Materializing ‘Competence’: Perspectives From International STEM Scholars

Abstract

Applied linguists have been exploring approaches to second language acquisition and competence that move beyond a prioritization of cognition and grammar that was derived from the foundational structuralist legacy in linguistics. Recently, for example, they have collaborated in putting together an integrated alternative model (Douglas Fir Group, 2016) to move theory and pedagogy forward. Shifting further yet toward the material locus and spatiotemporal conditioning of communication, this article reports on the communicative practices of international STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) scholars. Its data analysis uses a spatial orientation informed by schools such as new materialism, post‐humanism, and actor network theory, influenced largely by scholars in material and spatial sciences. The article calls for a fuller materialization, embodiment, and performativity in theorizing language competence than currently conceptualized in applied linguistics.

Language Learning Great and Small: Environmental Support Structures and Learning Opportunities in a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition/Teaching

“…Put differently, the cooperative baking activity did not just emerge; rather, like all social activities, it was aided, abetted, organized, and enabled by complex environmental (including linguistic) structuring. This is not to suggest a binary distinction between interaction and context (Canagarajah, )—as stated earlier they are fundamentally integrated in our view. Rather, it is to expand the focus on visible, public interactivity to include what makes that interactivity possible—the ecosocial structuring of the environment.…”

“…Although interaction/language is emergent and agentively produced in this world, it is emergent and agentive largely on the basis of ecosocial stabilities, because “objects in the environment [also] have agency to shape human actors” (Canagarajah, , p. 272). Something similar holds for learning and teaching—themselves basic forms of interaction—in sociocognitive theory: As a natural function of interaction, learning opportunities (van Lier's “newness, unfamiliarity”) are contingent on the structured and structuring tools and matrices (van Lier's “oldness, familiarity”) of social interaction.…”

SLA and the Study of Equitable Multilingualism

“…Nor can it be considered fixed at any point, or resulting in complete knowledge at some finish line. Moreover, there can be no perfect correspondence between language and meaning: Meaning‐making greatly supersedes the strictly linguistic (Canagarajah, ; Hawkins, ; Mondada, ), and sheer linguistic meaning is inherently polysemous (Gries, ) and ambiguous (Piantadosi, Tily, & Gibson, ).…”

Communicative language teaching as situated practice: Moving beyond dogma

“…It should instead help them devise communicative strategies—strategies that may defy these norms—by making use of spatial repertoires available to them. Communicative success, as Canagarajah () argues, lies not on cognition and grammatical proficiency alone, but on “working with an assemblage of spatial repertoires beyond words” (p. 9). Furthermore, as students from diverse linguistic backgrounds make use of and bring different spatial repertoires unique to them to the classroom, we language teachers need to make students aware of their significant contribution to the attainment of communicative competence in English.…”

“…To realize this, teachers can, for example, encourage students to employ and activate their culture‐specific pragmatic strategies valued in their own community such as, among others, switching to home language expression strategies for indexing and generating more meanings, resorting to multimodal expression strategies for meaning clarification and negotiation, and using “topic management strategies” where speakers develop ways of “recycling a specific topic regardless of where and how the discourse had developed at any particular point” (House, , p. 567). All of these strategies are intended to sharpen student sensitivity towards situated language socialization and awareness, which have been found to play a vital role in contributing to communicative competence (see, e.g., Canagarajah, ; Higgins, ).…”