Essay On Second Language Socialization

L2 socialization represents a process by which non-native speakers of a language, or people returning to a language they may have once understood or spoken but may since have lost proficiency in, seek competence in the language and, typically, membership and the ability to participate in the practices of communities in which that language is spoken. Their experiences may take place in a variety of language contact settings: in settings where the additional language is widely spoken and may be the dominant language of society (e.g., L2 learners of English in the United States); where it is used in more isolated or confined contexts, such as a high school or university foreign language classroom (e.g., learners of French in Mexico); in diaspora settings where minority groups who speak the target language exist (learners of Yiddish or Vietnamese in New York or Melbourne); or in virtual communities mediated by digital communication technologies (e.g., nonnative learners and users of Mandarin in various parts of the world connected through online learning, gaming, or discussion sites often with the intention of improving their Mandarin). The languages may be learned more or less concurrently with the first language (L1), in bilingual contexts, or sequentially alongside this additional-language socialization, learners normally continue their linguistic socialization into and through their first (or perhaps other) languages because language socialization is both a lifelong process and a “lifewide” process across the communities and activities or speech events at any given time in one’s life (Garrett & Baquedano-Lopez, 2002; Ochs, 1986; Ochs & Schieffelin, 2008). The word second in second language socialization is a cover term that is sometimes controversial precisely

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