Language acquisition socialization: Sociocognitive and complexity theory perspectives

Although it dates back to the early 1980s, language socialization research is still regarded as one of the relatively recent realms of scholarship in applied linguistics. It is based on the premise of bringing together an analysis of social, cultural, and cognitive dimensions of situated language learning. Employing this perspective, the current research has a three-fold purpose: (a) to maintain language acquisition aspects that are represented by social, cognitive, and social-cognitive underpinnings, (b) to shed light upon the theoretical backgrounds of both sociocognitive theory and complexity theory, which have been purposefully selected to be discussed due to their bearings on language socialization, and their sharing of the view that the cognitive and the social are intricately interwoven and mutually constitutive, and (c) to depict the commonalities and differences of the two theories in order to point out the extent of convergence and divergence that they have with language socialization as well as the extent they reach in shaping a meaningful language acquisition research agenda.