from input to affordance: social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective leo van lier...

7/29/2019 From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective Leo van Lier Monterey Institut

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11 From input to affordance:Social-interactive learning froman ecological perspectiveLeo van LierMonterey Institute oflntemationalStudies

IntroductionIn this ch:Jprcr I wam 1 0 p r ~ S l e m some argumenrs for an ecological wa y of[CS("arching. pnctlcmg, and C Q n c ~ p r u a l i z m g language leaming (nrSI, stCond,and foreign). In Ihemselves my proposals may nO( be very revolutionary,Since they refer to well-e.rahlishru traditions in vanous 6 d d ~ , though perhapsIe! so m educanonallingullitics. However, Iwish ro )uggesl that an tcologicalapproach can unite a number of well-esrabIJ)hed views on language learning,especially when thisecoiogical3ppro.1Ch is anchored in an ecological worldview.In parricular I will suggest that rhe work of Vygolsky an d Bakhtin, daringfrom the early d C ~ ' a d e s of the twemicth ccmury, illustrates an ecological3pproach to cognition, learning, and language.

An ecologic31 approach to language lcarmng questions . ~ o m l ' basica s ~ u m p t i o l l s that lie behind most of the rationalist and empiricist theoriesand practices that domm:ue in ou r field. and o f f ~ fresh wars of looking atsome old qUb>"'tions rhat ha\'e b n around for a long rime. I will 3rgue thatecology is a fruitful wa y to undersTand and build on the legaC)' thaI Vygotsky,Bakhun, and also their American contemporaries Peirce, M ea d, a nd Dewey.left for us.My arguments for an ecological approach arc based on a critique of threepremises underlymg standard scientific thmking. The firS! premise' is thatbehind the d i \ ' e r ~ i t y m IJllguage learning theories and teachmg proceduresthere lies, as a rarely questioned backdrop, the ~ i e n t i f i c perspective that hasdominated Western civilization since the days of Galileo and Descartes,t\c(Ording to this perspective, sciemific work must have the following threecharaneristics(cf. Checkland 1 9 ~ 1 ) :I in order t o condu(.t coherent m\elitigations It is necessary to simplify and

select from the in6nite \'ariet) of the reJI world;


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246 Sociocultural TIJeory and Second Lallguage Leamillg

2 in accordance with Occam's razor, the simplest explanations that minimallyaccount for the data are to be preferred;3 problems must be broken down into their component elements and thesemust be analyzed one byone.The scientific approach has led to enormous advances in physics, engineering,technology, and other 'hard' fields of inquiry. As a result the science of physicshas served as an example for all other sciences and would-be sciences in terms ofprecision, rigor, and success. As the New Zealand physicist Lord Rutherford putit, 'There is physics. and there is stamp collecting' (Checkland 1981: 52). Thesupremacy of physics is no longer as strong now, and it has arguably been

eclipsed in recent decades by biology, necessitating a reexamination of themethods by which sdemific research is conducted (Capra 1996).The second premise is that, regardless of the particular views of teachingand learning that arecspouscd by language learning professionals, it is generallytaken for granted that learning takes place in the brain, by means of computational mechanisms that process information that is received by the senses.Whether the perspective isconsuuctivist, behaviorist, or nativist, the underlyingview of learning is that information is received and subsequently processed inthe brain and incorporated into mental structures providing knowledge andskills of various kinds (cf. Donato's term 'input crunching', 1994: 34),The third and final premise, related to the previous one, is that activity andimeraction, or in general the contexts in which learning takes place, relate tolearning in indirect ways, by feeding into the cognitive processes that aregoing on in rhe brain and mind of the learner, the mind being basically thesame as the brain, but at some abstract level.

An ecological approach to language learning challenges the three premisesthat I have briefly described above. First, it shifts the emphasis from scientificreductionism to the notion of emergence. Instead of assuming that everyphenomenon can be explained in terms of simpler phenomena or components,it says that at every level of development properties emerge that cannot hereduced to those of prior levels. Second, ecology says that not all of cognitionand learning can be explained in terms of processes that go on inside thehead. Finally, an ecological approach asserts that the perceptual and socialactivity of the learner, and particularly the verbal and nonverbal interactionin which the learner engages, are central to an understanding of learning. Inother words, they do not JUSt facilitate learning, they are learning in afundamental way.From an ecological perspective, the learner is immersed in an environmentfull of potential meanings. These meanings become available gradually as thelearner acts and interacts within and with this environment. Learning is not aholus-bolus or piecemeal migration of meanings to the inside of the learner'shead, but rather the development of increasingly effective ways of dealingwith the world and its meanings. Therefore, ro look for learning is to look at


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From inpllt to affordance 247

the active learner in her envitonment, not at the contents of her brain. Toborrow a quote from Mace (1974), 'Ask not what's inside your head, askwhat your head's inside of' (quoted in Reber '1993: 58).This does not mean that learners are merelyempry heads1 that reverberateharmoniously with the environment. Rather, it means that cognition andlearning rely on both representational (schematic, historical, cuhural, and soon) and ecological (perceptual, emergent, action-based) processes and systems(Neisser 1992). Language it.self is therefore also both representational andecological. Its definition, its Structure, and its use are inherently dialogical, asBakhtin already saw (1981), and as was immanent, if not always explicit, inPeirce's semiotic scheme (Merrell 1997b).In the following pages I will sketch some of the major features of anecological approach to language learning, and show how it relatcs to theVygotskyan sociocultural theory illustrated in the other chapters of thisbook. I will argue that it is necessary to reconceptualize language, context,and learning in profound ways if we wish to reap tbe benefits of the visionspresented at the beginning of the twentieth century by Bakhtin, Dewey, Peirce,Vygorsky, and others, whose message has once again become ptominent. Iwill a/so argue that an ecological approach suggest'S new ways of doing research.As a starring point I will examine the norion of interaction, since irs importancefor learning is an area of common ground for most perspectives on languagelearning, however different their explanations and procedures might otherwise1>


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248 SocioCIIltllmf Theory andSecolld Language Leamillg

.,. negotiation for meaning, and especially negoriation work that triggersinteraction


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Frum inpllt to a((ordaflce 249

comes from an interlocutOr who has knowledge and skills at :I higher levelthan the learner does.~ r o m this perspecti\'t', tasks that require a grt'at deal of negotiation-in thesense of interactional work aimed at tesolving communication problems-provide more karmng opportunities than general con\ersation. As Longputs it:. .. the role of free conversalion is notoriousl), poor as a context for drivingintcrlanguage development ... in contrast, tasks Iharoriem participants 10shared goals and involvc them in some work or activilY produce morenegotiation work ... When workinK cooperatively on certain kinds ofproblem-solving tasks ,.. participant.s conversational feet arc held to thefire .. (Long 1996: 448)

To illustrate SOffie of the issues im'oh'ed, let us look at some examples oflearner interaction. Firsl, hete isan extract i I 1 u ~ t r a r i n g negotiation ofmeaningb e t w ~ n an NS and an N':'JS engaged in a two-\\'a)' communication gap task,from Pica,(1) 1\.'NS: sothcre'sacrossintheccnteroflhep3per

1'5: what do you mean by cross?NNS: Iraffic crossNS: oh, where people can cross or a traffic lightNNS: yes (pica 1992: 218)

By wa)' of comparison, here is an {'xtraet from a conversational interactionbetwecn tWO learners, from van I.ier and MaTSUO:(2) 424 Y: Wow, how long docs it take to from here?425 I: Ab, ten years about ten )'ears.

426 Y: I to Korea. About ren years? Aboullen days?427 I: Ten dal's. (laughter) I'm very (xxx)428 Y: Yeah. ten days.429 I: lIen davs.430 Y: Wow, j't'S airmail?431 J: Yes:.432 Y: O::h. thar':.long time.433 I: Yes. Very long time. 1-434 Y: ~ r o m h c r e t o J a p a n , a b o l l l j t t a k e s a b o u I 5 day-usually 5 days435 or6 dars436 I: lo::h, very fast,

(van Lier and Matsuo 2000)And finally, an extract from a convers.uion between a learner and a nativespeaker:


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250 Sociocultural Theory alld Second Language Learning

(3) NS: So what made you decide to g{'t inTO journalism?NNS: Um,! think, uh, if I may be a journalistNS: Uh-huhNNS: solcan! can wotk by myself. Uh,l mean, uh,! don't need to, uhwork fora compauy? (van Lier and Matsuo 2000)

We note that in (1) there is a clear example of negotiation for me::lning.ln(2) there is also such a negotiation (in 425-8). However, in the second extr::lctthis negotiation is embedded in ::I lot of other t3lk involving comparisonsbetween ::IirmaiJ to two countries, expressions of surprise, eV::lluations ofcontent,and so on. If that is common in conversation (van Lier and Matsuo 2000suggest th::lt it is), then given an a r b i t T : l r ~ ' piece of discourse, there may bemore inst3nces of negotiation of this type (repair negotiation, as it is called inNakahama, Tyler, and van Lier 1998), in communication gap tasks, since inconversation such negotiations tend to be parr of a lot of other talk, bec


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From input to affordallce 251

EcologyT h ( ~ fiekl of ecology1 dates hack to at least around the middle of the nineteenthcentury, when the term was invented by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel(1886; see Arndt and Janney 1983) to refer to the totality of relationships ofan organism \vith all other organisms \vith \vhich it comes imo contact. Itscore meaning relates to the study and management of the environment(ecosphere, or biosphere) or specific ecosystems. However, it is also used todenote a worldview that is completely different from the scientific or rationalone inherited from Descartes, which assumes that it is the right and destinr ofthe human race to control and exploit the earth and all its inanimate andanimate resources (the anthropocentric worldview). The ecological worldviewis, by contrast, ecocentric or Keocentric, and it assumes, similar tu the beliefsystems of indigenous peoples, that humans arc part of a greater naturalorder, or even a great living system, Gaia or living earth (sec Lovelock 1979;Capra 1996; Goldsmith 1998). This view of ecology is called deep ecology bythe Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, and is contrasted with shallow ecology,which merely studies ways of controlling ecosystems and managing them,indudingthe preventiunand treatment of environmental damage and disasters(Allen and HoekstraThe reader may well at this point, what does this have to do withlanguage learning? An idealistic answer might be: 'Everything' and a practicalanswer might be; 'Nothing', bur this is not a debate I wish to enter intu here.1Rather, I will focus Oil ecology as a specific way to study cognition, language,and learning.There are several influential psychological approaches that have heen

referred to as ecological. Among the best-known ones are Gibson's theory ofvisual perception (1979), I.Ironfenbrenner's approach to the study of childdevelopment (1979), and Lewin's pioneering studies of social contexts (forexample, the 'life space') through action research (1943). Recent ecologicalwork in psychology and learning includes Neisser (1992), Rronfenbrcnncrand Ceci (1994), Cole (1996), and Reed (1996),In linguistics, early references relatin!', ecology and langllage arc Trim(1959) and Haugen (1972), and recent work explicitly usin!', the ecologicallabel includes Makkai (1993) and Miihlhausler (1996). Other approa


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252 Sociocultllral Theory a"d Second Language Leam;ng

uses frequent gesrures to indicate turning over, moving sideways, tilting,bumping into and damaging walls, and soon. Her interlocuwr.likewise, useswords, backchannels, gesrures, and expressions of empathy to indicateappret:iation, understanding, or the need for more elaboration. The totalityof meaning-making in this conversation is not merely linguistic; it is semiotic.

In terms of learning, language emerge:.out of semiotic activity. The contextis not just there to provide input (linguistic models or objt'ch) to a passi\crecipient. The environment provides a 'semiotic budger' (analogous to theenergy budget of an ecosystem) within which the active learner engages inmeaning-making activities together with others, who rna)' be more. equally,or les\> competent in linguistic terms. The semiotic budget docs not refer tothe amount of'input' available, nor the amount of input that is enhanced forcomprehension, but to the opportunities for meaningful action thar thesituation affords.I will return to this notion of ecological learning later in this chaprer, butfirst I will explore the Ilotion of affordllllcc as an alternative to iI/pilI.AffordanceThe word affordance \Va!; coined by the psychologistJames Gibson to refer toa reciprocal relationship between an organism :Illd a particular feature of itsenvironment (1979). An affordance is a particular property of the cnvirowllIent that is relevant-for good or for ill-to an active, perceiving organismin that environment. An affordance affords further action (but does not causeor trigger it)_ \Vhat becomes an affordancc depends on what the organismdocs, what it wants, and what is useful for it. Jlllhe forest;) leaf can offer verydifferent affordances to different org


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from input to a((ordQIfGe 253

home, they will first crawl over ir a number of times, then tum it around andaround, examine it from all angles, then probe its insides, and finally make ajudgment regarding its suirabiliry. This is a high-srakes pursuit, ixcause if thenew shell does not fit, the crab might not be able to make;) swift move, and itis likely ro end up as another animal's meal. The crab's acriviry, then, exploresthe affordances of thl: manipulated object.The construct of affordance is relevant to language learning in severaldifferent ways. As I indicated above, an ecological view of language is arelational, not a material one, This means thaI languag!: learning is nor aprOcess of tepresenting linguistic objecrs in the brain on the basis of inputreceived. But it is easier to say what language learning is not than what it is, in

ecological terms. What does it mean to know a language, if not to possess aSlore of linguistic structures, rules, words, p h r a ~ s , and so on? What are thelinguistic contents of the mind? This is nOt an easy question to answer, eitherfor the eognitivist or for the ecologisI. I suppose that the ecologist will saythat knowledge of language for a human is like knowledge of the jungle foran animal. The animal does not 'have' the jungle; it knows how to use theiungll: and how to live in it, Perhaps we can say by analogy that we do not'have' or 'possess' language, bur that we learn to use it and to 'Ih'e in it'.Taking a semiotic p e r ~ p e c t i v e , we might amplify, and place language inside amore general scheme of sign-making systems.The centrality of interaction in the concept of affordance is highlighted inthe description gi'ven in Varela, Thompson, and Rosch: 'affordances consistin the opportunities for interaction that things in the environment possessrelative to the sensorimotor e a p a c i t i c ~ of the animal' (1991: 203). In terms oflanguage learning, the environment isfull of language that provides o p p o t t u n i t i ~for learning to theaetive, participating learner, The linguistic world to whichthe learner has access, and in which she becomes actively engaged, is 'full ofdemands and requirements, oppormnities and limitatioll5, rejections andinvitatioll5, enablemenrs and coll5trainrs-in shon, affordances' (Shonerand Newson 1982:34), From the pedagogical perspective, the message maybe to pro'


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254 Sociocultural Theory and Second Lallguage Learnillg

Language learning, context, and complexityIn Vygorsky's vision of human development, language and thought emerge(and merge) through the child's engagement in human activitr, both withphysical objects and artifacts (tools), and with social, historical, and t.:ulturalpractices (signs). The development of higher mental f u n c t i o n ~ is possiblebecause of an increasing interdependence of speech and thought, and becauseit is mediated by signs (including, but not only, linguistic ones). Thisdevelopment p r o e e e d ~ through the internalization of activities dIat are firstrealized in ~ o c i a l interat.:tion (Bakhurst 1991: 83).

A number of researchers in developmental psychology see the context inwhich development and learning take place as crucial and even defining. Thistrend, which diverges from the highly acclaimed cognitive revolution thatstarted in the 1960s, has led to a debate between cognitive and situative (orcontextualized) perspectives on learning research (Greeno 1997). The formerare often called constructivist, Piagetian, or neo-Piagetian approaches tharplace an emphasis on the computational processes that happen in the brain,whereas the latter are social-constructivisror c o n ~ t r l l e t i o n i s t approat.:hes that~ e a strong role for sot.:ial and orher contextual processes. Bakhtin's dialogicalviewoflangllage,Vygorsky's sociocultural theory, and the variousmanifestationsof ecological theory are at the contextual or situative end of the spectrum,even though they do not necessarilr deny a central role to cognitive processes(Neisser 1992).

As I mentioned in the introduction, a scientific approach to languagelearning research assumes that learning is the result of computationalprocesses in the brain. An ecological alternative to such a view of learning asbrain-resident is the bioccologieal model developed by BronfcnbrelUIer(Bronfcnbrenner 1979, 1993; Bronfenbrenner and Ceci 1994). Bronfenbrennerhas developed a model of hierarchically nested ecosystems, and a methodologyfor investigating contextualized learning that has the notions of person,process, context, time, and outcome as a checklist of concerns. Learningcontexts are described in this work as proximal processes, analogous toVrgotskr's Zone of Proximal Development (the ZPD). In the bioecologicalmodel, such contexts are effective if they em:ouragc the realizarion of1 differentiated perception and response2 directing and t.:omrolling one's own behavior3 coping successfully under stress4 acquir ing knowledge and skill5 establishing and maintaining mutually rewarding relationships6 modifying and constructing one's own physical, social, and symbolic

enVlronment.


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From input to affurdance 255

These features of proximal learning comexts can serve as a guide for theidentification of learning oppomllliries in classrooms, particularly if the researchis conducted in the framework ofBronfenbrenner's ' PPQ' recommendations,in which an integral focus on person, process, context, and time is emphasized(Bronfenbrenner 1993).

Ecological research asks the questions. How does learning enlerge? Whatarc the O\'ert signs of its processes at work? What evidence can be gathered todocument learning? One of Wittgenstein's dictums is that 'there are remarksfhat sow and remarks that reap' (1980: 78). In our language learningresearch we have traditionallr tended to look for evidence of the 'reaping'kind, tangible and countable linguisric objects of some kind. However; ifseems to me that we need to learn to identify 'sowing' events, which lead tothe emergence of complex language as a result of atiivity in proximal contextssuch as those that Bronfenbrenner describes. Vrgotskr's innO\'arive usc ofexperiments is an illustrationof such a focus on emergent qualities of learning.He believed that mental abilities should he studied by analyzing theirdevelopment in the context of interaction with others. The ZPD was createdas a context in which carehll intervention would stimulate internalization,and the insights were reported by the derailed description of particular casesrather than quantification and statistical anal}'sis (Bakhurst 1991: 83).

What are the pattern.s of emergence of language? Gibson notes two broadorganizational phases of language: the indicational and the predicarionatphase (Reed 1996). 1think it is reasonable to add another phase before that:the intersubjective phase. lbe first significant linguistic aL'til'ity of a child isintersubjectivc dyadic interaction (through gestures, gaze, vocalizations)with a caregiver (Trevarthen 1990). At around nine months a new abilityemerges: triadic interanion, or theabiliry to focus jointly with a caregivet onan object or event, and with increasing mobility (the child can now movcaround and go to and around objects) this turns into various kinds ofdynamic interaction (Reed 1996). Indicational language is charancrized byselecting and pointing out objects and events in social imeraction, and sharing{he affordances of the environment. At around fwO ~ ' e a r s of age, language isbeginning to be used in predicational wars. Children begin to use speech toexpress their needs, plans, rules of games, and conversations, etc., and areconfromed With the needs, plans, etc. ofothers.The largely lexical compositionof the indicational phase is now transformed and granmlar emerges, spurredby the lise of specific \'erbs for specific purposes (Tomasello L992; Reed1996).

This short accowlt of language development as consisting of inrersubj


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256 Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning

to gestures. It suggests a broad development from firstness (quality, fedingor iconieity) to secondness (change, reaction, recognition, comparison---{)rindexicality) to rhirdness (rule, reason, habit-or symbolicity) in the Peirceansense, though the growth of signs is certainly far too complex and dynamic tobe expressed so simply in three large blocks.

If first language development proceeds somewhat in the manner depictedhere, this does not of course mean that second language development shouldproceed in a similar manner. However, there are several interesting possibilitiesthat ecological research can investigate. One is the relation between gestutesand developing second language speech. At the indicational level, forexample, the use of pointing to objects as related to vocabulary developmentcan be explored. This may seem tather a 'Me Tarzan, You Jane' approach,but in the context of collaborativework at the computer 1have noted a greatdeal of this indicational (deicric, indexical) work going on at the early stagesof second language development. Gestures, pictures, and objects all blendwith language in the communicative context, and even first language usc canbe seen as a semiotic system that supports emerging second language use(Brooks, Donato, and McGlone 1997).Setting up tasks and activities to promote triadic and dynamic interactionrather than dyadic interaction may be an interesting avenue to explore. Wemay find, for example, that many of the two-way communication tasks thatarc popular in second language classrooms arc essentially dyadic. Even thoughthere may be a picture that needs to be matched, the view of the parmer'spicture is often blocked so that only the partner's face is visible. This makesindicational language processes difficult and tortured, and that which wouldnormally be accomplished in a triadic format is forced into a dyadic format.This may be considered an advantage, in that it forces participants into apredicational mode (they have to use grammar) since they cannot rely on anindicational mode (communicating by pointing), yet we must consider thepossibility that predicational processes do not automatically emerge whenindicational resources are perceptually curtailed.Such observations open up new avenues for research. However, the way inwhich to research them is by no means clear-cut. Here again we can get usefulideas from Vygotsky. It has often been noted that his descriptions ofexperiments are highly unorthodox and lacking in apparent rigor. However,as Bakhurst points our, Vygorsky was focused on the emergence of capacities,not their products, and this led him to introduce interventions and to describethe results of those imen'entions in detail (Bakhurst 1991: 83). His researchwas therefore ecological, and similar in many respects to Lewin's actionresearch.Recent developments in systems theory and complexity theory (LarsenFreeman 1997) offer a range of suggestions to develop new approaches toresearch which huild on Vygotsky's pioneering experiments. I have alreadymentioned Bronfenbrenner and Ceci's indicators of effective functioning in


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proximal COnlexts, and their investigative principles of person, process,context and time (and a later addition, outcome). I have suggested elsewherethat these principles can be productively combined with a syStems approachto education, using the practical model developed by systems analyst PeterCheckland, which consists of a range of procedures to be applied in cyclicalor parallel fashion: perceiving, predicating, comparing, deciding, acting, andevaluating (Checkland 1981; van Lier 1999).We are some distance away from developing effeai..e research proceduresand strategits for ecological research, though this should not deter us fromexploring in the directions outlined above. [ndeed, only by investigatinglanguage learning in context, and d o c u m e n r i n ~ this comexr as carefully aspossible, can we find out what the value of an ecological approach might be.In this endeavor we call find considerable inspiration in the research practicesofVygotsky himself, as well as a number of different srrands of research in thedecades following him, by developmental researchers, educational anthropologists, pS}'chologists, discourse analysts, etc. (see Wold 1992a; Wozniakand Fischer 1993) as well as work in sociocultural theory itself (Moll 1990;Lantolf and Appel 1994b; and studies in this \olumel.Conclusion[n this chapter I have drnwn connections between Vygotskyan approaches tolearning and an ecological-semiotic framework based on the work of Bakhtin,Bronfenbrenner, Gimon, Peirce, among others. Currendy, mUSI of the discussionin our field is based on an input--uurput metaphor of learning and cognition,in which mind and brain are seen:iS the 'containers' of both learning processesand learning products.The ecological perspective qucsrions Ihe common assumption rhat language,cognitions, memorie$, and intelligence are uniquely contained inside thebrain, and that learning consists of various ways of putting them there. Wehilve to learn to understilnd what Harold Garfinkel meant when he said that,to find answers to our questions, 'there is no reason to look under the skullsince nOlhingof interest is to be found there but brains' (1963: 190).I have suggested that [he norion of inputcan be replaced by [he ecologicalnotion of affordance, which refers to the relationship between properties of theenvironment and the active learner. Two important concepts for investigationin an ecological view are perception and action (and the relations betweenthem). Spe:lking of young children, Butterworth PUtS the issue as follows:On the ecological view, perception is necessarily situated within the ecologysince it consists in obtaining information from the active reliltion betweenthe organism and a suucrured environment. Indeed, it is the process ofperception that situates the organism in the environment. The evidencefrom infancy suggcsrs that petception is a 'module' or cumponent of the


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258 Socioculttlra! Theory alld Second Language Lean/inK

cognitive system that is antecedent to thuught and language and that Illaycontribute to the masrery of reasoning.(Butterworth 1992:3)

We Illust not assume that adults learn language the same way thatchildrendo, n o r o f (Ourse that Ll learning is the saille as L2learning. Vygotsk)' foundthat, whereas children showed both un mediated and mediated attention intheir acrivities, for adults all attention was mediated (van der Veer andValsiner 1991: 236). Along similar lines, Gibson (l979) argued that alllinguistic afford:mces an: socially mediated. This does not mean, in my view,that d i r ~ t perception of linguistic and more generally semiotic signs is notavailable to L2 learners and adults. Communicative actions and events arcdirectly perceived, and carry deep meanings at emotional and intuitive levels(Vygotsky 1978). However, these direct perceptions of meanings in theenvironment-'firstnesses' in Peirce's scheme-are combined with, foldedinto, and integrated in social, cultural, and symbolic meanings that an:largely brought along an d shaped b)' language ihelf. This is precisely thcpower of the I'eircean semiotic: the fluidity and transformative qualiry of thesign, which is always engendered into morc complex signs, which in turn callbe de-engendered into simpler signs, so that, for example, a simple artifact or;;aying can grow ioro a cultural symbol, and this in turn can condense intu acultural icon (Merrell 1997a).I assume that the indexical plane is the wa y into language, the 'workbench'so to spcak: thc first job for language is to indicate an d index the world(Vygotsky 1978: 35). Soon however, more complex symholic meanings enterinto the picture, both in terms of linguistic normativity (habit and structure)and linguistic creativity (variety and invention), roughly paralleling Bakhtinscentripetal and centrifugal forces of language (1981).7 At the same time,however, the iconic plane remains very much a vital force, even though itappears co rUIl underground and often defies verbalization. The iconicqualities of language speak through gestures and expressions, bur also ofcourse through creative language usc, from banter and puns to poetry andsongs. For the newburn infant, however, the iconic qualities of language areall there is t o language, and this iconic substrate may do more to shape uursemiotic world than we can ever know.

To end on a more practical note, an ecological approach t o language learningavoids a narrow interpretatiun of language as words that are transmittedthrough the air, on paper, or along wires from a sender to a receiver. It alsoavoids seeing learning as something that happens exclusively inside a person'shead. Ecological educators see language amllcarning as relationships amonglearners and between learners and the environment. This docs not deny cognitiveprocesses, but it connects those cognitive processes with social processes.Language is also connected with kinesic, prosodic, and other visual andauditory sources of meaning, an d as a result of this comextualizcd and


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process-oriented thinking new ways of practicing an d theorizing languageeducation will emerge.The ecological perspective thus places a strong emphasis on contexmalizinl;language into other semiotic systems, and into the contextual world as awhole. It also calls for a reexamination of assessment practices that attemptto locate success in the solitary performance of a learner, and of teachingpractices that arc cast in the form of'instructional delivery systems'. Perhaps,after all, we 'learn' language in the same way that an animal 'learns ' theforest, or a plant 'learns' the soil.

Notes1 Nor that heads come fully loaded (for example, with a linguistic 'instinct',see Pinker 1994), as some innatists believe, and only need minimal triggeringfrom the environment to g ro w t o their full functionality.

2 For examples an d discussion of learner-learner interaction in L1 settings,see Barnes an d Todd 1978; 1'1ercet 1995; for L2 settings, sec Brooks,Donato, and McGlone 1997; van Lier and Matsuo 2000.3 The word ceo is derived from a Greek word meaning household.

4 I do no t wish to deny the importance of this question. The relationshipsbetween ecology and education are explored in tile work of C. A. Bowers(Rowers 1993; P,owers an d Flinders 1990), \vhich is strongly influenced hyGregory Bateson (1979).

5 Systemic networks, patterning, an d linguistic relations betweenand their environment arc all aspens of an ecological waylanguage. One might of course argne that all study of lanl;uage and context(hence, all of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and pragmatics) is ecologicalin some sense, but this might he carrying the ecological metaphor to o far.To be llseful and distinctive, ecolol;icallinguistics may start off by defininglanguage as the totality of linguistic activities and relationships amongspeakers and between speakers an d the physical, social, personal, cultnral,an d historical world they live in. A ramshackle enough definition, but ailethat I believe docs not violate the work of the linguists mentioned.

6 Both Vygotsky and Bakhtin often usc the word as a unit of analysis.However, the term word often appears to be coterminous with utterance,discourse, an d acti\'iry in their definition (in line with the original meaningof the Greek word logos).7 Bakhtin considered the strnggle between centripetal an d

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