Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Type A SLA researchers’ detached scrutiny of closely observed learner utterances between classroom walls has little in common with the vast prairies of attested wording seen from the air by the high-flying aircraft of Type B corpus linguistics, and neither have much in common with the intensely cultivated undergrowth so carefully explored by Type C linguistic ethnographers on the ground. It is true—but surely also trite—to say that all three yield important insights into language use, the first uncovering regularities of acquisition, the second large-scale patterns, the third the minutiae of local relations between individuals, identities, and words. But this stock escape clause of complementarity does not in itself elucidate a connection between them. (p. 430) With its 2016 position paper, the Douglas Fir Group (DFG), a coalition of 15 applied linguists of various methodological persuasions, asserts that more than peaceful co-existence is possible, and indeed necessary if the field of applied linguistics is to grapple with the issues and challenges of language teaching and learning in the contemporary globalized and multilingual world. DFG offers a transdisciplinary framework, depicted visually in a figure entitled “The Multifaceted Nature of Language Learning and Teaching” (p. 25), that attempts to account for the spectrum of factors that influence teaching and learning, ranging from the macro level of ideological structures to the meso level of sociocultural institutions and communities to the micro level of social activity. An integrative understanding is only possible, DFG avers, when research about these multiple levels is integrated because “no level exists on its own; each exists only through constant interaction with the others, such that each gives shape to and is shaped by the next, and all are considered essential to understanding SLA” (p. 25). The DFG framework is admirable in its scope, and I wholeheartedly support the aim of transdisciplinary inquiry to achieve a wider and more holistic understanding than is possible from one vantage point alone (e.g., Hult, 2010). Though DFG acknowledges the importance of interaction, the framework is more robust as a guide to varying degrees of context than to the nature of (inter)action. In her critique of the framework, Han (2016) argues that what is needed “is a system approach to any complex SLA phenomena that takes account of multiple elements, rather than one or two, and traces their relationships to uncover the intricate interaction” (p. 739; emphasis added). If, as Cook (2015) posits, we need to elucidate connections to move beyond mere complementarity of empirical perspectives, a model for connections is required. In other words, to offer an analogy, we need to identify not only the parts of the engine but also the principles behind how it runs. Accordingly, I put forward nexus analysis as a way of conceptualizing such connections. Drawing upon the papers in the present issue for support and illustration, I suggest that the nexus mechanism originally put forward by Scollon and Scollon (2004) can be extended beyond its ethnographic, discourse-analytic foundations to serve as a broad conceptual orientation that might fruitfully supplement the DFG framework by adding a way to map dynamism. I will not delve into the underlying methodological details of nexus analysis as originally conceived since I have done so elsewhere (e.g., Hult, 2015, 2017). Nor is it my goal to convert others to ethnographic discourse analysis. Rather, I will render the elements of nexus here with broad strokes, focusing on how they might serve generally as a way to conceptualize the processes through which multidimensional social systems, like language teaching and learning as represented in the DFG framework, operate. As a corollary, I also suggest that nexus has potential as a meta-methodology (cf. Hult, 2017) that can guide how results and analysis from different methodological approaches can be integrated in connected rather than merely complementary ways. Nexus analysis is a multidimensional conceptual orientation that Scollon and Scollon (2004) developed by drawing upon their work at the intersection of critical discourse analysis, anthropological linguistics, and interactional sociolinguistics in order to guide the study of “semiotic cycles of people, objects, and discourses in and through moments of sociocultural importance” (p. x). It has since been taken up by researchers in a wide range of contexts to investigate an array of topics such as, inter alia, disability, language policy, language shift, and tourism (e.g., Al Zidjaly, 2006; Kauppinen, 2014; Källkvist Lane, 2010; Pietikäinen et al., 2011; cf. Lane, 2014).11 For a bibliography of studies using nexus analysis visit http://www.discoursehub.fi/engaging-nexus-analysis/references/ At the core of nexus analysis is social action, with the fundamental premise that all human activity is the result of (iterative) actions. Practices are the product of action; likewise, institutions, communities, and even societal structures are not created ex nihilo but are (re)produced through human actions (cf. Scollon they are not only about context but about making and situating meaning across dimensions of human existence (Blommaert, Westinen, cf. Scollon also, DFG, 2016, p. 25). A social action is permeable. This is so for physical as well as mental action. For instance, borrowing from Bateson (1972), Larsen–Freeman (2019, this issue) ponders “where the boundary between the end of the blind man's cane and the world can be drawn” (p. 69) while Ellis (2019, this issue) points out that “the recognition that cognition is indivisible from our embodiment, from our environment, and from our situated actions leads naturally on to the idea that cognition is not to be found in the head, nor indeed in the individual, but rather that it is a distributed sociotechnical system” (p. 44). Moreover, of the individual who performs a social action, Larsen–Freeman, paraphrasing Biesta emphasis in original). Context does not exist independent of social actions; context is continuously (re)created by social actions. A social action is not located in the core of distinct and nested contexts like the smallest piece of a matryoshka doll. Rather, it is an integrated component of a sociohistorical system (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, pp. 11–12). The means by which a social action is connected to a system, as characterized in the nexus orientation, involve three types of cycles: historical body, interaction order, and discourse in place. As denoted by the arrows in Figure 1, each one has a history that can be described as analogous to the water cycle. Much like water rains down, picks up particles from the ground or bodies of water, evaporates, and rains down anew so, too, are these three cycles characterized by iteration and change (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, p. 27). A social action intersects with each cycle at a particular point in that cycle's history. The cycle mediates the action while the action also affects the cycle. Affecting the cycle might mean a radical altering (e.g., polluting a water supply) or an active effort to maintain or strengthen a certain state (e.g., water conservation). No phenomenon is static, whether ideological/structural, institutional, or (inter)personal. All are in flux and intimately intertwined with social action. Each cycle type encompasses phenomena within a certain scope of space and/or time. For any given social action, there might be multiple cycles of each type that intersect, some of which might be essential to understanding the action and some of which might not, some of which might align with each other and some of which might conflict. The “goal in a nexus analysis is,” Scollon and Scollon (2004) explain, “to try to discover which are the and to map as well as we can the of cycles through and (p. The DFG framework is in this as it an of phenomena on various scales that be for understanding a social action a as an iteration of social to language learning and The nexus orientation, in offers a way to conceptualize the mechanism by which these phenomena are connected to that social action. at each type of cycle. The historical is a of personal (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, p. and that who we are as and how we to It is the of our system, and and change. This cycle type over the of an individual With respect to language (2019, this issue) for the with the historical as a cycle that “to the of an language (…) it a more understanding of learning, not as a but rather as and over It also with (2019, this issue) that of inquiry be from learning to learning to in and that across the with learning by at one and learning by at the be taken as of the (p. In this the of language it or is a historical cycle through which make of and their semiotic resources as of the of a of in the social world. Language then, is a because is end state to what is (…) any of in is of in their and not an of the resources (Hall, 2019, this issue, p. linguistic is in flux and with the semiotic that that as in and (2019, this issue) study where and when to the social action of the of other The created an for the to upon their semiotic resources while also adding to their historical bodies to the of the as Ellis (2019, this issue) is important because it upon our our our our of that is some of it is and much of it (p. A social action not only with a historical but also with the other and communities to which the action is The interaction order the of and of interaction that guide how in on whether they are alone when they or if they are in with other (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, p. Scollon & Scollon (2004) the interaction order from of interaction and of see pp. For further discussion of these with respect to nexus analysis and language see Hult order cycles the spatial and scales of communities, which may be or or It is a cycle because an interaction order over time as the that and communities in the have used the resources to particular in are shaped by larger social institutions, such as the communities, (Hall, 2019, this issue, p. might which linguistic and among other semiotic to with what as well as the of between and among like of & are while other are over time as that are as to meaning in a 2019, this issue, p. In and (2019, this issue) we see the between the historical and interaction order as their how in to social factors In in as of language upon and different and they have and as different that are characterized by different and (p. Language learning takes as with others (cf. DFG, 2016, p. and so the of historical and interaction order cycles in moments of social action. This is the through which situated of using semiotic resources to be and by This is to as in a and its the language resources of each are as each to the (Larsen–Freeman, 2019, this issue, p. 67). in language As Ellis (2019, this issue) of human interaction with processes shape the and of research in the has that patterns of how language is is and (p. for certain are distributed across and and when they intersect in moments of social action, have the to their or of resources for and their or into the of an (Hall, 2019, this issue, p. This is further with other phenomena that also a social action. in the world are complex of discourses which through them. of these on time cycles like the of the built or of a of these discourses more like the topics among three through the (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, p. I have the of discourse as I at the my aim here is to render the elements of nexus in broad for wide as a transdisciplinary conceptual orientation to language learning and I will not delve into discourse it is to discourse in this as not to language or of but to of meaning that are not through (p. Scollon and Scollon (2004) to of discourse as in which we language with such as different of and using tools, and (p. As discourse in place the (e.g., Scollon & Scollon, and the 2015, 2017) phenomena in place at the of action. In to the historical and the interaction order then, a social action is mediated by as Larsen–Freeman (2019, this issue) points in and (p. For instance, of can relate to how teaching in a classroom with to the mediates the way we Such are not are the result of ideologies about teaching and learning that among the who about classroom ideologies might the of the and approaches to have been (re)produced and legitimized over In this example, there is between the discourse in place of physical classroom and the interaction order of in mediates how social actions unfold and what will have to to their historical A of other discourse in place cycles can be to language such as other among other Each one has a cycle of and is a of of to from and each one has the potential to social actions and with historical and interaction order cycles in various ways. actions may also be mediated by discourses in place that are not as may have or even This is in (2019, this issue) where discourses in place in the of language learning and second language and the in which they have mediated social actions of both teaching and about in that in language contexts are generally to because their has been with of the language to be a necessary for (p. and points out that have been as well from other in the also offers the of an end that “the idea of a for language learning, which linguistic will be in itself linguistic in language (p. In both we see the between the historical and discourse in place as to Such discourses in place can when in language and so Hult & the between cycle types it is by As Figure suggests, social action is the nexus point where cycles intersect and the for across them. A discourse in like the on at a in in the historical bodies of researchers through their and This discourse in the field while it is also by individual researchers in and it such that it is in place to social actions of research and to say that semiotic resources are distributed means that specific of have meaning in the interaction order of a while also taken up by in their historical bodies in them to social actions the meaning 2019, this & 2019, this issue). As Ellis (2019, this issue) it, processes are up not just of processes but also of the that the they are by the in which an on the world in the in which the world (p. In this way, social actions are nexus points for the of and of the the actions that can be and the actions that can be in the (Larsen–Freeman, 2019, this issue, p. 67). As then, are both and (Hall, 2019, this issue, p. It is in the centrality of social action and the mechanism by which particular types of phenomena intersect in it that nexus analysis has the potential as a transdisciplinary conceptual orientation for connections that might supplement the DFG the DFG framework the at all of and (p. The nexus mechanism how these dimensions are and as I have here drawing upon the in this In order to study the multidimensional nature of language learning and DFG (2016) for a transdisciplinary researchers their to different dimensions of social activity and (…) think (p. Nexus analysis is as a meta-methodology for this because such transdisciplinary research one to on the nature of the different dimensions and what of are for them as components of an integrated system 2017). Scollon and Scollon (2004) nexus analysis as an ethnographic, discourse I that the mechanism be used more generally to guide a or of researchers in about what dimensions are to investigate with respect to a certain of social action or and what of are needed to map the dimensions and the across them. Figure social actions in in nexus Scollon & Scollon (2004, pp. a field guide to research for nexus analysis. we might What we need to about the history of A and of B as it to their What are the of interaction and of that their to each their with these their about semiotic What approaches and be for the understanding we and of be but so any of from analysis, interactional linguistics or for (e.g., & all 2019, this issue). We might also are the actions of A and B mediated by and conceptual in is the interaction order or by these What social are possible by a historical at the of intersection with the interaction order and a discourse in With respect to these and critical discourse analysis might but so, too, from linguistic analysis, social social and of among other The of approaches and in on the nature of the social and the specific cycles that are for social action and in need of and in on the of the in the study 2010). the one a or research might a transdisciplinary study the range of cycles and the approaches and the DFG framework with the nexus mechanism researchers in this the other dimensions can as a to a need for or to these as methodological points or of research that make the between the and of research and the world the out to (p. Such a of might a to out or to a in order to methodological in this way a robust of the DFG framework, it is not the only way to from the of the nexus DFG (2016) that researchers can a transdisciplinary up or even their particular (p. researchers and the field as a when studies are out with multidimensional even when a particular study does to the full spectrum of that a study on one or more components might be by components on other dimensions is a starting the DFG framework with the nexus mechanism guide a in where their study is situated to the and what cycles from other dimensions be and how (cf. Larsen–Freeman, This make it possible for researchers to their study and their analysis or in to empirical work about these other A the of specific semiotic resources (e.g., among in for example, might upon research also in about and its to about the discourses in place and interaction that might with the historical that is the empirical a the of in might upon research about language in to how the of historical and interaction order cycles to discourses in place about are, of researchers in this but it more In by using the nexus mechanism as a conceptual orientation in with the DFG framework researchers can that a does not to or or how these to other and which make up the full (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, p. The DFG framework the multiple institutional, and dimensions in language learning and and the papers in this issue all different in which such dimensions can Larsen–Freeman (2019, this issue) that such as Figure in the DFG to the that exists among the components of the (p. while and (2019, this issue) that on is a for the of the of of (p. I while it also has its the nexus mechanism can serve as a supplement to the DFG framework by drawing to the role of social action as a and the cycles through which across dimensions can be and With a way to conceptualize the in the framework, we have the potential as a field to move a but of language learning and teaching that can beyond complementarity and achieve transdisciplinary
Francis M. Hult (Tue,) studied this question.