Ancillary and Constitutive Discourse in Second Language Learning Tasks

Making use of an ecological perspective, activity theory and systemic functional linguistics, this study presents a theoretical framework for designing second language classroom tasks. An ecological perspective implies that language use emerges as learners take action to mediate cognition, making use of a rich 'semiotic budget' ( van Lier, 2000) present within the environment. This suggests that the quality of an environment, learners' perception of that environment, and their utilization of the environment for taking action are of vital importance. Activity theory theorizes the relationship between human action and language use. Activities are realized by multiple actions, which are specific to contexts. In order to achieve goals human action is taken mediated either by material tools or symbolic tools. Language use is a meditational tool to achieve human action. Systemic functional linguistics is adopted to explain the role of language. A key factor is the degree of context dependency in language use. Hasan (1985) makes a distinction between language being either ancillary or constitutive in different events. Tasks eliciting ancillary language use make low language demands that restrict learners to an unchallenging learning opportunity lacking in affordances for learners to invest themselves beyond the physical action required. In contrast, tasks requiring learners to engage in context-independent language use make a higher demand on lexico-grammatical use. The author argues that successful learning emerges from task design incorporation an appropriate level of challenge in meaningful tasks that enable learners to transform their particiaton.