Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Language Socialization 441
across contexts (Bronson & Watson-Gegeo, 2008; Garrett, 2008; Kulick &
Schieffelin, 2004; Watson-Gegeo, 2004). One reason for this prolonged
engagement with the community, which is typical of ethnography, is to
understand recurring cultural and linguistic patterns of interaction (processes
of socialization). Another reason is to observe how learners’ abilities,
behaviors and orientations to learning and participating in the target
practices evolve over time either in the manner anticipated or expected or,
rather, in unanticipated ways (i.e. revealing outcomes of socialization).
There is generally an attempt to bring together macro and micro-analyses
in language socialization research that takes into account the wider context
and how the sociocultural context is also constituted in and by microlevel
linguistic features.
Even ethnographic language socialization research has, however, paid
more attention to the interactional and linguistic processes of socialization
in real interactional time than to the systematic study of outcomes: what
people are able to do after signifi cant, cumulative exposure to the language,
culture and relevant practices, and not only what they are expected
to do and are currently able to do. Indeed, since language socialization is
known to be a lifelong and lifewide process, no single study can really be
suffi ciently longitudinal (or both broad and deep) to capture the ebb and
fl ow of socialization and its many milestones, twists and turns across the
lifespan of an individual. In studies more typically limited in duration, the
process of language education and enculturation seems to trump detailed
analyses and evidence of linguistic, affective and other (e.g. cognitive)
outcomes of language socialization in longitudinal perspective.
One strategy often used in narrowing the scope of analysis in language
socialization studies is to select a commonplace yet signifi cant activity
(speech event) that participants routinely engage in, such as bedtime or
mealtime prayers, dinner time conversations, oral academic presentations,
guided recitations, or story-telling or story-reading routines, and then to
document how they unfold over time and the relevant components, participation
structures, and related cultural tools or artifacts. Other studies,
however, focus less on the particular activity settings and more on the
sociolinguistic dispositions and forms to be mastered, such as those
entailed in showing respect to one’s elders (Howard, 2008) or politeness
and empathy (Cook, 2008).
As in much research in the ethnography of communication or comparable
ethnographic research, participants’ own perspectives on the socialization
process are generally solicited by researchers through interviews if
interviewees have the necessary linguistic or metalinguistic skills and
maturity to refl ect on them or if interpreters are available otherwise.
Exceptions or counter-examples and not only typical instances of socialization
toward desired goals should be reported by researchers, a common
recommendation for interpretive qualitative research (Duff, 2008c).