
positive, and her expectation was that a portion
of everyday classroom interaction would include
communicatively oriented opportunities. To her
surprise, instruction involved only highly structured syntactic pattern practice based on material the students were to have learned through
self-study the night before. Factual validity and
communicative elements were entirely absent and
only responses adhering to the immediate syntactic pattern in question were accepted. The instructors role was to correct errors in syntax and
pronunciation. The students role was to follow
precisely the repetition and substitution format
independent of prior instruction that may have
been relevant. In her journal, PG made the following observation:
On July 28, the NS instructor was trying for the umteenth time to instruct us in the use of the particle
le. This particle had been a cause of confusion for
over a week, and all of us were at wits end trying to
get it straight. Part of our confusion arose from the
insistence that we use only a specific pattern to answer on any given day. What we said the day before,
which was perfectly acceptable and grammatically correct then, was, magically, not acceptable and not correct the next day, because the instructor was drilling
a different optional form. (Lantolf & Genung, 2002,
p. 186)
402
As the authors suggested, this case study shows
that motivation (in the more conventional sense,
e.g., Dornyei, 2001) likely involves multiple phenomena and demonstrates the problem of treating motivation as a stable force and using it as
a predictor of learning outcomes. An individuals goals are formed and reformed under specific historical material circumstances (Lantolf &
Genung, 2002, p. 191). Lantolf and Genung summarized the application of activity theory to this
case study, saying that
communities and activities within them are rarely stable and smoothly functioning entities. They are characterized by shifting motives, goals, and rules of behavior and they normally entail struggle and conflict,
including contestations of power, how it is deployed
and potentially challenged. (p. 193)
Breakdowns, conflicts, and attempts to reconcile tensions within any activity system catalyze
change. Regrettably, as this study demonstrates,
certain social-material conditions may impoverish, rather than afford, opportunities for developmental transformation, with obvious ethical and
pedagogical implications.
As a counterexample, interpersonal mediation
that results in positive change is also possible,
where students feeling alienated from the language they are studying and from the specifics
of a L2 context can decide to reengage based
on changes to social and material conditions. In
a previous study (Thorne, 2003),22 I focused on
Kirsten, a university student in a fourth-semester
French grammar course who participated in an
Internet-mediated intercultural communication
exchange with a university in France.23 In a
postsemester interview, Kirsten described a transition that began with frustration over the slow start
to the relationship with her key-pal:
I was really upset when I didnt hear from him [French
key-pal] at first. . . . I was like . . . he didnt respond, I
didnt talk to him, Im really disappointed, I went and
cried, and now Im like wow! within a week I went
from completely despondent and being like I hate
this, grrrrr, to wow, love it! Love it! (Thorne, 2003,
p. 47)
In these excerpts, Kirsten described the interaction that allowed her access to the French prepositional system that she couldnt get . . . from a dictionary and that is not in the grammar books.
Many French language students have successfully
developed the ability to use French prepositions
of location from grammar texts or instructorprovided grammar explanations. Kirsten, however, seemingly required interpersonal mediation, specifically from an age-peer who was willing
to provide immediate corrective feedback as part
Steven L. Thorne
of an ongoing social relationship. Her reflections
suggest the following developmental sequence. In
the initial IM conversation with Oliver, she crossed
a threshold that marked the first time she was
consciously aware of her capacity to communicate
meaningfully in French.25 Kirsten realized this increasing capacity when she stated, in reference to
this first IM conversation, that was the first time
that I was like, I made a connection in French.
I was so proud. It was like, wow, thats me, in
French, and he understood me! (Thorne, 2003,
p. 53) After this point, she was able to benefit from
Olivers explicit linguistic assistance and to participate in extended and unrehearsed dialogues in
French, largely through his confidence-building
enthusiasm for the content of her ideas (which is
clearly expressed in the IM transcript data).
In the cases of Kirsten and PG, analysis focused
on the ways differing interpersonal dynamics constructed differing capacities to act, which in turn
were associated with divergent developmental trajectories. These studies suggest that motivation is
not an atomistic element possessed by a learner,
rather it is built in relation to prior and ongoing
activity and responds to changing social-material
circumstances.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In this article, I hope to have shown that the
epistemological apparatus of SCT and activity
theory provide methodologically, politically, and
ethically vigorous tools for use in SLA research
and praxis. I have acknowledged that these approaches come with limitations but have argued
that awareness of such limitations and efforts to
address them are also underway. For example,
though SCT and activity theory emerged from
within the milieu of high modernity, with its totalizing grand narratives and rigid structural analyses, a growing number of current practitioners
deemphasize the stability of systems and the presumption of consistency across contexts, time periods, individuals, and communities. One strong
indication of this shift within SCT is the current engagement with the question of how to
weight cultural-historical mediation versus emergent practice. This relationship of history to
emergence forms a dialectic; activity produces,
and is informed by, the historical evolution of
participating individuals, discourses, institutions,
and artifacts. The issue of history (culture-in-thepresent), then, is important given that practices
and tools (e.g., human language) grow and trans-
403
form over time and subsequently inherit the historical residua of their developmental trajectories.
Quite literally at the same time, people exhibit
agency and creativity as they adapt to, reproduce,
and often also transform their symbolic and material environments (e.g., de Certeau, 1984). The
tensions associated with this balance drive the continued development of the theory and its perennial search for new or reinvigorated methodologies, one example of which is the aforementioned
union of conversation analysis and SCT. It is important to note that SCT has its roots in a common
intellectual and activist lineage that also informs
critical pedagogy and structurationist sociology.
Hence, part of what I see as an important development in SCT is to continue to strengthen these
ties and collaboratively to develop an increasingly
critical research and activist apparatus for use
in developmentally focused research. From this
perspective, SCT and poststructuralist approaches
are not in competition. Rather, they share aspirations for political engagement, while also offering
distinctive contributions to the project of critical
scholarship.26
A distinct difference between SCT and most
other research frameworks is that it does not separate understanding (research) from transformation (concrete action). Modern activity theory
in particular, though also used descriptively and
analytically as a diagnostic framework, is fundamentally an applied methodology. That is, it encourages engaged critical inquiry through which
an investigation would lead to the development
of material and symbolic-conceptual tools necessary to enact positive interventions. Y. Engestrom
(1999) expressed this potential through the idea
of radical localism, the notion that the capacity for
change is alive in the details of everyday practices
that, en masse, make up society. In matters of epistemology, ethics, and their relation to methodology/technique, a burning question is simply,
What kind of world do we want to live in? How are
our actions as researchers, activists, interpreters,
scientists, educators, or the other identities we
perform through our daily professional practices,
changing, and we hope improving, the conditions of knowledge about language and the mind
and the teaching and learning of additional languages? Though certainly not unique among theoretical perspectives, SCT approaches take these
questions seriously by understanding communicative processes as inherently cognitive processes,
and cognitive processes as indivisible from humanistic issues of self-efficacy, agency, and the
capacity to lead a satisfying if not fulfilling life.
404
And none of these qualities exists independent
of culture or institutions or language policies or
circuits of power. This view suggests that culture
exists as an objective force in the world, one that
is inscribed in artifacts and in the building and
transformation of social relationships. As would
be appropriate for the final statement of an article
on the ethical, methodological, and epistemological entailments of SCT, Marx (1972a) proposed
that philosophers have only interpreted the world,
in various ways; the point, however, is to change it
(p. 145).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank guest editor Lourdes Ortega and to
acknowledge publicly her prodigious ability to provide
incisive and careful feedback. I am also indebted to Jim
Lantolf and Carl Ratner for comments on an earlier
draft, and to four anonymous reviewers for their questions and suggestions.
NOTES
1 See Bakhurst (1991, 1997) for a detailed historical
account of the development of Soviet philosophy and
psychology beginning with the Bolshevik revolution.
2 Citing Vygotskys biographer Yaroshevsky, Prawat
(2000) reported that in reaction to one of Stalins attacks on his work, Vygotsky cried out, I do not want
to live anymore, they do not consider me a Marxist
(p. 691; see also Lantolf, 2004).
3 Higher-order cognitive functions include intentional memory, planning, voluntary attention, interpretive strategies, and forms of logic and rationality. They
develop in a way that correlates to an array of cultural
practices such as schooling, interaction with primary
care givers, the learning and use of semiotic systems such
as spoken languages, textual and digital literacies, mathematics, music, exposure to folk and scientific concepts, context-contingent behavioral norms, and spatial
fields such as the social and functional divisions of built
structures and visual artistic expression. All of these (and
more, this is obviously a partial list) are uniquely human
social-semiotic systems (e.g., Halliday, 1978) that evolved
over time and continue to transform from generation
to generation.
4 This critique was initially voiced by Leontev (1981a,
1981b) and, to foreshadow the future development
of the theory, has been substantively addressed by
Y. Engestrom (first in 1987) and then both explicitly and implicitly by an ever-increasing number of researchers (e.g., Kuutti, 1996; Lompscher, 2003; Wells,
2002; Zinchenko, 1996; within applied linguistics see
Block, 2003; Coughlan & Duff, 1994; Donato, 1994;
Hall, 1995; Lantolf & Genung, 2002; Lantolf & Pavlenko,
2001; Thorne, 2000a, 2004).
405
Steven L. Thorne
13
REFERENCES
Ahearn, L. (2001). Language and agency. Annual Review
of Anthropology, 30, 109137.
Aljaafreh, A., & Lantolf, J. P. (1994). Negative feedback
as regulation and second language learning in the
zone of proximal development. Modern Language
Journal, 78, 465483.
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections
on the origins and spread of nationalism (Rev. ed.).
New York: Verso.
Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays.
(M. Holquist & C. Emerson, Eds.). Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press.
Bakhurst, D. (1991). Consciousness and revolution in Soviet psychology: From the Bolsheviks to Evalk Ilyenkov.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bakhurst, D. (1997). Activity, consciousness, and communication. In M. Cole, Y. Engestrom, & O.
Vasquez (Eds.), Mind, culture, and activity: Seminal
papers from the laboratory of comparative human cognition (pp. 147163). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bazerman, C., & Russell, D. R. (2003). Writing
selves/writing societies: Research from activity perspectives. Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse.
Belz, J., & Kinginger, C. (2002). The cross-linguistic development of address form use in telecollaborative language learning: Two case studies. Canadian
Modern Language Review, 59, 189214.
Belz, J., & Kinginger, C. (2003). Discourse options and
the development of pragmatic competence by
classroom learners of German: The case of address
forms. Language Learning, 53, 591647.
Beretta, A. (1991). Theory construction in SLA: Complementarity and opposition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 493511.
406
Block, D. (1996). Not so fast: Some thoughts on theory culling, relativism, accepted findings and the
heart and soul of SLA. Applied Linguistics, 17, 63
83.
Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1979). Distinction: A social critique of the
judgment of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). The logic of practice. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in
education, society, and culture. London: Sage.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist
America. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Calhoun, D., LiPuma, E., & Postone, M. (1993). Bourdieu: Critical perspectives. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Chaiklin, S. (2003). The zone of proximal development
in Vygotskys analysis of learning and instruction.
In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. Ageyev, & S. Miller
(Eds.), Vygotskys educational theory in cultural context (pp. 3964). New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. (1986). Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology. A once and future
discipline. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Cole, M., & Engestrom, Y. (1993). A cultural-historical
approach to distributed cognition. In G. Salomon
(Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 111138). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Coughlan, P., & Duff, P. A. (1994). Same task, different activities: Analysis of a SLA task from an activity theory perspective. In J. P. Lantolf & G. Appel
(Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 173193). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Diamondstone, J. (2002). Keeping resistance in view in
an activity theory analysis. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 9, 221.
Donato, R. (1994). Collective scaffolding in second language learning. In J. P. Lantolf & G. Appel (Eds.),
Vygotskian approaches to second language research
(pp. 3356). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Donato, R. (2004). Aspects of collaboration in pedagogical discourse. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics,
24, 284302.
Dornyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation.
Essex, UK: Longman.
Eagleton, T. (2003). After theory. New York: Basic Books.
Ehrman, M., & Dornyei, Z. (1998). Interpersonal dynamics
in second language education: The visible and invisible classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching . New York: Oxford University Press.
Steven L. Thorne
Gregg, K., Long, M., Beretta, A., & Jordan, G. (1997).
Rationality and its discontents in SLA. Applied Linguistics, 18, 539559.
Grinter, R., & Palen, L. (2002, November). Instant messenging in teen life. In Proceedings from the 2002
ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative
Work (pp. 2130). New York: ACM Publishers.
Hall, J. K. (1995). (Re)creating our worlds with words:
A sociohistorical perspective of face-to-face interaction. Applied Linguistics, 16, 206232.
Hall, J. K. (2004). Language learning as an interactional
achievement. Modern Language Journal, 88, 607
612.
Hall, J. K., & Verplaetse, L. (2000). Second and foreign language learning through classroom interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic:
The social interpretation of language and meaning .
London: Arnold.
Hanks, W. F. (1996). Language and communicative practices. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Harasym, S. (1988). Practical politics of the open end:
An interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 12,
5169.
Heath, S. (1983). Ways with words. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Hopper, P. (1998). Emergent grammar. In M. Tomasello
(Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and
functional approaches to language study (pp. 155
175). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ilyenkov, E. (1977). Dialectical logic: Essays on its history
and theory. Moscow: Progress Press.
Jocuns, A. (2005). Knowledge and discourse: Mediated
discourse and distributed cognition in two Balinese
Gamelan orchestras in the United States. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Katz, J., & Aakhus, M. (Eds.).(2002). Perpetual contact:
Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kinginger, C. (2002). Defining the zone of proximal
development in U.S. foreign language education.
Applied Linguistics, 23, 240261.
Kramsch, C. (2000). Social discursive constructions of
self in L2 learning. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp.
133154). New York: Oxford University Press.
Kuutti, K. (1996). Activity theory as a potential framework for human-computer interaction research.
In B. Nardi (Ed.), Context and consciousness:
Activity theory and human computer interaction
(pp. 1744). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lantolf, J. (1996). SLA theory building: Letting all the
flowers bloom! Language Learning, 46, 713749.
Lantolf, J. (2000). Sociocultural theory and second language
learning . New York: Oxford University Press.
Lantolf, J. (2004). Sociocultural theory and second and
foreign language learning: An overview of sociocultural theory. In K. van Esch & O. St. John,
(Eds.), New insights into foreign language learning
407
and teaching (pp. 1334). Frankfurt, Germany:
Peter Lang Verlag.
Lantolf, J., & Appel, G. (1994). Vygotskian approaches to
second language acquisition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Lantolf, J. P., & Genung, P. (2002). Id rather switch
than fight: An activity-theoretic study of power,
success, and failure in a foreign language. In C.
Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language
socialization. Ecological perspectives (pp. 175196).
London: Continuum.
Lantolf, J. P., & Pavlenko, A. (2001). (S)econd
(L)anguage (A)ctivity: Understanding learners as
people. In M. Breen (Ed.), Learner contributions
to language learning: New directions in research
(pp. 141158). London: Pearson.
Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. (2004). Dynamic assessment: Bringing the past into the future. Journal of
Applied Linguistics, 1, 4974.
Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (in press). Sociocultural
theory and the sociogenesis of second language development. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lave, J. (1996). Whats special about experiments as contexts for thinking. In M. Cole, Y. Engestrom, & O.
Vasquez (Eds.), Mind, culture, and activity: Seminal papers from the laboratory of comparative human
cognition (pp. 5769). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Leontev, A. N. (1981a). The problem of activity in
Soviet psychology. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet psychology (pp. 3771).
Armonk, NY: Sharpe.
Leontev, A. N. (1981b). Problems of the development of the
mind. Moscow: Progress.
Lompscher, J. (2003). The category of activity as a
principal constituent of cultural-historical psychology. In D. Robbins & A. Stetsenko (Eds.), Voices
with Vygotskys non-classical psychology (pp. 79100).
New York: Nova Science.
Long, M. H. (1990). The least a second language acquisition theory needs to explain. TESOL Quarterly,
24, 649666.
Long, M. H. (1993). Assessment strategies for SLA theories. Applied Linguistics, 14, 225249.
Luke, A. (2004). Two takes on the critical. In B. Norton
& K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 2129). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Markee, N., & Kasper, G. (2004). Classroom talks: An
introduction. Modern Language Journal, 88, 491
500.
Martin, J. (1992). English text: System and structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Marx, K. (1972a). Theses on Feuerbach. In R. Tucker
(Ed.), The Marx-Engels reader (pp. 143145). New
York: W. W. Norton.
Marx, K. (1972b). Wage labour and capital. In R. Tucker
(Ed.), The Marx-Engels reader (pp. 203217). New
York: W. W. Norton.
408
McNamara, T. (1997). Theorizing social identity: What
do we mean by social identity? Competing frameworks, competing discourses. TESOL Quarterly, 31,
561567.
Mitchell, R., & Myles, F. (1998). Second language learning
theories. London: Edward Arnold.
Mondada, L., & Pekarek Doehler, S. (2004). Second language acquisition as situated practice: Task accomplishment in the French second language classroom. Modern Language Journal, 88, 501518.
Nardi, B. A. (1996). Activity theory and humancomputer interaction. In B. A. Nardi (Ed.), Context and consciousness: Activity theory and humancomputer interaction (pp. 716). Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky, revolutionary scientist. London: Routledge.
Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1996). Unscientific psychology: A cultural-performatory approach to understanding human life. New York: Praeger.
Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1997). The end of knowing: A new developmental way of learning . London:
Routledge.
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change. Essex, UK:
Longman.
Norton, B., & Toohey, K. (2004). Critical pedagogies and
language learning . New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ochs, E. (1987). Input: A socio-cultural perspective. In
M. Hickman (Ed.), Social foundation of language
development (pp. 305319). New York: Academic
Press.
Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. (1984). Language acquisition
and socialization: Three developmental stories. In
R. Shweder & R. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self and emotion (pp. 276329). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Ohta, A. S. (2001). Second language acquisition processes
in the classroom: Learning Japanese. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Ortega, L. (2005). Methodology, epistemology, and
ethics in instructed SLA research: An introduction. Modern Language Journal, 89, 317327.
Pavlenko, A., & Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Second language
learning as participation and the (re)construction
of selves. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory
and second language learning (pp. 155178). New
York: Oxford University Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1955). Philosophical writings of Peirce (J.
Buchler, Ed.). New York: Dover.
Pekarek Doehler, S. (2002). Mediation revisited: The
socio-interactional organization of mediation in
learning environments. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 9, 2242.
Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical approach. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Philips, S. U. (1983). The invisible culture: Communication
in classroom and community on the Warm Springs
Indian Reservation. New York: Longman.
Poehner, M. E., & Lantolf, J. P. (in press). Dynamic
409
Steven L. Thorne
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
(CDROM). Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer
Society.
Thorne, S. L. (2000b). Second language acquisition and
the truth(s) about relativity. In J. Lantolf (Ed.),
Sociocultural theory and second language acquisition (pp. 219244). New York: Oxford University
Press.
Thorne, S. L. (2003). Artifacts and cultures-of-use in
intercultural communication. Language Learning
& Technology, 7, 3867.
Thorne, S. L. (2004). Cultural historical activity theory
and the object of innovation. In K. van Esch &
O. St. John (Eds.), New insights into foreign language learning and teaching (pp. 5170). Frankfurt,
Germany: Peter Lang Verlag.
Thorne, S. L. (in press). Fragments and repertoires as
language development: From nativism to culturalhistorical mediation. Applied Linguistics.
Thorne, S. L., & Kinginger, C. (2005). Communication
technologies and the transformation of study abroad.
Manuscript in preparation.
Thorne, S. L., & Lantolf, J. P. (in press). A linguistics
of adaptable signs. In A. Pennycook & S. Makoni
(Eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages.
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Thorne, S. L., & Payne, J. S. (2005). Evolutionary trajectories, Internet-mediated expression, and language education. CALICO Journal , 22(3), 371
397.
Tomasello, M. (1999). The origin of human cognition.
Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usagebased theory of language acquisition. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Tulviste, P. (1991). The cultural-historical development of
verbal thinking . Commack, NY: Nova Science.
van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky: A quest for synthesis. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language