Language learning as appropriation: how linguistic resources are recycled and regenerated

Authors

• Hannele Dufva Jyväskylän yliopisto
• Mari Aro Jyväskylän yliopisto
• Minna Suni Jyväskylän yliopisto

Keywords:

Dialogism, second language, foreign language, language learning, distributed cognition

Abstract

Contemporary conceptualizations of language and mind have presented serious challenges to traditional theories and models of second and foreign language learning. The theories that have considered learning as an individual process and language as a formal system the learners are supposed to internalize are now challenged by views that highlight the dynamicity of language and that see learning as a socially and cognitively shared process. Drawing on dialogical theory of the Bakhtin Circle in particular, we illustrate in our paper how language learning can be reimagined as appropriation of shared linguistic resources.