Applied Linguistics - Towards a New Integration? - Lars Evensen
5. Approaches to learning
Applied Linguistics - Towards a New Integration? - Lars Evensen
Lars Sigfred Evensen [+]
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Lars Sigfred Evensen is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU, Trondheim) and Chair of The Norwegian Association for Applied Linguistics (ANLA). He chaired The Nordic Research Group for Theoretical and Applied Text Linguistics and Discourse Analysis (NORDTEXT) 1987-1993 and has been an honorary board member since. His main research interests are in epistemology, discourse analysis, the acquisition of writing and technologically mediated interdisciplinary communication. He edited the journal Trondheim Papers in Applied Linguistics 1986-1989. He has edited the anthologies Nordic research in text linguistics and discourse analysis (1986), Innovation in the teaching of writing (in Norwegian, with Inge Moslet, 1993), Writing theory and classroom practices (in Norwegian, with Torlaug L. Hoel, 1997) and the interdisciplinary Thinking culture dialogically (with Craig Brandist, The International Bakhtin Centre, Sheffield, Finn Bostand and Hege Faber, NTNU, Trondheim, 2004).
Description
This chapter focuses on a discussion of locus. It has been widely assumed that the prime locus of language learning is the central nervous system of the individual learner. As learning certainly has to somehow affect the individual learner in this way, the chapter is trying to answer to what extent and in what sense can learning to communicate be thought of as a purely individual process. Moreover, the chapter discusses critically some currently dominant conceptualizations of learning as viewed from an alternative Vygotskyan approach.