Marta Antón

The Discourse of a Learner‐Centered Classroom: Sociocultural Perspectives on Teacher‐Learner Interaction in the Second‐Language Classroom

This study investigates learner-centered and teacher-centered discourse in interactive exchanges between teachers and learners in the second language (L2) classroom. The analysis of interaction shows that learner-centered discourse provides opportunities for negotiation (of form, content, and classroom rules of behavior), which creates an environment favorable to L2 learning. In contrast, teacher-centered discourse is shown to provide rare opportunities for negotiation. Placing the analysis within the context of the role of discourse in the mediation of cognitive development, a central point in sociocultural theory, this study demonstrates that when learners are engaged in negotiation, language is used to serve the functions of scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) and to provide effective assistance as learners progress in the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). The analysis presented here attempts to show how various communicative moves and linguistic forms are deployed to achieve these functions.

Understanding patients' voices : a multi-method approach to health discourse

This volume illustrates the process of conducting interdisciplinary, multi-cultural research into the relationship between patient language use and chronic disease management. The ten chapters in this book provide a model for interdisciplinary research in health discourse from start to finish. Part I describes in detail the conceptualization and design of a multi-year research project exploring language use among people living with diabetes. Part II offers a sampler of a variety of qualitative, quantitative, and contrastive methodologies that have considerable potential in the study of health discourse. Part III brings the research process full circle by discussing issues related to adapting research protocols to diverse cultural contexts, translating results into practice, and working in interdisciplinary teams.

The discursive features of the collaborative interaction of advanced learners of Spanish: a sociocultural perspective

This study investigates the collaborative interaction of English-speaking students enrolled in a university upper-level Spanish course. We have framed our research within the sociocultural theory of mind and language based on the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978, 1986). We examine specific features (e.g., repetition, sentence types, modal verbs, etc.) of student interactions in order to determine the social and cognitive functions of their utterances while performing three collaborative writing assignments. The focus of this research is how language, whether L1 or L2, functions as the principle mediating device in the process of learning a second language, particularly in a classroom setting. Two key elements of effective collaboration, scaffolding and intersubjectivity, are explored in order to understand how students use language to provide each other with scaffolded help and to achieve and maintain intersubjectivity.