The Applied Linguistic Individual - Sociocultural Approaches to Identity, Agency and Autonomy - Phil Benson
11 Using Dynamic Systems/Complexity Theory in linguistic data analysis: a language ecology approach to the study of individual and social process
The Applied Linguistic Individual - Sociocultural Approaches to Identity, Agency and Autonomy - Phil Benson
Anne Whiteside
City College of San Francisco
Description
The first part of the book examined theoretical tensions between the social and the individual in their approaches, while this second part explores how they are resolved in data-based research. In this chapter, the author draws on two theoretical frameworks discussed by Menezes (Chapter 5, this volume ) – Complexity Theory (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008a, b) (sometimes called Dynamic Systems Theory: de Bot 2008) and Language Ecology (Kramsch 2002; van Lier 2004) – to analyse data on the language practices of transnational migrants to the United States.